THE 


H  I  S  T  0  K  Y 


IRELAND; 


COMMENCING 


WITH    ITS   EARLIEST    PERIOD, 


GREAT   EXPEDITION   AGAINST 


SCOTIiAND    IN    1545. 


THOMAS  MOORE,  ESa- 


PHILADELPHIA: 

LEA    &    BLANCHARD. 

'  1843.* 


NOTICE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PUBLISHERS. 


The  present  Volume  of  "  Moore's  Ireland"  contains  all  that  the  author  has 
■written  and  published.  As  it  may  be  a  long  time  before  it  is  concluded,  the  pub- 
lishers beg  to  present  this  portion,  embracing,  as  it  does,  the  Three  Volumes  of 
the  London  Edition,  with  a  promise  of  furnishing  the  remainder  in  the  same  style 
when  published  by  the  author. 

Philadelphia, 
May  1843. 


/.v*.62B 


^^ 


GRIGGS  &  CO.,  PRINTERS. 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL 
TABLE 

OP    THE 

HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  I. 


B.  c.  Page 

1000.  Celtic  Origin  of  the  Irish  25 

Different  Fortunes  of  Ireland 

and  Britain  .  .      25 

PhcEnician   Intercourse   with 

the  Irish      ,  .  .25 

The  BelgEe,  or  Fir-bolgs  .       26 

Objections  answered  ;  Autho- 
rity of  Tacitus         .  .       26 
Homer's  Knowledge  of  Isles 
beyond  the  Pillars  from  the 
Phoenician  Voyagers  .       27 
The     Argonautics  ;     Ireland 

named  lernis  .  .       27 

A  Work  of  the  Age  of  Aris- 
totle names  the  two  cliief 
British  Isles,  Albion  and 
lerne  .  .  .27 

The    Phoenicians   keep  their 

Trade  secret  .  .       27 

The  Western  or  Tin  Isles  first 
explored  by  the  Massilian 
Greeks        .  .  .27 

The  Periplus  of  Hanno  .       27 

Ciiaracteristic  Features  of  An- 
cient Ireland  .  .       28 
Inscription  at  Tangiers  .       28 
Authority  of  Herodotus  .       29 
Ancient  Ireland  better  known 

than  Britain  ;  Authorities  29 

Geography  of  Ptolemy  .       29 

Tacitus;  Life  of  Agricola       .       30 
Intercourse  of  Ireland  with  the 

PhcBnician  Spaniards  .       80 

The  Title,  Sacred  Isle ;  Autho- 
rity of  Plutarch  ;   Diodorus 


Pass 

Siculus       .  .  .30 

Geography  of  Strabo;  Ireland 

likened  to  Samothrace         .       31 
Traditions   of  Ireland;  Inter- 
course with  Gallicia  .       31 
Opinions  of  Antiquaries          .       32 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  earliest  Superstitions 
traceable  in  the  Monuments 
of  Ireland  .  .       32 

Three  Stages  of  Superstition      33 
Magi,  or  Druids  .  .       33 

Sun  Worship  .  .       33 

Moon  Worship  .  .      34 

Fire  and  Water  Worship       .      34 
Sacred  Fountains        .  .       34 

The  Field  of  Slaughter;  Child- 
sacrifice      .  •  .35 
Round  Towers  of  Ireland       .       36 
Opinions  about  them               .       36 
Christain  Emblems  on  those  of 

Swords  and  Donoughmore         37 
Probably  Fire-Temples  .       37 

Connexion    of    Sun-Worship 

with  Astronomy      .  .       38 

The    Round    Towers     called 

Celestial  Indexes     .  .      39 

Beyond  the  reach  of  Historical 

Record        .  .  .39 

Other  ancient  Monuments  of 

Ireland  ;  the  Cromleach  40 

The  Lia  Fail,  or  Stone  of  Des- 
tiny .  .  .41 


IV 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE. 


Page 

Rocking  Stones  .  .       41 

Sacred  Hills  .  .       42 

The      Dynasts     inaugurated 

thereon        .  .  .42 

Barrows  and  Cairns    .  .      43 

Sacred  Groves  and  Trees       .       43 

CHAPTER  IIL 

Irish    Druidism;   of  a   mixed 

Character    .  .  .45 

Different  from  that   of  Gaul, 

as  Recorded  by  the  Romans  45 
British  Druids  not  mentioned 

by  Csesar;  the  Inference  .  45 
Early  Heathen  Pre-eminence 

of  Ireland  .  .       47 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Learning  of  the  Irish  Druids; 

Ancient  Language  .       47 

Phoenician  and  Irish  Alpha- 
bets .  .  .48 
Early  Use  of  Letters  in  Ireland  49 
Proofs  thereof  .  .  49 
Ogham  Character  .  .  49 
Introduction    of    the    Roman 

Character    .  .  .52 

Mistaken  Identify  of  the  Irish 
Language  with  the  Punic  of 
Plautus       .  .  .52 

Astronomical  Skill  of  the  Irish 
Druids         .  .  .53 

CHAPTER  V. 

Opposite  Opinions  respecting 

ancient  Ireland        .  .  55 

Mixture  of  Truth  and  Fable  56 
Fabulous  x'\ccounts  of  Parlho- 

lan  ...  56 

The  Fir-bolgs  .  .  57 

The  Tuatha-de-Danaan  .  .57 

Milesian  or  Scolic  Race  .  57 

CHAPTER  VL 

Colonization  of  Ireland.           .  58 

Spanish  Settlors          .             .  59 

Supposed  Gaulish  Colony        .  59 
Question  whether  the  Belgse 

were  Celtic  or  Teutonic  .  60 
Colonization  of  the  south-wes- 
tern Pnrts  from  Spain  .  60 
Various  Spanish  Colonies  .  61 
The  Scythic  or  Scotic  Settle- 
ments .  .  .  62 
Fabulous     Accounts    by    the 

Bards  .  .  .62 

Recent  Date  of  the  Scotic  Co- 
lony .  .  .63 

Proofs  thereof             .            .  63 


B.  c.  Pace 

Antiquarian  Errors     .  .65 

The  Picts       .  .  .66 

The  ancient  Britons  and 
Welsh  probably  not  the 
same  Race  .  .       67 

Radical    Differences   between 

the  Gaelic  and  Cumraig      .       67 
The  Picts  were  the  Progeni- 
tors of  the  Welsh     .  .       67 
Of  Cimbric  Origin      .  .      67 
Romances  of  the  Round  Table      68 

CHAPTER  VIL 

200.  Reign  of  Kimbaoth  .  .        69 

Of  Heber  and  Heremon,  Sons 

ofMilesius  .  .       70 

First  Coming  of  the  Picts      .       70 
Gold  Mines    .  .  .71 

Classes   distinguished  by  Co- 
lours .  .  .71 
The  royal  Legislator,  Ollamh 

Fodhla        .  .  .71 

His  institutions;   Convention 

ofTara  .  .  .       72 

Chronicle  of  Events  ;  Psalter 

of  Tara       .  .  .72 

Palace  of  Emania       .  .       72 

Reign  of  Hugony  the  Great   .       73 
A.  D.  2.  Reign  of  Conary  the  Great; 

Ossianic  Poems      .  .      73 

40.  Privileges     of     the     Bards; 

abused  by  them       .  .       74 

The  Bardic  Order  reformed  , 

Conquovar .  .  74 

75-82.  Expedition  of  Agricola  to  Bri- 
tain .  .  .74 
An  Irish  Traitor  in  the  Roman 

Camp  .  .  .75 

The  Irish  aid  the  Picts  against 

the  Romans  .  .       76 

Belgic  Revolt  and  Massacre  .       76 
90.  Carbre  Cat-can  raised  to  the 

Throne       .  .  .76 

Disinterestedness  of  his   Son 

Moran  ;  Moran's  Collar      .       76 
126.  Second  Revolt  (of  the  Atti- 

cots)  .  .  .76 

130.  Tuathal  the  Acceptable         .       77 

Assembled  States  at  Tara       .       77 

Bonrian  Tribute         .  .       77 

164.  Jurisprudence ;  the  Eric        .       78 

Feidlim  the  Legislator  ;  Con 

of  the  Hundred  Battles      .       78 
258.  Irish   Settlement   in  Argyle- 

shire;  Carbury  Riada         .       79 
The   Irish    exclusively  called 

Scoti ;  North  Britain  called 

Albany        .  .  .79 

Cormac  Ulfadha  .  .       79 

His     Accomplishments     and 

Achievements         .  .       80 

Slate  of  Religion        .  .       80 


ANALYTICAL   AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


A.  O.  PaGB 

Recluse  Druidesses    .  .      81 

Fin-Mac-Cumhal,  by  Moderns 

called  Fingal  .  .       81 

Oisin  and  0?^ar         .  .       81 

The  Fianna  Eirinn,  or  Militia 

of  Ireland   .  .  .81 

Slaughter  of  them      .  .       82 

Groundless  Pretensions  of 
Scotch  Writers ;  Forgeries 
of  Boece     .  .  .82 

Fabric  of  Buchanan,  Macken- 
zie, &c.  .  .  .83 
Destroyed  by  Stillingfleet  .  83 
Forgeries  of  Macpherson  .  83 
Examination  thereof  .  .  85 
Historic  Value  of  the  Impos- 
ture .  .  .86 
None  but  Irish  Books  among 

the  Highlanders     .  .       86 

Long  connexion  of  the  Irish 

and  Highlanders     .  .       87 

Expedition  of  Theodosius       .       87 
327.  Battle     of    Dnbcomar;     the 

Druid  of  the  Bloody  Hand  .       87 

A  six  Days'  Battle      .  .      88 

396.  Irish  Invasion  of  Britain         .       88 

Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages     .      88 

Passes  from  Britain  to  Armoric 

Gaul  .  .  -89 

Providential  Captivity  of  an 
Armorican  Youth   •  .       89 

406.  Dathy,  the  last  Pagan  King 

of  Ireland   .  .  .89 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Credibility  of  Irish   Annals; 
Tigernach ;  the  Four  Mas- 
ters .  .  .89 
Nennius  and  Geoffry  of  Mon- 
mouth        .            .  .90 
Collation  of  Annals    .  .       90 
Reception  of  Christianity  in 

Ireland        .  .  .92 

Its  easy  Adoption        .  .       93 

Record  of  Events  continued  .  93 
Its  Authenticity         .  .       94 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Early  State  of  the  Heathen 

Irish  .  .  .96 

Features  visible  to  this  day  .  96 
Partition  of  Sovereignty  .  96 
Succpssion  ;  Tanistry  .       97 

Exchange  of  Subsidy  and  Tri- 
bute .  .  ,97 
Cause  of  Discords       .  .       98 
And  of  the  Want  of  a  National 

Spirit  .  .  .98 

Division  of  Lands  and  Goods 
npon  each  elective  Succes- 
sion .  .  .99 


P^GE 

Gavelkind;  Females  Excluded      99 
Natural     Children     admitted 

with  legitimate       .  .     100 

Custom  of  Slavery     .  .     100 

Social  Contracts         .  .     101 

Urged  respectively  in  support 

of  adverse  Opinions  .     101 

Examination  of  Authorities     .     102 
Ancient  Contrasts  of  Manners 
visible  at  the  Close  of  the 
last  Century  in  Ireland       .     103 
The  early  Britons  of  ill  Repute 

like  the  Irish  .  .     104 

Testimony  of  St.  Jerome         .     104 
Early  Irish  Navigation ;  Cur- 

rachs  .  .  .     10.5 

Himilco's  Voyage       .  .     10.5 

The  great  road  from  Gal  way 

to  Dublin    .  .  .105 

The  great  Road  from  Dover 
to  Anglesey,  called  "the 
Way  of  the  Irish"  .  .     105 

The  Inference  .  .     105 

The  Irish  Raths  or  Hill-fort- 
resses        .  .  .     106 
Curious  and  costly  Remains 

dug  up        .  .  .     108 

Coal  Works  .  .  .109 

Swords  of  Brass  like  those 
found  at  Canna3      .  .     109 


CHAPTER  X. 

Mission  of  St.  Patrick.  .     110 

His   Success  with  little  Vio- 
lence .  .  .     110 
His  judicious  Conduct            .     110 
Adopts  the  Pagan  Customs     .     110 
The     Heresiarchs,    Pelagius 

and  Celestus  .  .     Ill 

Palladius        .  .  .112 

Sketch  of  the  Life  of  St.  Pa- 
trick .  .  .113 
Born  near  the  Site  of  Bou- 

loffne-sur-mer         .  .     113 

Probably  in  387  .  .     113 

Made  captive  by  Nial  of  the 
Nine  Hostages        .  .113 

403.  Carried  captive  to  Ireland      .     113 
Escaped     or     released     from 
Bondage      .  .  .113 

410.  His  studies  at  Tours  .  .     114 

His       Remembrances       and 
Dreams  of  Ireland  .  .     114 

422.  Arrives  there  .  .114 

Sudden  Conversion  of  Dicho     115 
His  old  Master,  Milcho,  an  in- 
veterate    Heathen,    would 
not  see  him  .  .115 

His  Paschal  Fire;   Prophecy 
of  thp  Ma.ii  .  .115 


VI 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHEONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


He  preaches  at  Tara,  before 

the  King  and  States           .  116 

Tolerant  Genius  of  Paganism  116 
Revisits    the    Scene   of    his 

Dream        .            .             .  116 

Converts  two  Princesses  .  116 
Destroys    the   Idol   of   "The 

field  of  Slaughter"              .  116 

His  successful  Career             .  117 

Establishes  the  See  of  Armagh  119 

Writes  his  Confession             .  119 

465.  Dies  in  his  Retreat  at  Sabhul  119 
His  Disciples  Benignus,  Se- 

cundians,  &.c.  .  .  119 
The   Irish    Poet  Sedulius,  or 

Shiel  .  .  .120 

CHAPTER  XL 

Retrospect  of  Christianity  in 
Britain         .  .  .120 

Britain    reluctantly  separates 
from  Rome  .  .     121 

The    Letter     styled     "The 

Groans  of  the  Britons"         .     121 

The  three  Devastations  of  Bri- 
tain .  .  .121 

Peaceful  Triumps  of  Religion 
in  Ireland  .  .     122 

500.  Establishment  of  the  Sons  of 

Erck  in  North  Britain         .     122 

Povi^er  of  the  Hy-Nial  Fami- 
ly ..  .     122 

Kenneth      Mac-Alpine     van- 
quishes the  Picts     .  .     12.3 

The  Apostle  Columkill  .     123 

Historic  Use  of  Livesof  Saints; 
Montesquieu  ;  Gibbon  .     123 

Dependence  of  the  Church  of 
Ireland  on  Rome     .  .     124 

Mistaken  Opinion  of  Archbi- 
shop Usher  .  .     124 

Prayers  for  the  Dead  .     124 

Pilgrimages  .  .     125 

Marriage  of  the  Clergy  .     125 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Parentage  of  Columkill  .     125 

Why  so  named  .  .     126 

His  Labours  ,  .     126 

563.  His  Mission  to  the  Western 

Isles  .  .  .127 

572.  Death  of  Conal,  King  of  the 

British  Scots  .  .     128 

St.    Columkill     revisits    Ire- 
land .  .  .128 
Interferes    on    behalf  of   the 

Bards  .  .  .129 

Death  of  the  Saint      .  .     129 

St.    Columbanus,   also   Irish ; 

often  confounded  with  him  130 
Keign  of  Diarniid        .  .     L:!l 


Last  Meeting  at  Tara 

131 

529 

.  Retrospect  of  the   Institution 

ofNunneries 

132 

St.  Brigid  ofKildare 

132 

Career  of  Columbanus  abroad 

134 

He  rebukes  King  Thierry 

134 

His  Courage  and  Labours 

134 

610 

Arrives  at  Milan 

135 

615 

Founds  the  Monastery  of  Bob- 

bio;  dies    . 

136 

His  Writings 

136 

CHAPTER  XIIL 

Paschal  Differences  .    137 

630.  Letter  of  Pope  Honorius         .     1.38 
633.  Deputation  to  Rome  .     138 

Its  return  and  Report  .     138 

Effects  of  the  controversy  be- 
neticial        .  .  .     138 

Cummian,  an  Irish  Saint,  op- 
posed to  Columbanus  .     189 

Mutual  Tolerance      .  .     139 

St.  Aidan  and  King  Oswald 
(Anglo-Saxon  ;)  See  of  Lin- 
disfarne,  called  the  Holy 
Isle  .  .  .139 

Rapid  succession  of  Irish 
Kings;   the  Inference  .     140 

Gallus  founds  the  Abbey  of  St. 
Gall  (Switzerland)  .     141 

650.  Irish  Missionaries  in   France     141 

Irish  Missionaries  in  Brabant    141 

Irish  Missionaries  on  the 
Rhine  .  .  .142 

Solar  Eclipse;  the  Yellow 
Plague        .  .  .142 

664.  Hospitable  Reception   of  Fo- 
reign Students  in  Ireland   .     142 

Disputation  at  the  Monastery 
of  St.  Hilda  .  .     143 

Controversy  of  the  Tonsure    .     143 
684.  Northumbrian   Expedition  to 

Ireland        .  .  .     144 

King  Egfrid,  the  Aggressor, 
slain  .  .  .     144 

Paschal  System  of  Rome  esta- 
blished by  Adamnan  .     144 

St.  Kilian,  Apostle  of  Franco- 
nia  ...     145 

Divorce  of  Geilana  by  the  Per- 
suasion of  the  saint  .     145 

She  causes  him  to  be  waylaid 
and  murdered  .  .     14.5 

The  Scholastic  Philosophy  ori- 
ginated with  Irish  Divines     146 

Decay  of  Irish  Learning  at  the 

Approach  of  the  Eighth  Cen- 
tury .  .  .146 

Virgilius,  or  Feargal  .     146 

His   conjecture  of  the   Spheri- 
city of  the  Earth     .  .     14T 


■v^ 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


VU 


Page 

Accused  of  Heresy  therein     .     147 

Is  made  a  Bishop,  and  canon- 
ized .  .  .147 

Clement  and  Albinus,  Irish 
Scholars;  become  known  to 
Charlemagne ;  their  Curi- 
ous Device  •  •     148 

Reference  toDenina,  Tirabos- 
chi,  and  Muratori  .     148 

Dungal ;  his  Letter  to  Charle- 
magne        .  .  •     148 

Greek  Ecclesiastics  attracted 
to  Ireland  .  •     149 

The  Saxson  Scholar  x\dhelm     150 

Sedulius  the  Second  and  Do- 

natus  .  -  •     150  j 

John  Scotus  called,  Erigena        151 

Translates  into  Latin  the 
Greek  Writings  Supposed  of  | 

Dionysius  the    Areopagite;  j 

his  consequent  Mysticism    .     151 

His  notions  of  God  and  the 
Soul  .  .  .152 

Denies  the  Eternity  of  Punish- 
ment .  .  •    152 

Fables  of  his  being  known  to 
King  Alfred  .  .     153 

His  Character  .  .     153 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Review  of  Learning  and  the 

Arts  .  .  .154 

Value  of  the  Argument  of  the 

WantofMSS.  Remains      .  154 
Remains  Preserved  by  the  An- 
nalists        .             .             •  155 
Origin  and  Use  of  Rhyme      .  155 
Early    Connexion    of   Poetry 

and  Music                .             .  156 

The  Irish  Harp          .            .  156 

Excellence  of  Early  Music     .  156 

Irish  Psalmody            .             .  157 

Church  Architecture              .  157 

State  of  Agriculture               .  158 
Works  in  Metal,   stone,  and 

Colours       .            .            .  159 
Chariots   used     in    War    and 

Travelling               .             .  159 

The  Brehon  Laws       .            .  159 


CHAPTER  XV. 

787.    Invasion    of  Ireland    by   the 

Danes  .  .  .     160 

795.    The  Island  ofRaglin  laid  waste 

by  the  Danes  .  .     160 

The  Lochlanders        .  .     160 

Supposed  Intercourse   of  the 
Irish  with  the  Northern  Na- 


tions preceding  the  Birth  of 
Christ        .... 
Papas,  or  Irish  Priests  . 
Arrival  of  the  Norwegians  in 
Iceland       .... 
Black    Strangers    and   white 
Strangers  .... 
A  strong  Similitude  between 
the  political  Institutions  of 
Britian  and  Ireland   at  the 
Time  of  the  Northern  Inva- 
sion   ..... 
Reign  of  King   Neil   of  the 
Showers     .... 
Boarian  Tribute     , 
722.    Invasion   of  Leinster  by   the 
Monarch  Fergall 
Battle  of  Almhain 
General  State  of  Ireland  at  this 
Period        .... 
Weakness  of  the  Monarch      , 
The  great  O'Niell  of  the  Nine 
Hostages    .... 
The  North  Hy-Niells  and  the 

South  Hy-Niells 

Increasing    Strength    of  the 

Throne  of  Munster  and  its 

Cause         .... 

Dalgais  or  Delcassians  . 

Cause  of  the  Weakness  of  the 

Monarchy  .... 

795.   The    Reign  of  the   Monarch 

Aldus         .         .         .         . 

Devastations  of  the  Danes 

810.    Conflicts  with  the  Northmen 

Political  Connexion  of  the  Irish 

Kinsrs  with  Charlemagne   . 

799.    Privilege  of  the  Irish  Clergy  . 

Inroads  of  the  Monarch  into 

Leinster     .        .        .        . 


Page 

161 
161 

161 

162 


162 

162 
163 

163 

163 

163 
163 

164 

164 


164 
164 

164 

165 
165 
166 

166 
166 

167 


818. 


826, 


CHAPTER  XVL 

Achievements  of  Ragnar  Lod- 

brog,  the  Sea  King  .  .  168 
Traditions  of  the   Northmen 

respecting  Ireland  .  •  168 
Arrival   of  Turgesius  with  a 

large  Fleet  in  Ireland  .     168 

Hatred   of  the  Northmen   to 

Christianity  .  .  .  168 
Persecution  of  the  Saxons,  its 

Cause  .  .  .  .169 
Reign  of  Concobar  .  .  169 
Depredations  of  the  Danes  .  170 
The  Monastery  of  Banchor  .  170 
The   Invasions  of  the  Danes 

repelled  by  the  Jltonians  .  170 
Lethlobar,  King  of  Dalaradia  170 
Carbry,  KingofHy-Kinsellagh  170 
Dissensions  of  the  Irish  among 

themselves         .         .        .     170 


Vlll 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


A.  r.  Page 

839.    Life  and  triumphs  of  Feidlim, 

King  of  Munster     .  .     171 

832-3.  Death  of  the  Monarch  Conco- 

bar  .  .  .  .     ITl 

844.  Death  of  Turgesius  and  expul- 
sion of  the  Foreigners         .     173 

846.    Death   of    Feidlim,   King  of 

Munster      .  .  .     173 

A  romantic  Account  of  his 
Death  .  .  .173 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

849.  Arrival  of  Reinforcements  of 

the  Danes  .  .  .174 

850.  Alliances   between  these  Fo- 

reigners and  the  Natives     .     174 
Demoralizing  Effect  thereof  .     174 
Divisions  among  the  Northmen 
themselves .  .  •     17-5 

853.  Arrival  of  three  Norwegian 
Brothers,  Anlaf,  Iver,  and 
Sitric  .  .  .     175 

A  Tax  called  Nose-money  im- 
posed on  the  Irish  .  .     175 
863.    Death  of  the  Monarch  Melach- 
lin,  and    the   succession   of 
Aodh  Finliath          .  .     176 
Exploits  of  Anlaf  the  Dane    .     176 
879.    Death  of  Aodh  Fmiiath  .     176 
Reign  of  Flan  Siona   .             .     176 
Retrospect  of  the  Affairs  of  the 
Scotsof  North  Britain         .     176 
901  to  Reign    of  Cormac  Mac    Cu- 

903.        linan,  King  of  Munster       .     178 
907-8.  Death  of  Cormac  at  the  great 

Battle  of  Moylena  .  .     180 

His  Character  .  .     180 

Death  of  the  Monarch  Flati 
Siona  .  .  .     182 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

State  of  Learning  and  Litera- 
ture amongst  the  Irish  in  the 
Ninth  Century         .  .     182 

iEngus,  the  learned  Hagiolo- 
gist  .  .  .183 

Fothadh  the  Poet         .  .     183 

884.    Death  of  Maolmura,  the  Histo- 
rian .  .  •     183 

Flann  Mac  Lonan  chief  Poet 
of  all  Ireland  .  .     183 

King  Cormac,  Author  of  the 
Psalter  of  Cashel     .  •     184 

King  Cormac's  Chapel  on  the 
Rock  of  Cashel        .  •    184 

Date  and  Progress  of  Stone 
Architecture  in  Ireland       •     184 

Round  Towers  .  •     185 

Account  of  the  Culdees  .     185 

Bishops  styled  Princes  .     187 


A.  D.  Page 

Usurpation  of  the  See  of  Ar- 
magh by  Laymen    .  .     187 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Accounts  of  the  Danish  Trans- 
actions in  Ireland    .  .     187 
Traditions  concerning  Ragnar 
Lodbrog      .             .  .188 

902.  Expulsion  of  the  Danes  from 
Dublin  by  the  People  of 
Leinster      .  .  .     188 

917.  Reign  of  the  Monarch  Niell 
Glundubh,  his  Successor 
Donogh       .  .  .188 

926,   Heroic  Character  of  the  Roy- 

931.        damna  Murkertach;  his  Vic- 

936.  tories  over  the  Danes  .     189 
939.    Exploits  of  Callachan,  King  of 

Cashel         .  .  .189 

Alliances  between  the  North- 
men and  the  Irish   .  .     190 

937.  Battle  of  Brunanburh  .     190 
Norse   Account  of  this  great 

Battle  .  .  .190 

Irish  Mode  of  Fighting  .     190 

948.    Conversion  of  the  Northmen ; 
the   Abbey    of  St.   Mary's, 
Dublin,  founded  by  them     .     191 
950.    The  Church  of  Slane  burned 

by  the  Danes  .  .     192 

Probus,  the  Historian  of  St. 
Patrick,  perished  in  the 
Flames        -  .  .192 

Subdivision  of  the  Royal  Pow- 
er adopted  by  the  Northmen 
in  Ireland ;  the  weakening 
Effects  of  such  Policy  .  192 
9.39.  Triumphal  Progress  of  the 
Roydamna  through  the 
Kingdom     .  .  .     193 

Takes  Callachan  Prisoner       .     193 

943.  Death  of  the  Roydamna  .     193 

944.  Death  of  the  Monarch  Donogh     193 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Early  Life  of  Brian  Boru         .     194 
His  first  Battle  under  his  Bro- 
ther Mahon  .  .     195 
Their  Defeat               .  .     195 
959.    The  Victory  of  Sulchoid  over 
the     Danes     of     Limerick 
achieved  by  Brian  Bom      .     195 
Murder  of  Mahon        .  .     195 
Accession    of    Brian    to    the 
Throne  of  all  Munster;  at- 
tacks and  defeats  the  Mur- 
derer of  his  Brother            .     196 
956.   Death  of  the  Monarch  Conge- 

lach  .  .  .196 

Accession  of  Domnal  .  •     196 

A  pretended  Charter  of  the  En- 
glish King  Edgar    .  .     196 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


IX 


A      D. 

980. 


983. 


988. 
997. 

1000. 


1001. 

1008. 
1005. 


1013. 


Death  of  Dotnnal,  and  Succes- 
sion of  Malachy  the  Great  . 

Power  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Munster  increased  conside- 
rably under  Brian  .  ,     197 

Malachy  the  Great  gains  a 
great  Victory  over  the 
Danes  .  .  .198 

His  "Noble  Proclamation"     .     198 

The  Battle  of  Tara      .  .     198 

Defeat  of  the  People  of  Lein- 
ster  by  Brian  .  .     198 

Growing  Jealousy  between 
Brian  and  Malachy  ;  the  sa- 
cred Tree  in  the  Plain  of 
Adoration  at  Adair  cut  down 
by  Order  of  Malachy  .     199 

Invasion  of  Leinster  by  Mala- 
chy ...     199 

An  army  marched  against  him 
by  Brian      .  .  .199 

A  Convention  between  the  two 
Kings  .  .  .199 

Renewal  of  Hostilities  .     199 

They  again  form  a  Treaty  of 
Peace  .  .  .200 

Their  joint  Victories  over  the 
Danes  .  .  .200 

Renewal  of  their  mutual  Hos- 
tilities .  .  .200 

Brian  invades  the  Territory  of 
Malachy      .  .  .     201 

CHAPTER  XXL 

Usurpation  of  the  Throne  of 
Tara  by  Brian  .  .     202 

His  triumphant  Progress 
through  the  Country  .     202 

His  Victory  over  the  Southern 
Hy-Niells  in  Athlone  .     202 

The  Battle  of  the  Wood  of 
Tulka  .  .  .     202 

Brian's  vigorous  Policy  .     203 

Gifts  and  Privileges  bestowed 
by  him  on  the  Church        .     203 

State  of  the  Country  under  his 
Dominion     .  .  .     203 

An  unusually  long  interval  of 
Peace  .  .  .203 

Disturbed  by  the  Restlessness 
and  Perfidy  of  the  People  of 
Leinster      .  .  .     204 

Invasion  of  Meath       .  .     204 

Malachy  defeated  by  the  Peo- 
ple of  Leinster         .  .     204 

Applies  for  Assistance  to  Brian    204 

Is  refused         .  .  .     204 

Preparations  of  the  Northmen, 
in  League  with  tiie  Lage- 
nians,  for  a  Descent  upon 
Ireland        .  .  .204 

2 


page      A    D. 

1U14. 
197 


975. 


947. 


1016. 
1022. 


Page 
(Friday,  April  23.)   The  great 
Battle  of  Clontarf,  and  its 
Consequences          .             .  205 
Assassination  of  Brian              .  208 
His  Burial      .             .             .  208 
A  Review  of  the  Life  and  Ac- 
tions of  Brian  Boru               .  210 
Patriotism  of  the  Irish            .  213 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

State  of  the  Schools  of  Ireland 
in  the  Tenth  Century  .     214 

Armagy  still  visited  by  Stran- 
gers .  .  .     214 

Eminent  native  Scholars 
during  this  Period  .  .     214 

Probus  Chief  Lecturer  of  the 
School  of  Slane      .  .     215 

Eochaidh  O'Floinn,  a  Bardic 
Historian     .  .  .     21.5 

Keneth  O'Artegan,  a  Poet      .     215 

A  School  established  by  the 
Irish  in  England,  called 
"Glastonbury  of  St.  Pat- 
rick" .  .  .     215 

The  Monasteries  of  the  Scots 
or  Irish  in  France  and  Ger- 
many .  .  .     216 

An  Irish  Bishop  named  Israel 
at  a  Synod   held  at  Verdun     216 

Finden,  an  Irish  Abbot  of  Ce- 
lebrity        .  .  .216 

The  Literary  Works  of  an 
Irish  Ecclesiastic  named 
Duncan       .  .  .     216 

Numbers  of  Bishops  from  Ire- 
land on  the  Continent ;  Ef- 
forts made  by  Council  to  de- 
stroy them  .  .  .     216 

CHAPTER  XXIIL 

Restoration  of   the   Monarch 

Malachy     .  .  .217 

His  Victories  over  the  North- 
men .  .  .     217 
The  Battle  of  the  Yellow  Ford     217 
Death  of  Malachy      .             .     218 
Social  State  of  Ireland  at  this 

Period  .  .  .219 

Decline  of  Religion  and  Morals 

throughout  the  Country      .     219 
Ecclesiastical  Abuses  .     220 

Corbes  and  Erenachs  .  .     220 

Comorban        .  .  .     220 

Succession   of  the  Monarchy 

suspended    .  .  .     220 

Provisional  Government  esta- 
blished       .  ,  .221 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


A.  P.  Page 

1023.    The    Kingdom    of    Munster 
ruled  jointly  by  Teige   and 
Doncliad,  the  Sons  of  Brian     221 
Murder  of  Teige  throiinfh  the 
Contrivance  of  his  Brother     221 
1058.    Donchad   titular  Monarch   of 

Ireland         .  .  .     221 

1063.  His  complete  Overthrow         .     221 
Turlogh,  his  Nephew,  aspires 

lo  the  Throne  .  .     221 

1064.  Death  of  Donchad      .  .     222 
Turiongli,  Monarch  of  Ireland     223 

1072.    Death  of  Derrnot  .  223 

Events  of  Turlougii's  Reign     223 
Godfred,  King  of  the  Dublin 
Danes         .  .  .     223 

1070.    Murchad  the   first  Irish  King 

of  the  Danes  .  .     223 

1086.    Death  of  Turlongh     .  .     224 

Is  succeeded  by  his  Son  Mur- 

kertach       .  .  .     224 

Letter  of  Lanfranc   to  Tur- 

lough  .  .  .224 

Character  of  Turlough  .    224 

CHAPTER  XXIV, 

Munster  divided  between  the 
three  Sons  of  Turlough       .     225 

Contest  between  Murkertach 
and  Dermot  for  that  Throne     225 

Derinot  assisted  by  M'Lochlin, 
Prince  of  Alichia     .  .     225 

M'Lochlin  Competitor  with 
Murkertach  for  the  Sove- 
reignty       .  .  .     225 

Division  of  the  Kingdom         .     226 

Interposition  of  the  Ecclesias- 
tical Authorities      .  .     226 

Alienation  of  Church  Property     227 

Grant  of  the  City  of  Cashel  to 
the  Church  .  .     227 

Invasion  of  Ulster       .  .     227 

Destruction  of  the  Palace  of 
the  Princes  of  Alichia        .     227 

Ireland  threatened  with  Inva- 
sion by  Godred  Crovan         .     228 

1102.  Descent  of   Magnus   on    her 

Shores        .  .  .228 

Marriage  of  his  Son  with  Mur- 

kertach's  Daughter  .     228 

Defeat  and  Death  of  Magnus    228 
Arnulf  de  Montgomery  assist- 
ed   by    Murkertach    in    his 
Rebellion  against  Henry  I.     228 
Marries  a  Daughter  of  Mur- 
kertach       .  .  .229 

1103.  Defeat  of  Murkertach  on  the 

Plains  of  Cobha       .  .  229 

1119.    Death  of  Murkertach  .  229 

Affairs  of  the  Church  .  229 

Bishops  of  the  Danish  Sees  in 


1088. 


1090. 
1099. 


1001. 


A.  D.  Page 

Ireland  consecrated   by  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  .     230 

Correspondence  of  the  Irish 
Kings  with  the  two  Pre- 
lates, Lanfranc  and  Anselm     230 

Ecclesiastical  Irregularities    .     230 

St.  Bernard's  gloomy  Picture 
of  Ireland    .  .  .    231 

1111.  Synod  held  at  Fiodh-^ngusa    231 

Synod  of  Rath-Breasail,  for  the 
Regulation  of  the  Dioceses    231 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Learned  Irishmen  of  the  Ele- 
venth Century         .  .     232 

Tigernach  the  Chronicler       .     232 

Great  value  of  his  Annels      .     232 

Dates  of  Eclipses  preserved 
by  him         .  .  .232 

Proof  of  the  Antiquity  of  Irish 
Records      .  .  .     232 

1056.  Marianus  Scotus        .  .     2.33 

Account  of  his  Works  .     233 

St.  Col  man,  a  Patron  Saint  of 
Austria         .  .  .     233 

Helias  of   the  Monastery  of 
Monachan,  introduced  first 
the  Roman  Chant  at  Cologne     234 
1036.  Monastery     erected    for    the 

Irish  at  Erford         .  .     234 

Another  at  Fulda        .  .     234 

Poems  of  Mac  Liag,  the  Secre- 
tary of  Brian  Boru  .     234 

Flann  and  Gilla-Coeman,  Met- 
rical Chronographers  .     234 

Gilla-Moduda,  a  Metrical 
Chronographer        .  .     235 

Visit  of  Sulgenus,  Bishop  of 
St.  David's,  to  the  Schools  of 
Ireland        .  .  .235 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

English  Students  at  Armagh      236 
Interregnum  of  Fifteen  years     236 
Contentions  among  the   Irish 
Princes  for  the  Monarchy     .     236 

1132,  Tordelvach  O'Conner  the  suc- 

1133.  cessful  Candidate     .  .     236 
Account  of  the  Reigns  of  the     236 

O'Brian  Princes      .  •     236 

1151.  Battle  of  Moinmor       •  •    237 
1153.  Decline  of  Tordelvach's  good 

Fortune       .  .  .237 

Is  opposed  by  O'Lochlin,  King 

ofTirone     .  .  .237 

Interference  of  the  Clergy  in 

the  Quarrels  of  the  Princes     238 

Its  salutary  Effects     .  .     238 

1156.  Death  of  Tordelvach  .     238 

1152.  Synod  of  Kells  .  .    239 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


XI 


A.  D.  Page 

Palliums    distributed    by   tho 

Pope's  Legate  Paparo         .     239 
Labours  and  Death  of  the  great 

Saint  Malachy         .  .     239 

First   Introduction   of  Tithes 

into  Ireland  .  .     240 

Misrepresentation  of  the  Irish 
Church  corrected    .  .     240 

1161.  Murtogh   O'Loghlin    acknow- 
ledged King  of  Ireland       .     241 
His  Contention    with   Eochad 
the  King  of  Ulidia  .     241 

1166.  Is  killed  in  Battle       .  .     242 

1157.  Synod  at  Mellifont     .  .     242 

1158.  Synod  of  Meath         .  .     242 

1166.  Roderic    O'Connor,   King    of 

Connaught,  succeeds  to  the 
Monarchy   .  .  .     242 

1167.  Great  Convention  at  Athboy      242 
1153.  Abduction    of   the    Wife    of 

O'Ruarc  by  Dermot  .     243 

Supposed,  but  erroneously,  to 
have  been  the  immediate 
Cause  of  the  Invasion  of  Ire- 
land by  the  English  .  243 
Enmity  between  O'Ruarc  and 
Dermot       .             .            .243 

1168.  The  latter,  expelled  from  his 

Dominions,  embarks  for 
England      .  .  .244 

Designs  of  Henry  II.  upon  Ire- 
land .  .  .245 

Obtains  a  Grant  of  that  Island 
from  Pope  Adrian  IV.         .     245 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Letters  Patent  granted  by 
Henry  II.  to  Dermot  .     247 

Return  of  Dermot  to  England     247 

He  applies  to  Richard  de  Clare, 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  surnamed 
Strongbow  .  .     247 

The  latter  assents  to  his  Pro- 
posal .  .  .     247 

Maurice  Fitz-Gerald  and  Ro- 
bert Fitz-Stephens,  both 
Normans,  and.maternal  Bro- 
thers to  Strongbow,  engage 
in  the  Service  of  Dermot        247 

1169.  Dermot's  return  to  Leinster        247 
His  critical  State,  by  his  rash 

and  weak  Movement  .     248 

1169.  Arrival  of  Robert  Fitz-Stephen     248 

The  first  Landing  of  the  Anglo- 
Norm:ins  in  Ireland  .     24S 

Attack  and  Surrender  of  Wex- 
ford .  .  .     249 

Dermot  obtains  Possession  of 
Wexford     .  .  .249 

He  fulfils  his  Engagements  to 
liie  two  Norman   Brotliers       249 


PiOE 

Invasion  of  Ossary  by  Dermot 
and  his  Allies  .  .     250 

The  Convocation  of  the 
Princes  and  Nobles  of  tho 
Land  in  general  at  Tara     .     250 

Dermot  invested  at  Ferns  by 
Roderic       .  .  .     251 

A  compact  entered  into  be- 
tween Roderic  and  Dermot     251 

Insincerity  of  Dermot  .     252 

Defeat  of  the  Monarch  Ro- 
deric .  .  .     252 

Arrival  of  Raymond  le  Gros       253 

O'Faolan,  Prince  of  the  Desies, 
and  O'Ryan  of  Idrone, 
march  against  Raymond  le 
Gros  .  .  .253 

Barbarity  towards  the  Irish 
Prisoners  taken  at  Water- 
ford  .  .  .253 

Strongbow,  his  Arrival  with 
his  Fleet  near  Waterford         2-54 

Is  joined  by  Raymond  le  Gros     254 

They  attack   Waterford  .     254 

And  take  Possession  of  it        .     224 

Reginald,  a  Dano-Irisli  Lord, 
and  O'Faolen,  Prince  of  the 
Desies,  on  the  Point  of  being 
put  to  death  by  Raymond    .     254 

Tiiey  are  rescued  by  the  Inter- 
position of  King  Dermot     .     254 

The  Marriage  of  Strongbow 
with  Eva,  Daughter  of  King 
Dermot        .  .  .     254 

Sack  and  Ruin  of  Waterford     254 

Defection  of  Hasculf,  Gover- 
nor of  Dublin,  from  Dermot     254 

St.  Laurence  O'Toole,  Archbi- 
shop of  Dublin,  solicited  by 
the  Citizens  to  intercede 
with  Dermot  in  their  Behalf; 
his  Exertions  .  .     254 

Taking  of  Dublin  by  Dermot       255 

Escape  of  Hasculf  and  a  num- 
ber of  the  leading  Citizens 
to  the  Orkney  Isles  .     255 

Cormac  M'Cartliy,  King  of 
Desmond,  his  successful  At- 
tack on  the  Garrison  of 
W^aterford,  left  by  Strong- 
bow for  the  Defence  of  that 
City  .  .  .     255 

Milo  de  Cogan  intrusted  with 
the  Government  of  Dublin 
through  the  Recommenda- 
tion of  Strongbow  .     255 

The  excess  of  Barbarity  which 
marked  the  Course  of  the 
confederate  Chiefs  through 
the  Parts  of  Meath  under 
the  Government  of  O'Ruarr     255 


xu 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


».  D.  Page 

Weakness  of  Roderic  .    255 

Orders  the  unoffending  Son  of 
Dermot  to  be  beheaded ;  at 
the  same  Time,  a  Grandson 
of  that  Prince;  also  a  Hos- 
tage he  had  received  from 
liim,  the  Son  of  his  Foster- 
brother,  O'Coallag  .  256 
Remarkable  Synod  of  Armagh  256 
Slavery  among  the  Irish         .    257 

CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

Alarm   of  Henry   at   Strong- 
bow's  Progress        .  .     257 
Henry's  Edict             .  .    257 
Strongbow    despatches    Ray- 
mond le  Gros  with  a  Letti  r 
to  the  English  King  .    258 
Deatii  of  Dermot  M'Murrough, 

King  of  Leinster,  at  Ferns     258 
Succession   of  Earl    of  Pem- 
broke to  the  Throne  of  Lein- 
ster .  .  .    258 
Attack  ofHasculf  on  the  City 

of  Dublin  .  .    259 

His  Repulse  and  Death  .    2.59 

Exertions  of  St.  Laurence 
O'Toole  to  expel  the  English 
from  Ireland  .  .     259 

Strongbow  returns  to  defend 

Dublin         .  .  .260 

Negotiations  between  Strong-    260 
bow  and  Roderic      .  .    260 

Filz-Siephen  besieged  in  the 

Fort  of  Carrig         .  .     260 

Strongbow    intrepidly  sallies 

from  Dublin   to  relieve  him    261 
Treacherous  conduct  towards 

Fitz-Stephen  .  .  262 

He  surrenders  and   is  thrown 

into  Prison  .  .     262 

The  Irish,  in  a  Panic,  set  fire 

to  Wexford  .  .     262 

Strongbow  retires  to  Water- 
ford  .  .  .263 
Strongbow    Repairs  to    Eng- 

Innd  ,  .  .263 

Makes  his  Peace  with  King 
Kenry         .  .  .     263 

117L  King  Henry  lands  in  Ireland     263 
O'Ruarc  Makes  a  fruitless  at- 
tack on  tiie  City  of  Dublin  .     263 
Deputation  of  the  Citizens  of 
Wexford     wait    on     King 
Henry        .  .  .     264 

Receives   the   Submission   of 

several  of  the  Irish  Princes    265 
King  Henry  holds  his  Court  in 

Dublin        .  .  .265 

O'Ruarc  of  BrefTny  joins  him     26.5 

1172.  Synod  hold  at  Cash6l  .     206 


A.  D.  Page 

Decrees  of  the  Synod  .  266 
Council  held  by  Henry  at  Lis- 

more           .             .             .  267 

Laws  enacted  by  him  .  268 
Grants  of  Lands  to  Hugh  de 

Lacy  and  others     .             .  269 

Henry  removes  to  Waterford  269 

Henry  returns  to  England      .  270 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Conference  of  Hugh  De  Lacy 
with  O'Ruarc         .  .     271 

Death  of  O'Ruarc       .  .     272 

Strongbow  retires  to  Ferns    .     272 

Marriage  and  Death  of  De 
Quincy       .  .  .272 

Strongbow  obeys  the  Mandate 
of  King  Henry  to  Join  him 
in  France  .  .  .     272 

Rivalry  between  Hervey  and 
Raymond    .  •  .     272 

Strongbow  returns  to  Ireland     272 

1173.  Raymond  placed  at  the  Head 

of  the  Army  .  .     272 

Retires  in  discontent  to  Wales    274 

1174.  Command  of  the  Forces  com- 

mitted to  Hervey  of  Mount 
Maurice      .  .  .274 

Raymond  is  recalled  .  .     274 

Raymond  is  married,  at  Wex- 
ford, to  Basilia,  llie  Earl's 
Sister         .  .  .    274 

Meath  over  run  and  despoiled 

by  Roderic  ».  .     275 

His  Retreat    ,  .  .     275 

Raymond  makes  himself  Mas- 
ter of  Limerick        .  .     275 

1175.  Bull  of  Pope  Adrian  Promul- 

gated .  .  .275 

O'Brian  of  Thomond  Besieges 

Limerick    .  .  .     276 

Roderic's  Success       .  .     276 

Treaty   between    Henry  and 

Roderic      .  .  .277 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

False  Notions  concerning  the 
Conquest  of  Ireland  .     278 

First  appointment  of  an  Irish 
Bishop  by  Henry    .  .    280 

1178.  Death  of  Strongbow    .  .    280 

Basilia  summons  Raymond  to 
Dublin        .  .  .280 

Entrusts  the  Custody  of  Lim- 
erick to  O'Brian      .  .280 

Remains  of  Strongbow  inter- 
red in  Ciirisl's  Church  in 
Dublin        .  .  .280 

Character  of  Strongbow  .     280 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


XUI 


A.  D.  Page 

Fitz-Aldelm  appointed    chief 

Governor    .  .  .282 

Jealousy   entertained  of   the 

Geraldines.  .  .     282 

Death  of  Maurice  Fitz-Ger- 

ald.  .  .  .282 

Illiberal  Conduct  of  Fitz-Ald- 
elm to  his  Sons  .  .  282 
Successes  of  the  Irish  in  Meath  282 
Character    of    Fitz-Aldelm's 

Government  .  .     282 

Expedition  of  De  Courcy  into 

Ulster         .  .  .282 

Prophecies  of  Merlin  and  St. 

Columba     .  .  .283 

Council      convoked     by    the 

Pope's  Legate         .  .     283 

Dissentions   in   the  family  of 

Roderic       .  .  .283 

Unsuccessful  Expedition  of  the 

English  into  Connaught      .     284 

1177.  Henry   Constitutes   his    Son 

John  Lord  of  Ireland  .     285 

1178.  Grants  of  Lands  to  Fitz-Ste- 

phen  and  others      .  .     285 

Fitz-Aldelm  recalled  from  the 

Government  .  .     286 

Hugh  De-Lacy  appointed  his 

Successor  .  .  .    280 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Unsuccessful  incursions  of 
John  de  Courcy  into  Ulster     237 

Removal  of  Hugh  de  Lacy 
from  the  Government  .     287 

His  Reinstatement  in  the 
Government  .  .     287 

1180.  Death  of  St.  Laurence  O'Toole    288 

His  Parentage  and  early  Life     2S8 

His  Character  .  .     288 

1226.  Canonization    of     Lawrence 

O'Toole     .  .  ,269 

John  Gumming  elected  Arch, 
bishop  of  Dublin     .  .     289 

A  Bull  issued  by  Pope  Lu- 
cius III.,  exempting  the 
Diocess  of  Dublin  from  a 
great  Part  of  the  Jurisdic- 
tion exercised  over  it  by  the 
See  of  Armagh       .  .     289 

Murder  of  Milo  de  Cogan  and 
young  Fitz-Stephen,  with 
four  other  Knights  .     289 

1182.  Dermod  Macarthy,  King  of 
Desmond,  Besieges  the 
Town  of  Cork         .  .     289 

Richard  de  Cogan,  Brother  to 
Milo,  takes  his  place  as  the 
Associate  of  Fitz  Stephen 
in  the  Government  .     290 

The  landing  of  Philip  Biny 


,  D.  Page 

with  a  considerable  Force    290 
Giraldus  Cambrensis  .     290 

The  Abbey  of  Dunbrody  found- 
ed and  endowed  by  Hervey 
of  Mount-Maurice  .  .     290 

Two  Monasteries  erected  in 
Meath  for  Augustine  Ca- 
nons by  Hugh  de  Lacy  .  290 
The  Benedictine  Priory  of 
the  Island  of  Neddrum,  also 
the  Priory  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  founded  by  John  de 
Courcy       .  .  .290 

The  origin  of  the  disgraceful 
Feuds  which  distracted  the 
domestic  Relations  of  Rod- 
eric O'Connor  explained     .     290 

Increasing  Popularity  of  Hugh 
de  Lacy      .  .  .     291 

Philip  of  Worcester  Deputy 
Governor  of  Ireland  .     291 

1184.  John  Earl  of  Moreton  and 
Lord  of  Ireland  knighted  by 
his  Father  at  Windsor;  em- 
barks at  Milford  Haven 
with  a  large  Force  .     291 

Arrival  of,  in  Waterford         .     291 

His  Expedition  into  Ulster     .     291 

His  grinding  Exactions  from 
the  Clergy  .  .     291 

Prince  John's  contemptuous 
Reception  of  the  Irish 
Chiets  who  came  to  wel- 
come him  on  his  Arrival  in 
Ireland       .  .  .     292 

Determination  on  the  Part  of 
the  Chieftians  to  seek  Re- 
venge for  tiiose  Insults       .     292 

Policy  pursued  by  Prince 
John's  Courtiers  calculated 
to  aggravate  rather  than 
remove  these  revengeful 
Feelings     .  .  .292 

The  Erection  of  three  Forts 
or  Castles  at  Tipperary        .     293 

The  Castle  of  Ardfinnan  at- 
tacked by  Donald  O'Brian, 
Prince  of  Limeric  .  .     293 

The  brave  Robert  Barry,  who 
accompanied  Fitz-Stephen 
into  Ireland,  taken  and  slain 
in  an    Assault  on   Lismore     293 

An  Attack  upon  Cork  by  Mac 
Carthy  resisted  by  Theo- 
bald Walter  .  .     293 

Success  of  the  English  Arms 
in  Meath    .  .  .293 

Recall  of  Prince  John  and  his 
Advisers  to  England  .     293 

The  Government,  both  Civil 
and  Military,  placed  in  the 
Hands  of  De  Courcy  .     293 


XIT 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


Page 

293 


Assassination  of  de  Lacy 

CHAPTER  XXXIL 

On  the  Subject  of  Henry's 
Grant  of  Ireland  to  John,  and 
the  supposed  Effects  of  that 
Measure  considered  . 
1186.  The  Translation  of  the  Re- 
mains of  the  three  great 
National  Saints,  Patrick, 
Columba,   and   Brigid 

1188.  Deposition      of     O'Loghlin, 

Prince  of  Tyrone 
Death  of  Rhoderic  O'Lacher- 

lair,  his  successor 
Restoration  of  O'Loghin 
His  Death     .... 
The  Invasion  of  Connaught  by 
Cornelius    O'Dermot    and 
De  Courcy 
Retreat   of  De  Courcy  from 
Connaught,  and  Re-establish- 
ment of  O'Connor 
Murder  of  Rhoderic  O'Connor 

1189.  Death  of  Henry  11.       . 
The   kindly  Feelings  of  Ri- 
chard  I.  towards  his   Bro- 
ther John 

On  the  Question  of  Henry's 
Grant  of  Ireland  to  his  Son 
John  .... 

The  Curia  Regis,  or  Common 
Council,  held  by  Henry  at 
Lismore,  styled  prematurely 
a  Parliament     . 
At   what  Time   Parliaments, 
properly  so  called,  began  to 
be  held  by  the  English  in 
Ireland 
The  Subject  considered 
Views   of  Molyneux  on    the 

Subject 
Hugh  de  Lacy,  Son  of  the  first 
Lord   of  Meath,   appointed 
Deputy  Governor  of  Ireland 
by  King  John 
Dissatisfaction  and  retirement 
to  Ulster  of  John  de  Courcy 
in  consequence 
Cathal  0'Connor,of  the  Bloody 

Hand 
The  Abbey  of  the  Hill  of  Vic- 
tory founded  by  him 
1194.  Death  ofDonaldO'Brian, King 
of  Thomond  and  Ormond    . 
Numerous  religious  Establish- 
ments founded  by  him 
Carbrach,  Son  of  Donald,  raised 

to  the  Sovereignty 
William  Marshall,  second  earl 
of  Pembroke,  appointed  Go- 
vernor of  Ireland     .  .     300 


294 


294 

295 

295 
295 
295 


295 


295 
295 
295 


296 


296 


297 


297 

298 

298 


299 


299 
299 
299 
300 


300 


300 


A.  D.  Page 

His  Administration     .  .    300 

Its  Results     .  .  .     300 

The  Successes  of  Cathal  of 
Connaught,  and  Mac  Carthy 
of  Desmond  .  .     300 

Hamo  de  Valois  appointed  Go- 
vernor of  Ireland  in  place  of 
Earl  Marshall,  who  resigned  301 
His  forcible  Invasion  of  the 
Property  of  the  Church,  not- 
withstanding the  angry  Re- 
monstrances of  Cuming, 
Archbishop  of  Dublin  .    301 

Recall  of  Hamo,  and  appoint- 
ment of  Meyler  Fitz-Henry 
to  the  Government  .    301 

Death  of  Roderic  O'Connor    .    301 
His  Character  .  .     301 

His  efforts  to  revive  the  al- 
most extinct  Learning  of  the 
Country       -  .  .301 

Giolla  Moduda,  Author  of  a 
Metrical  Catalogue  of  the 
Kings  of  Ireland     .  .     302 

1129.  Celsns,  or  Cellach,  Archbishop 

of  Armagh,  his  Death  .     302 

Some  Remarks  respecting  the 
Social  Condition  of  the  Irish 
People  at  this  Period  .     302 

The  Character  of  Giraldus  as 

a  Censor      .  .  .302 

Some  of  his  Charges  against 
the  Irish  Clergy;  his  Ac- 
count of  the  State  of  Manu- 
factures and  the  useful  Arts 
among  the  Irish       .  .     303 


CHAPTER  XXXIIL 


John. 

Condition  of  Ireland  .     304 

1198.  Dissensions  among  the  Natives    304 

Contentions    between   Cathal 
and  Carrach  for  the  Princi- 
pality of  Connaught  .     304 
1205.  Cathal  surrenders  to  King  John 

two  thirds  of  Connaught         304 

Rivalry     between     John    de 
Courcy  and  Hugh  de  Lacy      305 

De  Courcy  sent  Prisoner  to 
England  ;  his  Title  to  the 
Earldom  of  Leinster  trans- 
ferred to  Hugh  de  Lacy  .  305 
1210.  King  John  undertakes  a  mili- 
tary Expedition  against  Ire- 
land .  .  .305 

Exaction  and  Cruelty  of  the 
English       .  .  .    305 

Cathal,  Prince  of  Connaught, 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


XV 


A.  B.  Page 

pays  Homage  to  the  English 
Crown         .  .  .305 

Flight  of  William  de  Bravia 
and  the  De  Lacys ;  Capture 
of  the  Wife  and  Daughter 
of  the  former  by  King  John     305 

The  De  Lacys  return  to  Ire- 
land, and  are  reinstated  in 
their  Possessions     .  .     306 

1209.    Massacre  of  the  inhabitants  of 

Dublin  by  the  Septs  .     306 

Introduction  of  English  Laws 
and  Usages  by  King  John  .     306 

He  returns  to  England,  leaving 
John  de  Grey  to  the  Admi- 
nistration of  Affairs  in  Ire- 
land .  .  .307 
1215.    Peaceable  Disposition  of  the 

Inhabitants  .  .     307 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
Henry  III. 

1216.  Accession  of  Henry  III.,  and 
Appointment  of  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke  as  protector         .     308 

Grant  of  the  Great  Charter  to 
his  English  Subjects  in  Ire- 
land .  .  .308 

Difference  of  the  two  Char- 
ters .  .  .309 

Exclusion  of  the  Natives  from 
all  Share  of  English  Laws 
and  Liberties  .  .    309 

1219.  Hostilities  between  Hugh  de 

Lacy  and  the  young  Earl  of 
Pembroke  .  .  .309 

1220.  Surrender  of  their  Principali- 

ties by  the  Irish  Chiefs        .     309 

1221.  Henry's  Breach  of  Faith   to- 

wards Cathal  .  .     310 

He  bestows  the  Principality 
of  Connaught  on  Henry  de 
Burgh  .  .  .310 

1223.  The  People  ofthe  Province,  in 
Defiance  of  the  Royal  Au- 
thority, proceed  to  elect 
another  Chief         .  .     310 

1233.  Rebellion  of  Richard  Earl  of 

Marshal      .  .  .310 

1234.  Treachery  practised  towards 

him  ...     310 

His  Death       .  .  .311 

1240.    Feidlim,  Chief  of  Connaught, 

visits  England         .  .     311 

Subject  of  his  Conference  with 

Henry         .  .  .311 

Henry's  Disputes  and  War- 
fare with  the  Welsh  .    312 


A.  D.  Page 

Is  joined  by  the  Irish  Forces 
under  Maurice  Fitz  Gerald 
and  the  prince  of  Connaught    312 
Death  of  Fitz  Gerald  ,     312 

Henry's  Disputes  with  Ireland     312 
1246.    Admission  of  a   few  Natives 
only  to  the  Participation  of 
English  Law  .  .     312 

Threatened  Invasion  of  Hen- 
ry's Dominions  in  Gascony    313 

1254.  Henry  makes  a  Grant  of  the 

Kingdom   of  Ireland  to  his 
Son  Prince  Henry  .     313 

Reservations  in  that  Grant    .     313 

1255.  Renewed     Hostilities      with 

Wales         .  .  .314 

Prince  Edward  defeats  the 
Irish  Force  sent  to  the  As- 
sistance of  the  Welsh  .  314 
1259.  Death  of  O'Neill,  and  350  of 
his  Followers,  in  an  En- 
counter with  Sir  Stephen 
Longespe,  Lord  Justice  of 
Ireland        .             .  .314 

Rising  of  the  Mac  Carlhys  of 
Desmond     .  .  .     314 

Massacre  of  a  Number  of  Ger- 
aldines        .  .  .     314 

Contention  between  the  De 
Burghs  and  Geraldines        .     314 

The  King  recalls  the  Lord 
Justice,  appointing  David 
Barry  in  his  stead    .  .     315 

Peace  restored  between  the 
two  rival  Houses    .  .     315 

1267.    David  Barry  replaced  by  Sir 

Robert  de  Ufford     .  .     315 

1270.    Administration   of  Sir  James 

Audley        .  .  .315 

The  Natives  rise  up  in  arms  .     315 

The  Prince  of  Connaught 
takes  the  Field  against 
Walter  de  Burgh,  Earl  of 
Ulster  .  .  .     315 

Close  of  Henry's  Reigu  .    315 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 


Edward  I. 

1272.    The  Irish  petition  Edward  re- 
garding   the    Extension   to 
them  of  the  Laws  of  Eng- 
land .  .  .316 
Revolt  of  the  Natives            .     316 
Incursion  of  the  Scots  into  Ire- 
land            .             .            .316 
1267.    Robert   de    Ufford    succeeds 

Genevil  as  Lord  Justice     .    316 


XVI 


ANA.LYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


A.  D.  Page 

Battle  of  Glandelory  and  De- 
feat of  the  Enojlish  .     317 
1277.    Treachery  and  Cruelty  of  Tho- 
mas de  Clare          .            .     317 
His  Wars  in  Thomond            .     317 
1280.    Edward  calls  upon  the  Enorlish 
Lords  to  consider  the  Peti- 
tion of  the  Irish  regarding 
the   Extension  of  the  Eng- 
lish Law      .             .             .318 
The  King  favourable  to  this 

Extension    .  .  .     318 

Continued  Feuds  between  the 
Geraidines  and  De  Burghs    318 
1286.    Ascendancy  of  the  latter        .    319 

1288.  Richard  Earl   of  Ulster,   the 

Head  of  the  De  Burgh  family 
invades  Meath         .  .     319 

John  Sandford,  Archbishop  of 
Dublin,  Chief  Governor      .     319 

1289.  The  Statute  entitled  "An  Or- 

dinance for    the   State    of 
Ireland"     .  .  .     319 

1290.  Contest    between   De   Vesey 

and  the  Baron  of  ofFaley      .     319 
De  Vesey  retires  to  France, 
and    the  King    bestows  on 
Offaley    the     Lordships    of 
Kildare  and  Rathangan       .     319 

1294.  Triumph  and  Insolence  of  the 

latter  in  consequence  .     319 

Truce  between  the  Geraidines 
and  de  Burghs         .  ,    320 

1295.  A  parliament  assembled  .     320 
New  Division  of  the  Kingdom 

into  Counties  .  .     320 

Other  Acts  passed  by  this  par- 
liament       .  .  .320 
1299.    John  Wogan  joins  the  King  in 

Scotland  with  a  select  force     .320 
1298.    Tranquillity  in  Ireland   under 

the  Government  of  Wogan     321 
1303.    Renewed  Revolt  of  the  Scots  .     321 
The  Irish  Forces  again  sum- 
moned to  attend  the  King  .     321 
Savage    Murders    committed 

by  the  Englisli  and  Irish      .     321 
Regulation  of  the  Coinage  of 
Ireland        .  .  .322 


CHAPTER  XXXVL 


Edward  II. 

1307.    The  King  recalls  Gaveston     .     322 
Espouses  Isabella,  Daughter  of 
Philip  the  Fair,  and  appoints 
Gaveston  Regent    .  .     322 

Discontent  of  the  Barons  and 
Expulsion  of  Gaveston        .    322 


A.  D. 

1308. 


1309. 


1311. 


1312. 
1309. 


1314. 


1315. 


1316. 


Page 

The  King  appoints  him  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland  .     323 

Rivalry  between  Gaveston  and 
the  Earl  of  Ulster  .  .     323 

Gaveston  recalled  to  England 
and  succeeded  by  Sir  John 
Wagan        .  .  .     323 

Parliament  at  Kilkenny  .     323 

Conflicts  between  Richard  Earl 
of  Ulster  and  the  De  Clares    323 

English  Feuds  .  .     323 

Defeat  of  the  Lord  Justice      .    324 

Truce  between  Edward  and 
the  Scots  violated  through 
the  Impatience  of  both  Par- 
ties .  .  .324 

War  between  England  and 
Scotland      .  .  .    324 

Edward  summons  the  Irish 
Chieftains  to  his  aid  ;  they 
refuse  to  obey  the  Call         .     324 

Continued  Exclusion  of  the 
Irish  from  Justice   .  .     324 

Interest  felt  by  the  Irish  in  the 
Fortunes  of  Robert  Bruce  .     324 

Bruce  takes  refuge  in  Ireland; 
his  Expedition  from  thence 
attended  by  his  Irish 
Friends       .  .  .324 

Victory  of  Bannockburn;  its 
Effects  on  the  Minds  of  the 
Irish  .  .  .325 

Deputies  sent  by  them  to  in- 
vite Bruce  to  Ireland  .     325 

Edward  sendsover  John  de  Ho- 
thum  to  treat  with  the  Irish 
Lords  .  .  .325 

Edward  Bruce  appears  off  the 
Coast  of  Antrim      .  .     325 

Is  joined  by  the  Irish  .     325 

De  Burgh  summons  his  Vas- 
sals, and  marches  in  pursuit 
of  the  Invaders  ;  joined  by 
Feidlin  Prince  of  Connaught    326 

Bruce  crowned  Kingof  Ireland    326 

Defeat  of  De  Burgh    .  .     326 

Feidlim  O'Connor  joins  the 
Scots  .  .  .     326 

Battle  between  the  O'Connor's    326 

Continued  Success  of  Bruce  .     327 

Policy  of  tlie  English  Govern- 
ment towards  Ireland  .     327 

Feidlim  O'Connor  takes  the 
Field  .  .  .328 

Battle  of  Athenry ;  Defeat  of 
the  Irish;  and  Death  of  Feid- 
lim. .  .  .328 

Robert  Bruce  joins  his  brother 
in  Ireland    .  .  .    328 

Supposed  Treachery  of  the  De 
Lacys  .  .  .328 

Success  of  the  English  Arms  .    328 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


XVll 


A.  D.  Page 

Bruce,  with  a  large  Force,  ad- 
vances towards  Dublin        •     329 
Arrest  of  the  Earl  of  Ulster     329 
Intrepidity  of  the  Citizens  of 

Dublin       .         .         .         .329 
Bruce  retires  into  Kilkenny; 

Sufferings  of  his  Army         .     329 
Inactivity  of  the  English         .     330 

1317.  Parliaments  held  at  Kilkenny 

and  Dublin  .  .  .330 
Retreat  of  Bruce  into  Ulster  330 
Returns  to  his  own  Dominions  339 
Arrival  of  the  new  Lord  Jus- 
tice, Sir  Roger  Mortimer, 
afterwards  Earl  of  March  330 
Liberation    of    the    Earl     of 

Ulster        .         .         .         .     .330 
Petition  of  the  Irish  respecting 

the  holding  of  Parliaments     331 
Disaffection  among  the  Cler- 

gy    -       .       •       .       .331 

Sentence  of  outlawry  passed 

against  the  de  Lacys  .     321 

Famine  in  Ireland  .         .     331 

1318.  Edward  Bruce  again  takes  the 

Field  .        .        .         .332 

Death  of  Bruce  and  Defeat  of 
his  Army  .         .         .     332 

Disaffection  of  the  clergy  ;  the 
Pope  addresses  a  Letter  to 
them  ....     333 

O'Neill,  Prince  of  Tyrone, 
his  memorable  Remon- 
strance to  the  Pope    .         .     323 

State  of  the  country  from  Ci- 
vil Wars  .         .         .333 

State  of  the  Irish  Church        .     333 

Iniquity  of  the  Laws  governing 
Ireland       .         .         .         .334 

Extinction  of  the  Order  of 
Knights  Templars      .        .     335 


CHAPTER  XXXVn. 

EDWARD  III. 

1327.  State  of  Ireland  on  the  Ac- 

cession of  Edward  III.  .  336 
Civil   Dissensions   among  the 

English  Families  .  .  337 
Irruption  and  Defeat  of  Mac 

Murough  .         .         .337 

1328.  Roger  Outlaw,  Prior  of  Kil- 

mainham,    appointed    Lord 
Justice       ....    337 

The  Natives  again  petition  for 
English  Law      .         .         .338 
f329.  Insurrections  in  the  South  of 

Ireland       .         .         .         .338 

Massacre  of  English  by  En- 
glish at  Orgiel  .        .    338 

A 


A.  D. 

1830, 


1331. 


1332. 

1331, 
1332. 


1833, 
1336. 

1339. 


1341. 


1342. 


1343. 


1346. 
1344. 


1355. 


Page 

Defeat  of  the  English  Troops    338 

The  Lord  Justice  summons  to 
his  aid  the  Earl  of  Des- 
mond        ....    338 

Desmond  takes  the  Field 
against  the  Insurgents         .     338 

Continued  Insurrection  .     339 

Parliament  at  Kilkenny  .     339 

The  Kmg  appointed  the  Earl 
of  Ulster  Lord-Lieutenant        339 

Sir    Anthony    Lacy  sent   over 

as  Lord  Justice  .     339 

Severe  Measures  of  the  New 
Lord  Justice       ,         .         .     339 

Arrest  of  Lord  Henry  Mande- 
ville  and  the  Earl  of  Des- 
mond ....     340 

Arrest  and  Execution  of  Lord 
William  Bermingham  .     340 

The   King   an    nounces     his 

Intention  of  visiting  Ireland, 
his  real  Purpose,  however, 
being  an  Expedition  to  Scot- 
land ....     340' 

Murder  of  William  De  Burgh, 
the  third  Earl  of  Ulster       .     341 

Release  of  the  Earl  of  Des- 
mond ....    341 

Victory  gained  by  the  English 
over  the  natives  in  Con- 
naught        ....     342 

The  Earl  of  Desmond  attacks 
and  defeats  the  Insurgents 
of  Kerry     ....     342 

The  Earl  of  Kildare  attacks 
the  Insurgents  of  Leinster     342 

Roger  Outlaw  holds  the  Office 
of  Chief  Governor  for  the 
fourth  Time,  and  dies  the 
following  Year  .         .     342 

Arrival  of  the  new  Lord 
Justice,  Sir  John  Darcy      .     342 

Arbitrary  Measures  of  the 
English  Government  .     342 

A  Parliament  summoned  to 
meet  at  Dublin  .         .     343 

The  Earl  of  Desmond  and  his 
party  refuse  to  attend  it     .     343 
Convention  at  Kilkenny,  and 
Petition  to  the  King  .     343 

Sir  Ralph  appointed  Lord  Jus- 
tice ;  rigorous  Measures 
adopted  by  him  towards  Des- 
mond ....     344 

Arrest  of  the  Earl  of  Kildare      345 

Death  of  Ufford      .         .         .    34.5 

Renewal  of  Hostilities  with 
France       ....     345 

Tranquil  State  of  Ireland       .     345 

Desmond  appointed  to  the  Go- 
vernment of  Ireland    .         .     346 

His  Death     ....    346 


XVlll 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


A.  D.  Page 

Is  succeeded  by  Sir  Thomas 
Rokeby        .  .  .346 

Law  Retbrms  .  .     346 

Administration  of  the  Earl  of 
Ormond       .  .  .346 

136L  The  King  sends  his  Son,  Lio- 
nel Duke  of  Clarence,  as 
Deputy  to  Ireland  .  .     346 

Measures  for  the  defence  of 
Ireland        .  .  .346 

The  Duke  marches  against  the 
Insurgents  of  Munster         .    347 
1364.  He  returns  to  England  .     347 

1367.  Is  twice  again  appointed  to  the 

Office  .  .  .347 

Parliament  at  Kilkenny  .     347 

The  Statute  of  Kilkenny         .     347 

The  Duke  of  Clarence  returns 
to  England  .  .    347 

Is  succeeded  by  the  Earl  of 
Desmond     .  .  .    348 

1369.  Sir  William  de  Windsor  ap- 
pointed to  the  Government     348 

Disturbances  in  Lemster  and 
Limerick     .  .  .     348 

Arbitrary  Conduct  of  the  new 
Governor     .  .  .    348 

Order  issued  to  Absentees       .     349 
1376.  James,  second  Earl  of  Ormond 

appointed  Lord  Justice        .    349 

Struggles  between  the  Civil 
and  Ecclesiastical  Judica- 
tures .  .  349 

Foundation  of  Dublin  Univer- 
sity .  .  .     350 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

Richard  II. 

1377.  A  Council  of  Regency  chosen 
during  the  young  King's 
Minority     .  .  .352 

1379.  Ordinance  against  Absentee* 

ism  .  .  .    352 

1380.  Edmund     Mortimer   Earl    of 

March,  Son  of  the  Duke  of 
Clarence,  sent  to  Ireland  as 
Lord-Lieutenant     .  .     353 

1381.  His  Death ;  is  succeeded  by 

John  Col  ton,  and  afterwards 
by  Roger  Earl  of  March,  Son 
of  the  former  Lord-Lieute- 
nant .  .  .    353 

1383.  The  Desire  of  the  Regency  to 
reform  the  Affairs  of  Ireland 
frustrated  by  the  new  Lord 
Justice,  Philip  deCourtenay     354 

1385.  The  King's  Favourite,  Robert 
de  Vcre,   created,  succes- 


A.  D.  Page 

sively.  Marquess  of  Ireland 
and  Duke  of  Dublin  .     354 

Is  invested  by  the  King  with 

tlie  Sovereignty  of  Ireland     354 
His  Death  at  Louvain  .     354 

1389.  The  great  Northern  Chieftain, 
O'Neill,  sends  in  his  Sub- 
mission to  the  Government    354 

1393.  The  King  resolves  to  conduct 

an  Expedition  into  Ireland  .     354 

1394.  Lands  with  his  Army  at  Wa- 

terford         .  .  .355 

Panic  of  the  Natives  .  .     355 

Submission    of    O'Neill    and 

other  Chiefs  .  .     355 

Tiie  King  entertains  them  in 

Dublin         .  .  .356 

1394,  Richard's  projected  Reforms  .     357 

1395.  Urijent  Reasons  for  his  Return 

to  England  .  .     357 

He  leaves  the  Earl  of  March  as 

his  Lieutenant         .  .     357 

Revolt  of  the  Native  Chieftains     358 
Death  of  the  Earl  of  March  in 
a  Conflict  with  the  Natives    358 
1398.    The  Duke  of  Surrey  sent  over 

as  Lord-Lieutenant  .     358 

The  King  resolves  on  another 
Expedition   to  Ireland,  and 
appoints  the  Duke  of  York 
Regent  in  his  Absence        .     358 
He  marches  against  Mac  Mo- 
rough  .  .  .     359 
Difficulties  of  the  Royal  Army    359 
Returns  towards  Dublin  .     360 
Meeting  between  the  Earl  of 
Gloucester    and    Mac   Mo- 
rough  who  refuses  to  submit     360 
The    King    receives    Intelli- 
gence of  the  landing  of  Hen- 
ry of  Bolingbroke  Duke  of 
Lancaster  .            .            .     361 
He  embarks  for  Milford  Haven    361 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 
Henry  IV. 

Struggle  between  the  Houses 

of  York  and  Lancaster        .     362 
Invasion  of  Scotland  by  Henry     362 

1400.  Ireland  attacked  by  the  Scots     362 

1401.  The   King  appoints  his   Son 

Lord-Lieutenant     .  .     362 

1402.  The  Mayor  of  Dublin  marches 

against  and  defeats  the  In- 
surgents of  Wicklow  .     363 
Murder  of  the  Sheriff  of  Louth    363 
The  Right  of  the  Sword  con- 
ferred on  the  Corporation  of 
Dublin        .            .  -363 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


XIX 


1404. 


1406. 
1407. 


1408. 


1409. 


1413. 


1414. 


1417. 


1419. 


1421. 


The  Lord-Lieutenant  returns 
to  England,  leaving  as  De- 
puty Sir  Stephen  Scroope, 
who  afterwards  resigns  the 
Office  to  the  Earl  of  Ormond 

Infraction  of  the  Truce  be- 
tween England  and  Scot- 
land 

Parliament  held  at  Trim 

A  Force  despatched  against 
Mac  Moniugh 

His  gallant  Resistance  and  De- 
feat 

The  Duke  of  Lancaster  again 
appointed    Lord-Lieutenant 

Causes  the  Arrest  of  the  Earl 
ofKildare 

Is  wounded  in  an  Affray 

Summons  a  Parliament  at  Kil- 
kenny 

Returns  to  England,  leaving 
his  Brother,  the  Prior  of  Kil- 
mainham,  his  Successor 

Death  of  Henry 

State  of  Ireland 

Restrictions  on  the  native 
Irish 

CHAPTER  XL. 

Henry  V. 

Thomas  Cranley,  Archbishop 
of  Dublin,  Lord  Deputy 

Continued  Hostilities  between 
the  English  and  the  Natives 

Sir  Thomas  Talbot  elected 
Lord-Lieutenant 

Makes  a  martial  Circuit  round 
the  Borders  of  the  Pale 

Reduces  to  Submission  a  great 
Number  of  the  Irish  Chiefs 

Measures  for  the  Defence  of 
Ireland 

Petition  addressed  to  the  En- 
glish Parliament 

The  King  summons  a  Body  of 
native  Irish  to  join  his 
Standard  in  Normandy 

Their  gallant  Conduct  under 
the  Prior  of  Kilmainham     . 

Laws  against  Absentees 

Mac  Morough  taken  Prisoner 
and  committed  to  the  Tower 

The  Lord-Lieutenant  sum- 
moned to  England   . 

James  Earl  of  Ormond  re- 
ceives the  Appointment 

Impeachment  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Cashel 

Petition  of  Grievances  to  the 
King  ... 


Page     A.  D. 


36.3 


363 
363 

364 

364 

364 

364 
364 

364 


364 
364 
36.5 

366 


367 
367 
367 
367 
367 
368 
368 

368 

368 
368 

368 

369 

369 

369 

369 


1422. 


1423. 

1438. 

1439. 

1441. 
1442. 

1446. 
1449. 


14.50. 
145.5. 

1460. 


Conflicts  between  the  English 
and  Natives 

CHAPTER  XLL 
Henry  VI. 

Alliances  by  Marriage  and 
otherwise  between  the  two 
Races 

The  Customs  of  Gossifred  and 
Fostering    . 

The  Earl  of  March  appointed 
Lord- Lieutenant 

His  Death 

Lord  Talbot  Appointed  his 
Successor    . 

Frequent  Appointment  of  Go- 
vernors during  the  next  ten 
Years 

Severe  Measures  against  Ab- 
sentees 

Desmond's  romantic  Marriage 

Is  forcibly  expelled  from  his 
States 

Large  Grants  to  his  Succes- 
sor ... 

Decline  of  the  King's  Govern- 
ment in  Ireland 

"Articles"  of  Accusation 
against  the  Earl  of  Ormond 

He  is  appointed  Lord-Lieute- 
nant 

Extensive  Grants  bestowed  on 
Desmond     . 

Renewal  of  the  Charges 
against  Ormond 

Retires  from  the  Lord-Lieute- 
nancy, and  is  succeeded  by 
John  Talbot,  Earl  of  Shrews- 
bury 

Richard  Duke  of  York  appoint- 
ed Viceroy 

Committal  of  Ormond  to  the 
Tower 

Intended  Duel  between  Or- 
mond  and  the  Prior  of  Kil- 
mainham 

Reduction  of  the  English 
Power 

Wise  Policy  of  the  Duke  of 
York 

Cade's  Rebellion 

The  Duke  of  York  proceeds  to 
Eno-land 

The  Battle  of  St.  Albans 

The  Defeat  of  the  Yorkists  at 
Blore  Heath 

The  Duke  of  York  takes  Re- 
fuge in  Ireland 

His  Conference  with  War- 
wick at  Dublin 


Page 
370 


371 

372 

372 
372 

373 

373 

373 
373 

373 

373 

374 
374 
374 
374 
375 

376 
376 
376 

376 

377 

377 
377 

377 

378 

378 
378 
378 


XX 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


A-  »•  Page 

Makes  his  public  Entry  into 
London       .  .  ,378 

Is  defeated  and  slain  at  Wake- 
field .  .  .378 

Liberal  Conduct  of  this  Prince    379 


,€HAPTER  XLII. 

EWDARD    IV, 

Reduced  State  of  the  English 
Power         .  .  .379 

Predatory  Inroads  of  the  Na- 
tives .  .  .     380 

■The  Duke  of  Clarence  appoint- 
ed Lieutenant  for  Life         .     380 
1463.    The  Earl  of  Desmond  his  De- 
puty .  .  .380 

Lavish  Grants  to  Desmond      .     380 

The  College  of  Youghall 
founded  and  endowed  by 
Desmond     .  .  .     381 

Establishment  of  a  University 
at  Drogheda  .  .     381 

Desmond  is  succeeded  as  De- 
puty by  Lord   Worcester     .     381 

Worcester's  Hostility  towards 
Desmond     .  ,  .     381 

1467.  Charge    of  Treason    against 

Desmond     .  .  .381 

His  Execution  .  .     382 

1468.  The  Earl  of  Kildare  appointed 

Deputy        .  .  .382 

1472.    Institution  of  the  Brotherhood 

of  St.  George  .  .     382 

1476.    The  Earl  of  Ormond  restored 

to  Favour    .  .  .382 

Gerald,  eighth  Earl  of  Kildare, 

appointed  Lord   Deputy      .     382 
Marriage   of  his  Sister    with 
Con  O'Neill  .  .     383 

1478-  Death  of  the  DukeofClarence, 
1483.        and  Appointment  of  Richard 
Duke  of  York  to  the  Office 
of  Lord-Lieutenant .  .     .383 

Low  State  of  the  Irish  Revenue    383 


CHAPTER  XLIIL 

Edward  V.  and  Richard  IM. 

1483.    The  Geraklines  in  Power       .  383 
Parliament  in  Dublin              .  383 
Enactment  passed  at  this  Par- 
liament      .             .             .  383 
Battle  of  Bosworth  and  Death 
of  Richard  III.         .             .  .3^13 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 
Henry  VII. 

A.  D.  Page 

Policy  of  Henry         .  .     384 

Strength  of  the  Yorkists  in 
Ireland        .  .  .     3a4 

1485.  The   Family  of  Ormond   re- 

stored to  Favour     .  .     385 

1486.  The  Earl  of  Kildare  suspected 

by  the  King  .  .     385 

Henry's  Cruelty  towards   the 

young  Earl  of  Warwick     .     385 
The  Sminel  Plot        .  .     386 

Movements  in  his  favour  .  386 
Arrival  in  Dublin  of  Martin 
Swartz  with  a  Body  of  Ger- 
man Troops,  accompanied 
by  the  Earls  of  Lincoln  and 
Level  1  .  .  .386 

Simnel  crowned  at  Dublin  by 

the  Bishop  of  Meath  .     387 

The   Anglo-Irish  Leaders  re- 
solve to  invade  England      .     387 
Defeat  of  the  Invaders  at  Stoke, 

by  Henry    .  .  .     387 

Simnel  made  Prisoner  and 
transferred  to  the  Royal 
Kitchen       .  .  .387 

The  King  rewards  the  Loyalty 

ofWaterford  .  .     388 

He  pardons  Kildare     .  .     388 

Henry's  mistaken  Policy  to- 
wards Ireland  .  .     388 

1488.  Sir    Richard     Edgecomb    or- 

dered to  repair  to  Ireland 
to  receive  the  Allegiance  of 
the  People  .  .  .389 

Kildare  absolved         .  .     390 

1489.  Henry  summons  the  Lords  of 

the    Pale    to  meet  him  at 

Greenwich  .  .     390 

Murder  of  the  ninth  Earl  of 

Desmond     .  .  .     391 

Wars  of  his   Successor  with 

the  Irish      .  .  .391 

Hostilities   between   O  Neill 

and  O'Donnell         .  .     391 

1490.  Appearance  of  another  Impos- 

tor, Perkin  Warbeck  .     391 

1492.  Dismissal  of  the  Earl  of  Kil- 
dare from  the  Office  of  De- 
puty, and  his  father-in-law 
from  that  of  High  Treasurer    392 

Walter  Fitz  Symons  made 
Deputy        .  .  .392 

The  Duchess  of  Burgundy 
sends  for  Warbeck  to  Ire- 
land .  .  .     392 

Warbeck  invited  to  the  French 
Court  .  .  .    392 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


XXI 


A*     XT* 

Withdraws  himself  privately 

to  Flanders 
The  Earl  of  Kildare  in  Di 

grace 

1494.  Sir  Edward  Poynings  sent  to 

Ireland  as  Deputy  . 
His  Expedition  into  Ulster 
Kildare  suspected  of  Disloyal 

ty    . 
Parliament  at  Drogheda 
Poynings'  Act 
Other  Acts  passed  in  this  par 

liament 
"  Great  Treaty  of  Commerce" 

between    England   and   the 

Netherlands 

1495.  Warbeck  visits   tlie    Scottish 

Court 
Marries  the  Daughter  of  the 

Earl  of  Huntley 
O'Donnell's  Visit  to  Scotland 

1496.  Arrest  of  Kildare 

His  Committal  to  England  and 
Examination 

Is  acquitted  and  made  Lieu- 
tenant 

1497.  Warbeck  again  visits  Ireland 
Is  joined  by  the  Earl  of  Des- 
mond 

Their  unsuccessful  Expedition 

against  Walerford  . 
Warwick  escapes  to  Cornwall 
His  Execution  at  Tyburn 
Warfare     among    the     Irish 

Chiefs 
Kildare's  Successes 
Confederacy  among  the  Chiefs 
1504.    Battle  of  Knoc-tuadh  and  De 

feat  of  the  Rebels    . 
Kildare  receives  the  Honour  of 

Knighthood 

CHAPTER  XLV. 


I'ago 

892 

398 

898 
893 

393 
894 
394 

394 

895 

395 

395 
895 
896 

896 

896 
896 

896 

896 
897 

897 

397 
397 
397 

397 

398 


Henry  VIII. 


1509. 


Kildare  continued    Chief  Go- 
vernor .  .  .     398 
Success  of  his  Arms   .            .     398 

1513.  His  Death      .  .  .899 
Is  succeeded  by  his  Son  Gerald     399 

1514.  Military  Exploits  of  the  new 

Governor     .  .  .     399 

1516.    Is  summoned  to  England  for 

Maladministration  .  .     400 

1519,  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Sur- 
rey, appointed  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant .  .  .  400 
Secret  Designs  against  Kil- 
dare .  .  .400 
Violent  proceedings  of  Des- 
mond                       .  .     400 


A.  B.  Page 

Dissensions  between  Desmond 
and  Ormond  .  .     401 

Surrey  effects  a  Reconciliation 
between  them         •  .     401 

His  ill  Success  in  governing 
Ireland        .  .  .401 

1521.    Returns  to  England    .  .     401 

League  between  the  Scots  and 
Natives       .  .  .401 

Ormond  receives  the  Appoint- 
ment of  Lord  Deputy  .     402 
1.524.    Is  supplanted  by  Kildare         .     402 

Desmond  enters  into  a  Treaty 
with  tlie  Kmg  of  France     .     402 
1.526.    Impeachment  of  Kildare         .     402 

Is  committed  to  the  Tower 
and  afterwards  released       .     403 

Richard    Nugent,    Baron     of 
Delvin,  the  new  Lord  Deputy     403 
1528.    Daring  Act  of  O'Connor,  who 
takes  Prisoner  the  Lord  De- 
puty .  .  .     403 

Feuds  among  the  English       .     403 

The  Duke  of  Norfolk's  (late 
Earl  of  Surrey)  Opinions 
respecting  Ireland    .  .     404 

1.530.    The  Duke  of  Richmond   ap- 
pointed Lord-Lieutenant    .     404 

Triumph  of  Kildare    .  .     404 

Sir  William  Skcffington  Lord 
Deputy         .  .  .     405 

1.532.  Removal   of  Skeffington  and 

Appointment  of  Kildare  in 
his  Place     .             .             .405 
Allies  himself  to  O'Connor  and 
O'Carrol,  Enemies  of  Eng- 
land            ,             .             .  405 

1.533.  Is  seriously  wounded  .  40.5 
Combination  affainst  him         .  40.5 

1.534.  Kildare  summoned  to  England  406 
Report  on  the  State  of  Ireland  406 
Encroachment  of  the  O'Brians  406 
Condition  of  the  Country  .  407 
Rebellion  of  Lord  Thomas  Fitz 

Gerald,  Vice  Deputy  .     407 

Dublin  Castle  besieged  .     408 

Archbishop  Allen   barbarously 

murdered    .  .  .     408 

Fitz  Gerald  invades  the  Terri- 
tory of  the  Earl  of  Ossory  408 
Endeavours,  without   Success 

to  induce  Ossory  to  join  him  408 
Truce    with   the  Citizens    of 

Dublin         .  .  .409 

Sentence  of  Excommunication 

passed  against  Fitz  Gerald  410 
Death  of  Kildare  in  the  Tower  410 
Outrages  committed   by  Fitz- 

Gerald         .  .  .410 

Applies  for    Aid  to    Foreign 

Powers        .  .  .     410 


XXll 


ANALYTICAL    AND    CHRONOLOGICAL    TABLE. 


A.  n.  Page 

1535.  Sir  William  SkefBngton  lays 

siege  to  Maynooth  .  .     411 

Surrender  of  the  Castle  .     411 

Fitz  Gerald  takes  refuge  with 

O'Brien       .  .  .412 

Inactivity  of  the  English  Go- 
vernment .  .  .  412 
Sir  John  Saintclow  appointed 

Marshal  of  the  Army  .     412 

Feuds  among  the  Chiefs  .     412 

Destructive  Effects  of  the  War  413 
Arrival  of  Lord  Leonard  Gray 

to  conduct  the  War  .     413 

Sir       William       SkefEngton 

marches  against  Offaley  .  414 
O'Connor  surrenders  .  .     414 

Submission  of  O'Connor  who 

is  sent  prisoner  to  England  414 
His  Execution  together  with 

his  five  Uncles        .  .     414 

The  Destruction  of  O'Brian's 

Bridge         .  .  .     414 

1536.  Rumoured    Return    of    Lord 

Thomas  Fitz  Gerald  .     415 

1537.  Expedition  of  the  Lord  Deputy 

into  Offaley,  and  Expulsion 
of  Brian  O'Connor  .  .     415 

That    Territory  bestowed  on 

the  Chief's  Brother  .     415 

The  CastleofDengen  besieged     415 
Conduct  of  the   Brothers         .     415 
Parley  between  the  Lord  De- 
puty and  O'Connor  .  .     416 
Gerald  Fitz  Gerald,  the  Bro- 
ther of  Lord  Thomas           .     416 

1538.  The  Aid  of  the  Scottish  Mo- 

narch solicited  in  his  favour     417 

Marriage   of   Gerald's    Aunt, 

Lady  Eleanor,  to  O'Donnell     417 

Lord  Gray's  military  Progress 
through  the  Kingdom  .     417 

Charges  against  him  .  .     417 

League  between  Desmond 
and  O'Brian  .  .     417 

Unworthy  Submission  to  Des- 
mond .  .  •     418 

Contest  between  Desmond  and 
Fitz  Maurice  for  Right  of 
Inheritance  .  .     418 

Countenance  afforded  by  Des- 
mond to  young  Fitz  Gerald     418 

Lord  Gray  suspected  of  favour- 
ing Gerald  .  .  .     418 

Religious  Differences  .     519 

Supposed  League  of  the  Scot- 
tish Court  with  the  Irish 
Chief  .  .  .419 

Expulsion  of  the  Scotch  Re- 
fugees        .  •  .     419 

The  Goraldine  League  .     420 

Expedition  into  Munster  under 
the  Cominand  of  the   Lord 


A.  D.  Page 
Deputy  and  the  Earl  of  Or- 
mond            .             .            .420 

Submission  of  the  Geraldines  420 

Defiance  of  Desmond  .             .  421 

"  The  Battle  of  Bellahoe  "      .  421 

Escape  of  Gerald  into  France  421 

His  subsequent  Adventures     .  421 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 
Henry  VIII.  (Continued.) 

Progress  of  the  Reformation  in 
England      .  .  .422 

Henry's  Differences  with  the 
Pope  .  .  .     423 

Fate  of  Sir  Thomas  More      .    423 

Henry's  Cruelty  .  .     423 

1.5.39.    The  act  for  abolishing  Diver- 
sity of  Opinions       .  .     424 

The  Reformation  in  Ireland    .     424 

Opposed  by  Archbishop  Cro- 
mer .  .  .    424 

Supported  by  Archbishop 
Browne       .  .  .     425 

Parliament  in  Ireland  .     425 

Opposition  of  the  Proctors  to 
the  Act  of  Supremacy         .     42-5 

Traffic  in  spiritual   Patronage     425 
Continued  Opposition  of  the 
Proctors      .  .  .     425 

Bill  for  their  Expulsion  from 
Parliament.  .  .    426 

Character  of  Archbishop 
Brosvne       .  .  .     426 

Henry's  Letter  to  him  .     426 

Differences  between  Browne 
and  Lord  Gray         .  .     426 

Attachment  of  official  and 
other  Persons  to  the  ancient 
Faith  .  .  .426 

Comparative  Tranquillity  of 
Ireland        .  .  .     427 

Two  Archbishops  and  eight 
Bishops  take  the  Oath  of 
Supremacy  .  .     427 

Act  for  the  Suppression  of  re- 
ligious Houses         .  .    428 

Urgent  request  of  Archbishop 
Browne  for  a  Share  of  the 
religious  Plunder    .  .     428 

Silence  of  the  Clergy.  .     428 

1540.    Lord  Gray  returns  to  England     429 

Differences  between  Ormond 
and  the  late  Deputy  .     429 

Fresh  Indications  of  Revolt     .     429 

Peace  concluded  with  O'Niell     430 

General  Muster  of  the  Irish  at 
Fowre         .  .  .    430 

Mutual  Concessions    .  .     430 

Desmond  supposed  to  submit  ,     430 

Murder  committed  by  his  Bro- 
ther .  .  .430 


ANALYTICAL  AND  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


XXIU 


A.  r.  Page 

Ormond  endeavours  to  conci- 
liate Desmond         .  .     430 

Sir  Anthony  Sentleger,  Lord 
Deputy        .  .  .431 

Peaceful  Disposition  of  the  na- 
tive Chiefs  .  .     431 

Submission  of  Mac  Morough  .     431 

O'Connor  at  first  refractory, 
at  length  submits    .  .     431 

1541.    Parliament  held  .  .     432 

Proclamation  for  a  general 
Pardon        .  .  .     432 

Chivalrous  Conduct  of  Tirlogh 
O'Toole      .  .  .432 

Submission  of  Desmond  .     432 

Meeting  of  the  Lord  Deputy 
with  O'Brian  .  .     433 

Parliament  at  Dublin  attended 
by  the  Irish  Chiefs  .     433 

An  Act  passed  conferring  on 
Henry  the  Title  of  Kmg  of 
Ireland        .  .  .433 

Execution  of  Lord  Leonard 
Gray  .  ,  .    433 

Kindness  of  the  King  to  Des- 
mond and  other  Chiefs        .     434 


A.  D.  Page 

Arrest  of  Lord  Roche  and  the 
White  Knight        .  .     434 

1542.  Submission     of    O'Neill    and 

O'Donnell  .  .  .434 

Titles    bestowed    on   O'Neill 

and  other  Chiefs     .  .     435 

Description     of     O'Connell's 

Dress  .  .  .435 

1543.  Particulars  of  the  Anglo-Irish 

Peerage      .  .  .     435 

Want  of  Money  in  Ireland      .     436 
Wise  Policy  of  Henry's  Go- 
vernment   .  .  .     436 

1544.  Preparations  for  the  Campaign 

in  France  .  .  .     437 

Irish     Troops     employed     in 

France         .  .  .     437 

Their  Bravery  at  the  Siege  of 

Boulogne    .  .  .     437 

1545.  Expedition    against    Scotland 

under  Lord  Lennox  .    437 

Rumours  of  the  Return  of  Ger- 
ald Fitz  Gerald        .  .     437 
The  Squadron  sails  under  the 
Command    of  Lennox  and 
Ormond       .            .       "     .    437 


HISTORY     OF     IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  I. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  IRISH  PEOPLE. EARLY  NOTICES  OF  IRELAND. 

There  appears  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  first  inhabitants  of  Ireland  were  derived  from  the 
same  Celtic  stock  which  supplied  Gaul,  Britain,  and  Spain  with  their  original  population. 
Her  language,  the  numerous  monuments  she  still  retains  of  that  most  ancient  superstition 
which  the  first  tribes  who  poured  from  Asia  into  Europe  are  known  to  have  carried  with 
them  wherever  they  went,  sufficiently  attest  the  true  origin  of  her  people.  Whatever 
obscurity  may  hang  round  the  history  of  the  tribes  that  followed  this  first  Eastern  swarm, 
and  however  opinions  may  still  vary,  as  to  whether  they  were  of  the  same,  or  of  a  difFe- 
rentrace,it  seems,  at  least,  certain,  that  the  Celts  were  the  first  inhabitants  of  the  western 
parts  of  Europe ;  and  that,  of  the  language  of  this  most  ancient  people,  the  purest  diale&t 
now  existing  is  the  Irish. 

It  might  be  concluded,  from  the  near  neighbourhood  of  the  two  islands  to  each  other, 
that  the  fortunes  of  Britain  and  Ireland  would,  in  those  times,  be  similar;  that,  in  the 
various  changes  and  mixtures  to  which  population  was  then  subject,  from  the  successive 
incursions  of  new  tribes  from  the  East,  sucli  vicissitudes  would  be  shared  in  common  by 
the  two  islands,  and  the  same  flux  and  reflux  of  population  be  felt  on  both  their  shores. 
Such  an  assumption,  however,  would,  even  as  to  earlier  times,  be  rash ;  and,  how 
little  founded  it  is,  as  a  general  conclusion,  appears  from  the  historical  fact,  that  the 
Romans  continued  in  military  possession  of  Britain  for  near  four  hundred  years,  without 
a  single  Roman,  during  that  whole  period,  having  been  known  to  set  foot  on  Irish 
ground. 

The  system  of  Whitaker  and  others,  who,  from  the  proximity  of  the  two  islands,  assume 
that  the  population  of  Ireland  must  have  been  all  derived  from  Britain,  is  wholly  at 
variance,  not  merely  with  probability,  but  with  actual  evidence.  That,  in  the  general 
and  compulsory  movement  of  the  Celtic  tribes  towards  the  west,  an  island,  like  Ireland, 
within  easy  reach  both  of  Spain  and  Gaul,  should  have  been  left  unoccupied  during  the 
long  interval  it  roust  have  required  to  stock  England  with  inhabitants,  seems,  to  the  highest 
degree,  improbable.  But  there  exists,  independently  of  this  consideration,  strong  evidence 
of  an  early  intercourse  between  Spain  and  Ireland,  in  the  historical  traditions  of  the  two 
countries,  in  the  names  of  the  different  Spanish  tribes  assigned  to  the  latter  by  Ptolemy, 
and,  still  more,  in  the  sort  of  notoriety  Vvhich  Ireland  early,  as  we  shall  see,  acquired,  and 
which  could  only  have  arisen  out  of  her  connexion  with  those  Phoenician  colonies, 
through  whom  alone  a  secluded  island  of  the  Atlantic  could  have  become  so  well  known 
to  the  world. 

At  a  later  period,  when  the  Belgic  Gauls  had  gained  such  a  footing  in  Britain,  as  to 
begin  to  encroach  on  the  original  Celtic  inhabitants,  a  remove  still  farther  to  the  west 
was,  as  usual,  the  resource  of  this  people ;  and  Ireland,  already  occupied  by  a  race  speak- 
ing a  dialect  of  the  same  language,— the  language  common,  at  that  period,  to  all  the 
3 


26  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Celts  of  Europe, — afForded  the  refuge  from  Gothic  invasion*  which  they  required.  It  has 
has  been  shown  clearly,  from  the  names  of  its  mountains  and  rivers, — those  unerring 
memorials  of  an  aboriginal  race, — that  the  first  inhabitants  of  the  country  now  called 
Wales  must  have  been  a  people  whose  language  was  the  same  with  that  of  the  Irish,  as 
the  mountains  and  waters  of  that  noble  country  are  called  by  Irish  names.f  At  what 
time  the  Belgae,  the  chief  progenitors  of  the  English  nation,  began  to  dispossess  the 
original  Celtic  inhabitants,  is  beyond  the  historian's  power  to  ascertain;  as  is  also  the 
question,  whether  those  Belgae  or  Fir-bolgs,  who  are  known  to  have  passed  over  into  Ire- 
land, went  directly  from  Gaul,  or  were  an  offset  of  those  who  invaded  Britain. 

But  however  some  of  the  ingredients  composing  their  population  may  have  become,  in 
the  course  of  time,  common  to  both  countries,  it  appears  most  probable  that  their  primi- 
tive inhabitants  were  derived  from  entirely  different  sources;  and  that,  while  Gaul 
poured  her  Celts  upon  the  shores  of  Britain,  the  population  of  Ireland  was  supplied  from 
the  coasts  of  Celtic  Spain.J  It  is,  at  least,  certain,  that,  between  these  two  latter  coun- 
tries, relations  of  afHnity  had  been,  at  a  very  early  period,  established ;  and  that  those 
western  coasts  of  Spain,  to  which  the  Celtic  tribes  were  driven,  and  where  afterwards 
Phoenician  colonies  established  themselves,  were  the  very  regions  from  whence  this 
communication  with  Ireland  was  maintained. 

The  objections  raised  to  this  supposed  origin  and  intercourse,  on  the  ground  of  the  rude 
state  of  navigation  in  those  days,  are  deserving  of  but  little  attention.  It  was  not  lightly, 
or  without  observation,  such  a  writer  as  Tacitus  asserted,  that  the  first  colonizing  expedi- 
tions were  performed  by  water,  not  by  land  ;5  and  however  his  opinion,  to  its  whole 
extent,  may  be  questioned,  (he  result  of  inquiry  into  the  affinities  of  nations  seems  to 
have  established,  that  at  no  time,  however  remote,  has  the  interposition  of  sea  presented 
much  obstacle  to  the  migratory  dispositions  of  mankind.  The  history,  indeed,  of  the 
Polynesian  races,  and  of  their  common  origin — showing  to  what  an  immense  extent,  over 
the  great  ocean,  even  the  simplest  barbarians  have  found  the  means  of  wafting  the  first 
rudiments  of  a  people|| — should  incline  us  to  regard  with  less  skepticism  those  coasting 
and,  in  general,  land-locked  voyages,  by  which  most  of  the  early  colonization  of  Europe 
was  effected; — at  a  period,  too,  when  the  Phoenicians,  with  far  more  knowledge,  it  is  pro- 
bable, of  the  art  of  navigation,  than  modern  assumption  gives  them  credit  for,  were  to  be 
seen  in  the  Mediterranean,  the  Baltic,  the  Atlantic, — every  where  upon  the  waters. 
With  respect  to  the  facilities  of  early  intercourse  between  Ireland  and  Spain,  the  distance 
from  Cape  Ortegal  to  Cape  Clear,  which  lie  almost  opposite  to  each  other,  north  and 
south,  is  not  more  than  150  leagues, — two  thirds  of  which  distance,  namely,  as  far  as  the 
island  of  Ushant,  might  all  have  been  performed  within  sight  of  land. H  Reserving,  how- 
ever, all  farther  investigation  into  this  point,  till  we  come  to  treat  of  the  different  colo- 
nies of  Ireland,  I  shall  here  endeavour  to  collect  such  information  respecting  her  early 
fortunes  as  the  few,  but  pregnant,  notices  scattered  throughout  antiquity  afford. 

With  one  important  exception,  it  is  from  early  Greek  writers  alone  that  our  first 

*  Without  entering  here  into  the  still  undecided  question,  as  to  whether  the  BelgcC  were  Celts  or  Goths,  I 
shall  merely  observe,  that  tlie  fair  conclusion  from  the  following  passage  of  Csesar  is,  that  this  people  were 
of  a  Gothic  or  Teutonic  descent. 

"  Cum  ab  his  qiiaereret,  qua;  civitates  quantcpque  in  armis  essent,  et  quid  in  bello  possent,  sic  reperiebat; 
plerosque  Belgas  esse  ortos  ab  Germanis;  Rhenumque  antiquitus  Iransductos,  propter  loci  fertilitatem  ibi 
consedisse;  Gallosque,  qui  ea  loca  incolerent,  expuliss(^" — De  Bell.  Gall.  lib.  ii.  c.  4. 

t  Lhuyd's  Preface  to  his  Irish  Dictionary,  in  the  Appendi.\  to  Nicholson's  Historical  Library. — Lhuyd 
extends  his  remark  to  England  as  well  as  Wales.  "  Whoever  lakes  notice,"  he  says,  "  of  a  great  number  of 
the  names  of  the  rivers  and  mountains  throughout  the  king.lom,  will  find  no  reason  to  doubt  but  the  Irish 
must  have  been  the  inhabitants  when  those  names  were  imposed  on  them."  In  other  words,  the  first  inha- 
bitants of  Britain  and  Wales  were  Celts  of  Gael. 

The  author  of  Mona  Antiqua  has,  without  intending  it,  confirmed  the  truth  of  Lhuyd's  remark,  by  stating 
that  the  vestiges  of  old  habitations  still  to  be  seen  on  the  lieaths  and  hills  of  Anglesey,  are  called,  to  this  day, 
Cyttie'r  Gwyddelod,  or  the  Iris-hmen's  Cottages.  These  words,  too,  it  appears  (see  Preface  to  O'Brien's  Irish 
Dictionary,)  "should  more  properly  and  literally  be  rendered  Irishmen's  habitations,  or  seats;  for  the  Irish 
word  Calhair,  of  which  Ceilir  is  a  corruption,  signifies  either  a  city  or  town,  or  habitation." 

X  That  the  Irish  did  not  consider  themselves  as  being  of  Gaulish  origin,  appears  from  their  having  uni- 
formly used  the  word  Gall  to  express  a  foreigner,  or  one  s-peaking  a  different  language. 
§  Nee  terra  olim,  sed  classibiis  advehebantiir,  qui  mutare  sedes  qiia?rebant.— German,  c.  2. 
Il  "  A  comparison  of  their  languages  (those  of  the  Polynesian  races)  has  furnished  a  proof,  that  all  the 
most  remote  insular  nations  of  the  Great  Ocean  derived  their  origin  from  the  same  quarter,  and  are  nearly 
related  to  some  tribes  of  people  inhabiting  a  part  of  the  Indian  continent,  and  the  Isles  of  the  Indian  Archi- 
pelago."—PritcAarrf'*-  Eastern  Origin  of  the  Celtic  JVations. 

Dr.  Rennel,  in  noticing  some  doubts  respecting  the  circumnavigation  of  Africa  by  the  Egyptians,  says 
sensibly,  "Since  so  many  of  these  (ancient)  aiithoritips  concur  in  the  behalf  that  Africa  had  been  sailed 
round,  we  cannot  readily  guess  why  it  should  be  doubted  at  present,  unless  the  moderns  wish  to  appro- 
priate to  themselves  all  the  functions  and  powers  of  nautical  discovery."— On  the  Geographical  System  of 
H/'-rodotus. 

ir  See  Smith's  History  of  Cork,  book,  i.  chap.  i.  According  to  Appian,  the  Spaniards  for  his  lime  used  to 
perform  the  passage  to  Britain,  with  the  tide  in  their  favour,  in  half  a  day.—"  auando  in  Britanniam,  una 
cum  eestu  maris  transvehuntur  qua;  quidem  trajectio  dimidiati  diei  <ist."—Ibcrica. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  27 

glimpses  of  the  British  isles,  in  their  silent  course  through  past  ages,  are  obtained  ;  nor 
was  it  till  a  comparatively  late  period  that  the  Greeks  themselves  became  acquainted 
with  their  existence.  The  jealousy  with  which  the  Phcenicians  contrived  to  conceal 
from  their  Mediterranean  neighbours  these  remote  sources  of  their  wealth,  had  prevented, 
even  in  the  time  of  Homer,  more  than  a  doubtful  and  glimmering  notion  of  a  Sea  of  Isles 
beyond  the  Pillars  from  reaching  the  yet  unexcursive  Greeks.  Enough,  however,  had 
transpired  to  awaken  the  dreams  alike  of  the  poet  and  the  adventurer;  and  while  Homer, 
embellishing  the  vague  tales  which  he  had  caught  up  from  PhcEnician  voyages,*  placed 
in  those  isles  the  abodes  of  the  Pious  and  the  Elysian  fields  of  the  B!est,f  the  thoughts 
of  the  trader  and  speculator  were  not  less  actively  occupied  in  discovering  treasures  with- 
out end  in  the  same  poetic  regions.  Hence  all  those  popular  traditions  of  the  Fortunate 
Islands,  the  Hesperic]es,J  the  Isle  of  Calypso, — creations  called  up  in  these  "  unpathed 
waters,"  and  adopted  into  the  poetry  of  the  Greeks,  before  any  clear  knowledge  of  the 
realities  had  reached  them.  In  the  "  Argonautics,"^  a  poem  written,  it  is  supposed, 
more  than  500  years  before  the  Christian  era,  there  is  a  sort  of  vague  dream  of  the 
Atlantic,  in  which  Ireland  alone,  under  the  Celtic  name  of  lernis,  is  glanced  at,  without 
any  reference  whatever  to  Britain.  It  is  thought,  moreover,  to  have  been  by  special 
information,  direct  from  the  Pha3nicians|J  that  the  poet  acquired  this  knowledge;  as  it 
appears  from  Herodotus,  that  not  even  the  names  of  the  Cassiterides,  or  British  Isles, 
were  known  in  Greece  when  he  wrote;  and  the  single  fact,  that  they  were  the  islands 
from  which  tin  was  imported,  comprised  all  that  the  historian  himself  had  it  in  his  power 
to  tell  of  them. 

The  very  first  mention  that  occurs  of  the  two  chief  British  Isles  is  in  a  worklF  written, 
if  not  by  Aristotle,  by  an  author  contemporary  with  that  philosopher, — the  treatise  in 
question  having  been  dedicated  to  Alexander  the  Great.  The  length  of  time,  indeed, 
during  which  the  monopoly  of  the  trade  in  tin  by  the  Phoenicians  was  kept  not  only  invio- 
late, but  secret,  forms  one  of  the*most  striking  marvels  of  ancient  history.  For  although, 
as  far  back  as  about  400  years  before  Herodotus  wrote,  there  had  reached  Homer,  as  we 
have  seen,  some  faint  glimpses  of  an  ocean  to  the  west,  which  his  imagination  had  peo- 
pled with  creations  of  its  own,  it  was  not  till  the  time  of  Aristotle** — near  a  whole  cen- 
tury after — that  the  Massilian  Greeks  had  learned  to  explore  those  western  regions  them- 
selves, and  that,  for  the  first  time,  in  any  writings  that  have  come  down  to  us,  we  find 
the  two  chief  British  islands  mentioned,  in  the  authentic  treatise  just  referred  to,  under 
their  old  Celtic  names  of  Albion  and  lerne. 

It  is  from  a  source,  however,  comparatively  modern — the  geographical  poem  of  Festus 
Avienus — that  our  most  valuable  insight  into  the  fortunes  of  ancient  Ireland  is  derived. 
In  the  separate  expeditions  undertaken  by  Hanno  and  Himilco  beyond  the  Straits,  while 
the  former  sailed  in  a  southern  direction,  the  latter,  shaping  his  course  to  the  north,  along 
the  shores  of  Spain,  (the  old  track  of  Phoenician  voyagers  between  Gades  and  Gallicia,) 
stretched  from  thence  across  the  ocean  to  the  CEstrumnides,  or  Tin  Isles.  Of  this  expe- 
dition, a  record,  or  journal,  such  as  Hanno  has  left  of  his  Periplus,  was  deposited  by 

*  "That  Homer  had  the  opportunities  mentioned,  and  that  he  did  not  neglect  to  improve  ihem,  will  best 
appear  by  considering  what  he  has  really  learned  from  the  Phcenicians.  This  will  be  a  certain  proof  of  his 
having  conversed  with  them." — Blackwell,  Inquiry  into  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Homer,  sect.  11. 

t  'O  Tctvuv  TTotnTH!  Totf  Tosrai/Tctf  o-TpATlx;  iTl  Tit.  la ^(X'T'X  th;  iCjipw?  iTTopyDiai;,  TruvB-jcvo/uiuos  eTe  kiu 
VKovTOV  x.tt.1  T«f  uXKa.?  etfiiTU.;  (ol  yuf  ^otviKi;  ii'uxovv  rouro)  iynLuSit,  tcv  rcev  rjxiooiv  i7r\a.ffi  ^a'f«V  x« 
TO  Hxua-iov  TTiS'toy. — Strabon,  lib.  iii. 

t  Pliitarch.de  Facie  in  Orb.  Lun.— Hesiod.  Theogon. 

§  Written,  it  is  supposed,  by  Onomactitiis,  a  cotempnrary  of  Pisistratiis.  There  appears  to  be  no  good 
reason  for  doubting  the  high  antiquity  of  this  poem.  The  treatise,  in  defence  of  its  authenticity,  by  Ruhn- 
kenius,  who  shows  it  to  have  been  quoted  by  two  ancient  grammarians,  seems  to  have  sft  the  question  at 
rest.  (Epist.  Crit.  2.)  Archbishop  Usher,  in  referring  to  the  mention  of  lerne  in  this  poem  adds,  th.it  "  the 
Romans  themselves  could  not  produce  such  a  tribute  to  their  antiquity:"  (Kcclesiar.  Antiq.  c.  16:)  and  Cam- 
den, to  secure  a  share  of  the  high  honour  for  his  country,  first  supposes  that  a  nameless  island,  described  by 
the  poet,  must  be  Britain  ;  and  then  changes  the  sole  epithet  by  which  it  is  described,  for  one  more  suited  to 
his  purpose  : — "  Quse  necessario  sit  haec  nostra,  AtVKxnv  ^tpa-ov,  id  est,  albicantem  ferram  dixisse  quam  ante 
pauculos  versus  N«o-ov  ■ruiKiiTn-stv,  pro  ?.iVK>ii7(rav,  vocasse  videatur."— Cam^fen,  Britan. 

II  "  Nempe  edoctus  a  Phoetiicibus,  Grsecis  enim  tunc  temporis  hsEC  loca  erant  inaccefsn."—Bockart,  Oeog- 
Sac.  lib.  i.  c.  39.  Tlie  epithet,  Cronian,  applied  by  this  Orphic  poet  to  this  sea  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Hyperboreans,  is,  according  to  Toland,  purely  Irish;  the  word  Croin,  in  that  language,  signifying 
Frozen.  ,   ,       ,         ^^ 

This  circumstance  of  Iieland  having  been  known  to  the  Argonauts,  is  thus  alluded  to  by  a  Dutch  writer 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  Adrian  Junius: 

■'  Ilia  ego  sum  Graiis  olim  glacialis  lernc 
Dicta,  et  Jasoni  puppis  bene  cognita  nautis." 
IT  De  Mundo.  -,  c\  u 

**  The  Athenians  had  already,  in  this  philosopher's  time,  as  he  himself  mentions  (CEconnmic.  1,  2)  t)een 
advised  to  secure  to  themseivefi  the  monopoly  nf  the  Tyrian  market,  by  buying  up  all  the  lead. 


28  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Himilco  in  one  of  the  temples  of  Carthage,  and  still  existed  in  the  fourth  century,  when 
Avienus,  having  access,  as  he  mentions,  to  the  Punic  records,  collected  from  thence  those 
curious  details  which  he  has  preserved  in  his  Iambics,*  and  which  furnish  by  far  the  most 
interesting  glimpse  derived  from  antiquity  of  the  early  condition  of  Ireland.  The  OSstrum- 
nides,  or  Scilly  Islands,  are  described,  in  this  sketch,  as  two  days'  sail  from  the  larger 
Sacred  Island,  inhabited  by  the  Hiberni;  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  latter,  the  island 
of  the  Albiones,  it  is  said,  extends.f  Though  the  description  be  somewhat  obscure,  yet 
the  Celtic  names  of  the  two  great  Islands,  and  their  relative  position,  as  well  to  the 
CEstrumnides  as  to  each  other,  leave  no  doubt  as  to  Britain  and  Ireland  being  the  two 
places  designated.  The  commerce  carried  on  by  the  people  of  Gades  with  the  Tin  Isles 
is  expressly  mentioned  by  the  writer,  who  adds,  that  "the  husbandmen,  or  planters,  of 
Carthage,  as  well  as  her  common  people,  went  to  those  isles," — thus  implying  that  she 
had  established  there  a  permanent  colony. 

In  this  short  but  circumstantial  sketch,  the  features  of  Ireland  are  brought  into  view 
far  more  prominently  than  those  of  Britain.  After  a  description  of  the  hide-covered  boats, 
or  currachs,  in  which  the  inhabitants  of  those  islands  navigated  their  seas,  the  populous- 
nessof  the  isle  of  the  Hiberni,  and  the  turfy  nature  of  its  soil,  are  commemorated.  But 
the  remarkable  fact  contained  in  this  record — itself  of  such  antiquity — is,  that  Ireland 
was  then,  and  had  been  from  ancient  times,  designated  "  The  Sacred  Island."  This  refe- 
rence of  the  date  of  her  early  renown,  to  times  so  remote  as  to  be  in  Himilco's  days 
ancient,  carries  the  imagination,  it  must  be  owned,  far  back  into  the  depths  of  the  past, 
yet  hardly  farther  than  the  steps  of  history  will  be  found  to  accompany  its  flight.  Re- 
specting the  period  of  the  expeditions  of  Hanno  and  Himilco,  the  opinions  of  the  learned 
have  differed  ;  and  by  some  their  date  is  referred  to  so  distant  a  period  as  1000  years 
before  the  Christian  era.J  Combining  the  statement,  however,  of  Pliny,  that  they  took 
place  during  the  most  flourishing  epoch  of  Carthage,^  with  the  internal  evidence  furnished 
by  Hanno's'own  Periplus,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  was,  ift  least,  before  the  reign  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great  that  these  two  memorable  expeditions  occurred.  Those  "ancients," 
therefore,  from  whom  the  fame  of  the  Sacred  Island  had  been  handed  down,  could  have 
been  no  other  than  tiie  Phosnicians  of  Gades,  and  the  Gallician  coasts  of  Spain,  who 
throuo-h  so  many  centuries,  had  reigned  alone  in  those  secluded  seas,  and  were  the  dis- 
pensers of  religion,  as  well  as  of  commerce,  wherever  they  bent  their  course.|| 

At  how  early  a  period  this  remarkable  people  began  to  spread  themselves  over  the 
globe,  the  inscription  legible,  for  many  an  age,  on  the  two  Pillars,  near  the  Fount  of  the 
Magi,  at  Tanglers, — "  We  fly  from  the  face  of  Joshua,  the  robber," — bore  striking  testi- 
mony. IT    Nothing,  ip.deed,  can  mark  more  vividly  the  remote  date  of  even  the  maturity 

*  "  HiPc  nos  ab  imis  Punicorum  annalibus 
I'lolata  longo  tempore  edidinms  tibi." 

Fest.  Jlvicnus,  de  Oris  Maritim. 

It  would  appear  from  this,  that  tJie  records  to  which  Avienus  had  access,  were  written  in  Punic,— a  cir- 
cumstance which,  if  true,  says  Dodwell,  would  aflurd  a  probable  reason  for  the  name  of  Himilco  having  been 
BO  long  unknown  to  the  Greeks  :— "  Ea  causa  satis  verisimilis  esse  potuit  cur  tamdiu  Gra;co3  laieuril  Himilco, 
etiani  eosqui  collega>  meminerint  llannonis:'— Dissert,  de  Peripli  Hannonis  tetate. 

I  "  Ast  hinc  duobus  in  Sacram,  sic  Insulam 
Dixere  prisci,  solibus  cursus  rati  est. 
Hiec  inter  undas  niultum  cespitem  jacit, 
Kamque  late  gens  Hibernoruai  colit. 
Propinqua  rursus  insula  Albionura  patet. 
Tartesiisque  in  terminos  CEstrumniduni 
Negociandi  nios  erat,  Carthaginis 
Etiam  colonis,  et  vulgus  inter  Herculis 
Agilans  columnas  ha;c  adibant  lequora." 

'One  of  the  reasons  assigned  by  Dodwell  for  rejecting  the  Periplus  of  Hanno,  as  a  work  fabricated,  after  his 
death  by  some  Sicilian  Greek,  is  the  occurrence  of  Greek  names  instead  of  Phoenician  for  the  ditterent  places 
mentioned  in  it.  This  objection,  however,  does  not  apply  to  the  account  of  Himilco,  as  reported  by  Avienus, 
in   which  the  old  names  Gadir,    Albion,   and   Hibernia  declare   sufficiently  their  Phoenician   and  Celtic 

**  Speaking  of  the  Argonautics  and  the  record  of  Himilco,  Bishop  Stillingfleet  says,  "  These  are  undoubted 
testimoiueg  of  the  ancient  peopling  of  Ireland,  and  of  far  greater  authority  than  those  domestic  annals  now 
so  much  extolled. — ilntiquUies  cf  the  Brilish.  Churches,  c.  5.  , 

1  Nouscroyons  done,  que  cette  expidition,  a  du  preceder  Hesiode  de  trente  ou  quarante  ans,  et  qu  on 
pent  la  fi.\er  vers  mille  ans  avant  I'ere  Chretienne.— Gfls«*/ijf,  Rcthcrches  sur  la  Ocographie  des  Anciens. 

K  Et  Hanno,  Carthaginis  potentia  florente,  circumvectus  a  Gadibus  ad  tinem  Arabia;,  navigationem 
earn  prodidit  scripto:    sicut  ad  exlera  Europa;  nosccnda  missus  eodem  tempore  liimi\co.—Plin.  JVat.  Hist. 

'  II  See,  for  a  learned  and  luminous  view  of  the  relations  of  ancient  Ireland  with  the  East,  Lord  Rosse's 
Vindication  of  the  V\'ill  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Flood.  ...  r.- 

IT  Procop  Vandal,  lib.  2.  c.  10.— Even  this  is  by  Bishop  Cumberland  considered  too  stinted  a  range  ol  time 
for  their  colonizations.  "  They  seem  to  me,"  he  says.  "  to  have  had  much  more  time  to  make  then;  planta- 
tions than  that  learned  man  (Bochart)  thought  of;  for,  as  I  understand  their  history,  they  had  time  from 
.oboul  Abraham's  death,  which  was  about  370  years  before  Joshua  Invaded  Canaan,  Irom  wnicli  liocudii 
begins."— JVuics  on  the  Synchronism  of  Canaan  and  Kgypt. 


HISTORY  OF  IKELAND.  29 

of  their  empire,  than  the  impressive  fact,  that  the  famed  temple  which  they  raised,  at 
Gades,  to  their  Hercules,  was,  in  the  time  of  the  Romans,  one  of  the  most  memorable 
remains  of  ancient  days.*  Not  to  go  back,  however,  as  far  as  the  period,  little  less  than 
1500  years  before  our  era,  when  their  colonies  first  began  to  swarm  over  the  waters,  we 
need  but  take  their  most  prosperous  epoch,  which  commenced  with  the  reign  of  Solomon, 
and  supposing  their  sails  to  have  then  first  reached  the  Atlantic,  the  date  of  the  pro- 
bable colonization  of  that  region  must  still  be  fixed  high  in  time.  In  the  days  of  Hero- 
dotus, by  whom  first  vaguely,  and  without  any  certain  knowledge  of  a  sea  beyond  the 
Straits,  the  importation  of  tin  from  the  Cassiterides  is  mentioned,  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  assume  that  the  Phoenicians  had,  for  some  time,  formed  a  settlement  in  these  islands. 
That  they  must  have  had  a  factory  here  is  pretty  generally  conceded:!  but  a  people, 
whose  system  it  was  to  make  colonization  the  basis  of  their  power,  were  assuredly  not 
likely  to  have  left  a  position  of  such  immense  commercial  importance  unoccupied  ;  and 
the  policy,  first  taught  by  them  to  trading  nations,  of  extending  the  circle  of  their  cus- 
tomers by  means  of  colonies,  was  shown  in  the  barter,  which  they  thenceforward  main- 
tained with  the  British  Isles — exchanging  their  own  earthen  vessels,  salt,  and  brass,  for 
the  tin,  lead,  and  skins  produced  in  these  islands.^ 

There  are  grounds  for  believing,  also,  that  to  the  Phoenicians,  and  consequently  to  the 
Greeks,  Ireland  was  known,  if  not  earlier,  at  least  more  intimately,  than  Britain.^  We 
have  seen  that,  in  the  ancient  Poem  called  the  "  Argonautics,"  supposed  to  have  been 
written  in  the  time  of  the  Pisistratidae,  and  by  a  poet  instructed,  it  is  thought,  from  Pho3- 
nician  sources,  lerne  alone  is  mentioned,  without  any  allusion  whatever  to  Britain  ;  and 
in  the  record  preserved  by  Himilco's  voyage  to  these  seas,  while  the  characteristic  features 
of  the  Sacred  Isle  are  dwelt  upon  with  some  minuteness,  a  single  line  alone  is  allotted  to 
the  mere  geographical  statement  that  in  her  neighbourhood  the  Island  of  the  Albiones 
extends. 

Another  proof  of  the  earlier  intimacy  which  the  Phoenician  Spaniards  maintained  with 
Ireland,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Geography  of  Ptolemy,  who  wrote  at  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century,  and  derived  chiefly,  it  is  known,  from  Phoenician  authorities,  his  infor- 
mation respecting  these  islands.  For  while,  in  describing  the  places  of  Britain,  more 
especially  of  its  northern  portion,  this  geographer  has  fallen  into  the  grossest  errors, — 
placing  the  Mull  of  Galloway  to  the  north,  and  Cape  Orcas  or  Dunsby  Head  to  the 
east,|| — in  his  account  of  Ireland,  on  the  contrary,  situated  as  she  then  was  beyond  the 
bounds  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  hardly  known  within  that  circle  to  exist,  he  has  shown 
considerable  accuracy,  not  only  with  respect  to  the  shores  and  promontories  of  the  island, 
but  in  most  of  his  details  of  the  interior  of  the  country,  its  various  cities  and  tribes,  lakes, 
rivers,  and  boundaries.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  too,  that  while  of  the  towns  and  places 
of  Britain  he  has  in  general  given  but  the  new  Roman  names,  those  of  Ireland  still  bear 
on  his  map  their  old  Celtic  titles  ;ir  the  city  Hybernis  still  tells  a  tale  of  far  distant  times, 
and  the  Sacred  Promontory,  now  known  by  the  name  of  Carnsore  Point,  transports  our 
imagination  back  to  the  old  Phoenician  days.**  When  it  is  considered  that  Ptolemy,  or 
rather  Marinus  of  Tyre,  the  writer,  whose  steps  he  implicitly  followed,  is  believed  to 

*  Diodor.  Siciil.  lib.  iv. 

t  "During  lliis  commerce,  it  can  scarce  lie  doubted  that  tliere  might  be  establislied,  on  the  different 
coasts,  factories  for  the  greater  convenience  of  trading  with  the  natives  for  skins,  furs  tin,  and  such  other 
commodities  as  the  respective  countries  then  produced."— Beauf or d,  Druidism  Revived,  Collect.  Hib.  No.  VII, 

X  M^T«^^a  J*£  £;^ovtjj  KctTrtripov  kx.i  noAvdS'ou,  KipxitiV  etvrt  toutoiv  k-u  imv  J'lpnot.Tuv  S^iuXXattovthi, 
Ksit  etxctc,  uti  ^aXKoinxTa,  vrpoi  rev;  (uTropou;. — Strah.  Geograph.  lib.  iii. 

§  It  may  appear  inconsistent  with  the  claim  of  Ireland  to  priority  of  reputation,  that  the  whole  of  the 
Cassiterides  were,  in  those  days,  called  the  Britannic  Isles,— a  circumstance  which,  taken  as  implying  that 
the  others  had  derived  their  title  from  Britain,  and  had  so  far  merged  their  reputation  in  hers,  would 
doubtless  indicate  so  far  a  preeminence  on  her  part.  The  name  Britannia,  however,  which,  in  Celtic, 
means  a  land  of  metals,  was  applied  gcnerically  to  the  whole  cluster  of  the  Tin  Isles,— the  Isle  of  Man  and 
those  of  Scilly  included, — and  being,  therefore,  a  title  common  to  all,  could  not  imply,  in  itself,  any  supe- 
riority of  one  over  another.  Whether  tin  has  been  ever  found  in  Ireland  is  doubtful;  but  lead  mines,  which 
were,  at  least,  equally  a  source  of  lucre  to  the  Pliojniciaiis,  have  been,  not  long  since,  discovered  and 
worked. 

II  "  By  an  error  in  the  geographical  or  astronomical  observations  preserved  by  Ptolemy,  the  latitudes  north 
of  this  point  (the  Novantum  Chersonesus,  or  Rens  of  Galloway ,3  appear  to  have  been  mistaken  for  the 
longitudes,  and  consequently  this  part  of  Britain  is  thrown  to  the  east."— J\rotes  on  Richard  of  Cirencester. 

IT  "Ireland  plainly  preserves,  in  her  topography,  a  much  greater  proportion  of  Celtic  names  than  the  map 
of  any  other  country." — Chalmer's  Caledonia,  vol.  i.  hook  i.  chap.  i. 

**  "  In  the  remote  ages  of  Phoenician  commerce,  all  the  western  and  south-western  promontories  of  Europe 
were  consecrated  by  the  erection  of  pillars  or  temples,  and  by  religious  names  of  Celtic  and  prima;val  anti- 
quity: this  is  expressly  stated  by  Strabo.  These  sacred  headlands  multiplied  in  proportion  as  new  discove- 
ries were  made  along  the  zoasls."— Letters  of  Columbanus,  by  O'Connor,  Letter  Third.  The  learned  writer 
adds  in  a  note:— "The  Sacrum  Promontorium,  or  south- western  headland  of  Iberia  Antiqua.  was  Cape  St. 
Vincent.  That  of  Ireland  was  Carne-soir  point,  as  stated  by  Ptolemy."  This  headland  of  Carnsore  would 
be  the  first  to  meet  the  eyes  of  the  Phcenician  navigators  in  their  way  from  Cornwall  to  Ireland, 


30  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

have  founded  his  geographical  descriptions  and  maps  on  an  ancient  Tyrian  Atlas,*  this 
want  of  aboriginal  names  for  the  cities  and  places  of  Britain,  and  their  predominance  in 
the  map  of  Ireland,  prove  how  much  more  anciently  and  intimately  the  latter  island  must 
have  been  known  to  the  geographers  of  Tyre  than  the  former. 

But  even  this  proof  of  her  earlier  intercourse  with  that  people  and  their  colonies,  and 
her  proportionate  advance  in  the  career  of  civilization,  is  hardly  more  strong  than  the 
remarkable  testimony,  to  the  same  effect,  of  Tacitus,  by  whom  it  is  declared  that,  at  the 
time  when  he  wrote,  "  the  waters  and  harbours  of  Ireland  were  better  known,  through 
the  resort  of  commerce  and  navigators,  than  those  of  Britain."f  From  this  it  appears  that, 
though  scarce  heard  of,  till  within  a  short  period,  by  the  Romans,  and  almost  as  strange 
to  the  Greeks,  this  sequestered  island  was  yet  in  possession  of  channels  of  intercourse 
distinct  from  either;  and  that  while  the  Britons,  shut  out  from  the  Continent  by  their 
Roman  masters,  saw  themselves  deprived  of  all  that  profitable  intercourse  which  they 
had  long  maintained  with  the  Venoti,  and  other  people  of  Gaul,  Ireland  still  continued  to 
cultivate  her  old  relations  with  Spain,  and  saw  her  barks  venturing  on  their  accustomed 
course,  between  the  Celtic  Cape  and  the  Sacred  Promontory,  as  they  had  done  for  cen- 
turies before. 

Combining  these  proofs  of  an  early  intercourse  between  Ireland  and  the  Phoenician 
Spaniards,  with  the  title  of  Sacred  bestowed  on  this  island  in  far  distant  times,  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted,  that  her  pre-eminence  in  religion  was  the  chief  source  of  this  dis- 
tinction ;  and  that  she  was,  in  all  probability,  the  chosen  depository  of  the  Phoenician 
worship  in  these  seas.  By  the  epithet  Sacred,  applied  to  a  people  among  the  ancients, 
it  was  always  understood  that  there  belonged  to  them  some  religious  or  sacerdotal  cha- 
racter. In  this  sense  it  was,  that  the  Argippaei,  mentioned  by  Herodotus,];  were  called 
a  Holy  People;  and  the  claim  of  Ireland  to  such  a  designation  was  doubtless  of  the  same 
venerable  kind.  It  has  been  conjectured,  not  without  strong  grounds  of  probability,  that 
it  was  a  part  of  the  policy  of  the  Phoenician  priesthood  to  send  out  missions  to  their  dis- 
tant colonies,  on  much  the  same  plan  as  that  of  the  Jesuits  at  Paraguay,  for  the  purpose 
of  extending  their  spiritual  power  over  those  regions  of  which  their  merchants  had 
possessed  themselves  ;5  and  it  is  by  no  means  unlikely  that  the  title  of  Sacred,  bestowed 
thus  early  upon  Ireland,  may  have  arisen  from  her  having  been  chosen  as  the  chief  seat 
of  such  a  mission. 

The  fact,  that  there  existed  an  island  devoted  to  religious  rites  in  these  regions,  has 
been  intimated  by  almost  all  the  Greek  writers  who  have  treated  of  them;  and  the  posi- 
tion, in  every  instance,  assigned  to  it,  answers  perfectly  to  that  of  Ireland.  By  Plutarch|| 
it  is  stated,  that  an  envoy  despatched  by  the  Emperor  Claudius  to  explore  the  British 
Isles,  found  on  an  island,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Britain,  an  order  of  Magi  accounted 
holy  by  the  people:  and,  in  another  work  of  the  same  writer.lT  some  fabulous  wonders  are 
related  of  an  island  lying  to  the  west  of  Britain,  the  inhabitants  of  which  were  a  holy 
race;  while,  at  the  same  time,  a  connexion  between  them  and  Carthage  is  indistinctly 
intimated.  Diodorus  Siculus  also  gives  an  account,  on  the  authority  of  some  ancient 
writers,  of  an  island**  situated,  as  he  says,  "over  against  Gaul;"  and  which,  from  its 

*  "  Ft  lias  been  shown  by  Bremer  (De  Fonlibns  Gcograplwrum  PloUmin,  S,-c.,)  a  writer  quoted  by  Ileeren, 
"that  Ptolemy's  work  itself,  as  well  as  the  accompanying  charts,  usually  attributed  to  a  certain  Agalho- 
daemon,  wlio  lived  at  Alexandria  in  the  fifth  century,  were,  in  reality,  derived  from  Phoenician  or  Tyrian 
sources; — in  other  words,  that  Ptolemy,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  Marinus  of  Tyre,  who  lived  but  a  short 
time  before  him,  and  whose  work  he  only  corrected,  must  have  founded  his  geographical  descriptions  and 
maps  on  an  ancient  Tyrian  Atlas." — See  Heerev's  Hisiorical  Researches,  vol.  iii.  Append.  C. 

t  "  Melius  aditu-i  portus(iue,  per  coinmercia  et  negociatores,cngniti." — Tacit.  Agricol.  c.  24.  An  attempt  has 
been  made,  by  some  of  the  commentators,  to  deprive  Ireland  of  most  of  the  advantages  of  this  testimony,  by 
the  suggestion  of  a  new  and  barbarous  reading,  which  transfers  the  word  "  melius"  to  the  preceding  sentence, 
and  is  not  less  unjust  to  the  elegant  Latinity  of  the  historian,  than  to  the  ancient  claims  of  the  country  of 
which  he  treats.  It  is,  however,  gratifying  to  observe  that,  in  spite  of  this  effort,  the  old  reading  in  general 
maintains  its  ground;  thouah,  with  a  feeling  but  too  characteristic  of  a  certain  class  of  Irishmen,  Arthur 
Murphy  has,  in  his  translation,  adopted  the  new  one. 

X  Lib.  ii. 

§  "  I  believe  it  will  be  found  that  many  of  their  regular  priests,  the  Magi,  or  Gours,  did  (as  the  regulars  of 
modern  times  and  relieions  have  done)  settle  missions  amongst  the  nations  in  those  most  distant  parts." — 
Wise's  Inquiries  coneerning  the  First  Inhabitants,  Language.  Sfc.  of  Europe.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  too,  as  quoted 
by  Powuall,  says,  "  With  these  Phcenicians  came  a  sort  of  men  skilled  in  religious  mysteries." 

11  In  Numa. 

IT  De  Fac.  in  Orb.  I.una;.  "  Marcellus,  who  wrote  a  history  of  Ethiopian  affairs,  says,  that  such  and  so 
great  an  island  (the  Atalanlis)  once  existed,  is  evinced  by  those  who  composed  histories  of  things  relative 
to  the  external  sea.  For  they  relate  that,  in  those  times,  there  were  seven  islands  in  the  Atlantic  Sea  sacred 
to  Proserpine." — Proclus  on  the  Timwus.  quoted  in  Clarke's  Maritime  Discoveries.' 

See,  for  the  traditions  in  India  respecting  the  White  Island  of  the  West,  Asiastic  Transactions,  vol.  ii. 
"  Hiran'ya  and  Su-varn'eyn  (says  Major  Wilford)  are  obviously  the  same  with  Erin  and  .luvernia.or  Ireland. 
Another  name  for  it  is  Surya  Dwipa,  or  the  Island  of  the  Sun,  and  it  is  probably  the  old  Garden  of  Phcebus 
of  the  western  mytholngists." — Ks.iaij  on  the  Sacred  Isles  in  the  West. 

**  This  island  has  been  claimed  on  the  part  of  several  countries.  The  editor  of  Diodorus,  in  a  short  note 
on  his  Index,  suggests  that  it  may  have  been  meant  for  Britain  :— "  Vide  num  de  Anglia  intelligi  qiieat." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  31 

position  and  size,  the  rites  of  sun-worship  practised  by  its  people,  their  Round  Temple, 
their  study  of  the  heavens,  and  the  skill  of  their  musicians  on  the  harp,  might  sufficiently 
warrant  the  assumption  that  Ireland  was  the  island  so  characterized,  did  not  the  too 
fanciful  colouring  of  the  whole  description  rather  disqualify  it  for  the  purposes  of  sober 
testimony,  and  incline  us  to  rank  this  Hyperborean  island  of  the  historian  along  with  his 
Isle  of  Panchsea  and  other  such  fabulous  marvels.  At  the  same  time,  nothing  is  more 
probable,  than  that  the  vague,  glimmering  knowledge  which  the  Greeks  caught  up  occa- 
sionally from  Phoenician  merchants,  respecting  the  sun-worship  and  science  of  the  Sacred 
Island,  lerne,  should  have  furnished  the  writers  referred  to  by  Diodorus  with  the  ground- 
work of  this  fanciful  tale.  The  size  attributed  to  the  island,  which  is  described  as  "not 
less  than  Sicily,"  is,  among  the  many  coincidences  with  Ireland,  not  the  least  striking; 
and,  with  respect  to  its  position  and  name,  we  find,  that  so  late  as  the  time  of  the  poet 
Claudian,  the  Scotior  Irish  were  represented  as  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the 
Hyperborean  Seas.* 

But  the  fragment  of  antiquity  the  most  valuable  for  the  light  it  throws  upon  this  point, 
is  that  extracted  from  an  ancient  geographer,  by  Strabo,  in  which  we  are  told  of  an 
island  near  Britain,  where  sacrifices  were  offered  to  Ceres  and  Proserpine,  in  the  same 
manner  as  at  Samothrace.f  From  time  immemorial,  the  small  Isle  of  Samothrace,  in 
the  ^gean,  was  a  favourite  seat  of  idolatrous  worship  and  resort;  and  on  its  shores  the 
Cabiric  Mysteries  had  been  established  by  the  Phoenicians.  These  rites  were  dedicated 
to  the  deities  who  presided  over  navigation  ;|  and  it  was  usual  for  mariners  to  slop  at  this 
island  on  their  way  to  distant  seas,  and  offer  up  a  prayer  at  its  shrines  for  propitious  winds 
and  skies.  From  the  words  of  the  geographer  quoted  by  Strabo,  combined  with  all  the 
other  evidence  adduced,  it  may  be  inferred  that  Ireland  had  become  the  Samothrace,  as 
it  were,  of  the  western  seas ;  that  thither  the  ancient  Cabiric  gods  had  been  wafted  by 
the  early  colonizers  of  that  region  ;5  and  that,  as  the  mariner  used  on  his  departure  from 
the  Mediterranean  to  breathe  a  prayer  in  the  Sacred  Island  of  the  East,  so,  in  the  seas 
beyond  the  Pillars,  he  found  another  Sacred  Island,  where  to  the  same  tutelary  deities  of 
the  deep  his  vows  and  thanks  were  offered  on  his  safe  arrival. 

In  addition  to  all  this  confluence  of  evidence  from  high  authentic  sources,  we  have 
likewise  the  traditions  of  Ireland  herself, — pointing  invariably  in  the  same  eastern  direc- 
tion,— her  monuments,  the  names  of  her  promontories  and  hills,  her  old  usages  and  rites, 
all  bearing  indelibly  the  same  oriental  stamp.  In  speaking  of  traditions,  I  mean  not  the 
fables  which  may  in  later  times  have  been  grafted  upon  them;  but  those  old,  popular 
remembrances,  transmitted  from  age  to  age,  which,  in  all  countries,  fiirnish  a  track  for 
the  first  footsteps  of  history,  when  cleared  of  those  idle  weeds  of  fiction  by  which  in  time 
they  become  overgrown. 

According  to  Strabo,  it  was  chiefly  from  Gades  that  the  Phoenicians  fitted  out  their 
expeditions  to  the  British  Isles;  but  the  traditions  of  the  Irish  look  to  Gallicia  as  the 
quarter  from  whence  their  colonies  sailed,  and  vestiges  of  intercourse  between  that  part 
of  Spain  and  Ireland  may  be  traced  far  into  past  times.  The  traditionary  history  of  the 
latter  country  gives  an  account  of  an  ancient  Pharos,  or  light-house,  erected  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  port  now  called  Corunna,  for  the  use  of  navigators  on  their  passage 
between  that  coast  and  Ireland  ;[|  and  the  names  of  the  tribes  marked  by  Ptolemy,  as 

Rowland  insists  it  can  be  no  other  than  his  own  Isle  of  Anglesea ;  while  Toland  fixes  its  site  in  the 
Western  Isles  of  Scotland ;  and  the  great  Swedish  scholar  Rudbeck,  places  it  boldly  in  the  peninsula  of 
Scandinavia. 

*  Scotumque  vago  miicrone  secntus 

Fregit  Hyperboreas  remis  audacibus  undas. 

De  III.  Cons.  Honor,  v.  55. 
Marcianus  Heracleota,  too,  describes  Hibernia  as  bounded  on  the  north  by  the  Hyperborean  Sea. 

t   4«17"/V  itVAl    VH<rOV  Tracer  TM    B^iTTCtVU'rl,  XaQ'    m    OfACtX    TOt;    iV    X'J./U.cB^AKH  Tie^l  TUV    An/jlHrg^V    KM  TUV 

Yiog»\i  K^oTrotitrat,  lib.  iv. 

X  L'ile  de  Samothrace  acquit  une  grande  C(5I(!:bnte  chez  toutes  les  nations  maritimes,  par  la  r6putntioi> 
qu'elle  avoit  d'etre  consacr6es  specialement  aux  Divinites  tulijlaires  des  iiavigateurs.  On  alloit  y  prier  les 
Dieux  d'accorder  des  vents  favourables,  et  soUicitfir  des  apparitions  ou  Epiphanies  des  Dii)scurt;s." — Dupuis, 
Orig.  de  tous  les  Cultes,  torn  iv.  premiere  partie.  See,  for  the  appearance  of  these  twin  stars,  or  fires,  to 
Orpheus  and  his  Argonautic  companions  at  Samothrace,  Diodorus,  lib.  4.  In  some  of  the  old  Irish  tradi- 
tions, those  African  sea-rovers,  called  Fomorians,  who  are  said  to  have  visited  these  shores  in  ancieitS 
times,  are  represented  as  worshipping  certain  stars,  which  had  "derived  a  power  from  the  God  of  the 
Sea."— See  Keating,  p.  87. 

§  "That  the  Atlantian,  or  Cabiric,  superstition  prevailed  in  Ireland,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt." — Rev.  O. 
L.  Fabcr,  On  the  Cabiric  Mysteries,  vol.  ii. 

II  There  is  a  remarkable  coincidence  between  this  tradition  and  an  account  given  by  .(Ethicus,  the  cosmo- 
grapher,  of  a  lofty  Pharos,  or  lighthouse,  standing  formerly  on  the  seacoast  of  Gallicia,  and  serving  as  a 
beacon  in  the  direction  of  Britain  : — "  Secundiis  angulus  intendit,  ubi  Brigantia  Civitas  sita  est  Gallecas,  et 
altissimum  Pharum,  et  inter  pauca  memorandi  operis  ad  speculam  BritannitE."  Whether  the  translation  I 
have  given  of  the  last  three  words  of  this  passage  convey  their  real  meaning,  I  know  not ;  but  they  have 
been  hitherto  pronounced  unintelligible.  The  passage  is  thus  noticed  by  Casaubon,  in  a  note  on  Strabo, 
lib.  3 .— "  .iEthicus  in  Hispaniae  descriptione  altissimi  cujusdam  Fari  meniinit." 


32  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

inhabiting  those  parts  of  the  Irish  coast  facing  Gallicia,  prove  that  there  was  a  large 
infusion  of  Spanish  population  from  that  quarter. 

So  irresistible,  indeed,  is  the  force  of  tradition,  in  favour  of  a  Spanish  colonization, 
that  every  new  propounder  of  an  hypothesis  on  the  subject  is  forced  to  admit  this  event 
as  part  of  his  scheme.  Thus,  Buchanan,  in  supposing  colonies  to  have  passed  from  Gaul 
to  Ireland,  contrives  to  carry  them  first  to  the  west  of  Spain;*  and  the  learned  Welsh 
antiquary,  Lhuyd,  who  traces  the  origin  of  the  Irish  to  two  distinct  sources,  admits  one 
of  those  primitive  sources  to  have  been  Spanish.f  In  the  same  manner,  a  late  writer,J 
who,  on  account  of  the  remarkable  similarity  which  exists  between  his  country's  Round 
Towers  and  the  Pillar-temples  of  Mazanderan,  deduces  the  origin  of  the  Irish  nation  from 
the  banks  of  the  Caspian,  yields  so  far  to  the  current  of  ancient  tradition,  as,  in  con- 
ducting his  colony  from  Iran  to  the  West,  to  give  it  Spain  for  a  resting-place.  Even 
Innes,5  one  of  the  most  acute  of  those  writers  who  have  combated  the  Milesian  preten- 
sions of  the  Irish,  yet  bows  to  the  universal  voice  of  tradition  in  that  country,  which,  as 
he  says,  peremptorily  declares  in  favour  of  a  colonization  from  Spain. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  IRISH  PEOPLE^ 

In  those  parts  of  the  Spanish  coasts  with  which  the  Irish  were  early  conversant,  the 
Ph(Enicians  became  intermixed  with  the  original  race,  or  Celts;  and  it  would  appear, 
from  the  mixed  character  of  her  ancient  religion,  that  Ireland  was  also  peopled  from  the 
same  compound  source. 

The  religion  the  Celts  brought  with  them  to  this  island,  was  the  same,  we  may  take 
for  granted,  with  that  which  their  kindred  tribes  introduced  into  Spain,  Britain,  and  Gaul. 
That  corruption  of  the  primitive  modes  of  adoration  into  which  the  Canaanites  early 
lapsed,  by  converting  into  idols  the  rude  stones  and  pillars  set  up  by  their  fathers  but  as 
sacred  memorials,  and  transferring  to  inanimate  symbols  of  the  Deity  the  veneration  due 
only  to  himself — this  most  ancient  superstition  of  which  the  annals  of  human  faith  bear 
record,  is  still  traceable  in  the  old  traditions  and  monuments  of  Ireland.  The  sacred 
grove  and  well — the  circle  of  erect  stones  surrounding  either  the  altar  or  the  judgment- 
seat — the  unhewn  pillars,  adored,  as  symbols  of  the  Sun,  by  the  Phoenicians — the  sacred 
heaps,  or  Games,  dedicated  to  the  same  primitive  worship — the  tomb-altars,  called  Crom- 
lech, supposed  to  have  been  places  as  well  of  sepulture  as  of  sacrifice — and,  lastly,  those 
horrible  rites  in  which  children  were  the  "burnt  ofl^erings,"  which  the  Jewish  idolaters 
perpetrated  in  a  place  called  from  thence  the  Valley  of  Shrieking,||  while,  in  Ireland,  the 
scene  of  these  frightful  immolations  bore  the  name  of  Magh-Sleacth,  or  the  Place  of 

*  The  opinion  of  Buclianan  on  the  point  will  be  found  worthy  of  attention.  "It  is,"  he  says,  "an 
unvarying  tradition,  and  with  many  marks  of  truth  to  confirm  it,  that  a  multitude  of  Spaniards,  whether 
driven  from  their  homes  by  the  more  powerful  among  their  fellow-countrymen,  or,  on  account  of  the  increase 
of  population,  emigrating  of  themselves,  did  pass  over  into  Ireland,  and  take  possession  of  the  places  neigh- 
bouring to  that  island."  He  adds  farther;  "  It  is  not  probable  that  the  Spaniards,  leaving  Ireland  at  their 
backs, — a  country  nearer  to  them,  and  of  a  milder  temperature, — should  have  landed  first  in  Albyn  ;  but 
rather  that,  first  making  their  descent  on  Hibernia,  they  should  afterwards  have  sent  colonies  to  Britain." — 
Lib.  ii.  c.  17. 

t  Preface  to  his  Glossography.— In  one  of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Rowland,  Lhuyd  says,  in  speaking  of  the  Irish, 
"For,  notwithstanding  their  histories  (as  those  of  the  origin  of  other  nations)  be  involved  in  fabulous 
accounts,  yet  that  there  came  a  Spanish  colony  into  Ireland  is  very  manifest."  O'Brien,  also,  in  the  Pre- 
face to  his  Dictionary,  follows  the  same  views: — "The  fact  of  the  old  Spanish  language  having  been  brought 
very  anciently  into  Ireland  is  not  the  less  certain,  and  that  by  a  colony  of  the  old  Spaniards,  who  co-inha- 
bited with  the  Gadelians." 

I  Popular  History  of  Ireland,  by  Mr.  Whitty,  part  i. 

J  "Since  the  Irish  tradition  will  absolutely  have  the  inhabitants  of  that  country  come  from  Spain." — 
Crilcal  Essay,  vol.  ii.  dissert,  i.  chap.  3.  A  no  less  determined  opponent  of  the  Milesian  history,  though  far 
inferior  to  Innes  in  learning  and  sagacity,  concedes,  also,  on  this  point  to  traditional  authority.  "At  the 
same  time,  still  farther  be  it  from  me  to  deny  my  assent  to  the  tradition  that  a  people,  coming  last  from 
Spain,  did  settle  here  at  a  very  early  period."— CamJeWs  Strictures  on  the  Ecclesiastical  and  Literary  History 
of  Ireland,  sect.  4. 

II  Jeremiah,  vii.  31,  32.  This  valley  was  also  named  Tophet,  from  the  practice  of  beating  the  drums, 
during  tlie  ceremony,  to  drown  the  cries  of  the  children  sacrificed  in  tlie  fire  to  Moloch. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  33 

Slaughlcr,*— of  all  these  known  and  acknowledged  features  of  the  ancient  Celtic  wor- 
ship, of  that  superstition  wliich  spread  wherever  the  first  races  of  men  dispersed  them- 
selves, there  remain,  to  this  day,  undoubted  traces  and  testimonies,  not  only  in  the 
traditions  and  records  of  Ireland,  but  in  those  speaking  monuments  of  antiquity  which 
are  still  scattered  over  her  hills  and  plains. 

Combined  with  this  old  and  primitive  system  of  idolatry  are  to  be  found,  also,  a  number 
of  rites  and  usages  belonging  evidently  to  much  later  and  less  simple  modes  of  worship. 
There  may  be  traced,  indeed,  in  the  religious  remains  of  the  Irish,  the  marks  of  three 
distinct  stages  of  superstition  ;  namely,  that  first  rude  ritual  which  their  Celtic  progeni- 
tors brought  with  ttiem  from  the  East;  next,  the  introduction  of  images  somevvhat 
approaching  the  human  shape;  and,  thirdly,  those  monuments  of  a  more  refined  system 
of  fire-worship  which  still  embellish  this  country.  While  some  of  their  rites  and  names 
of  deities  are  traceable  directly  to  the  PhoDnicians,  tliere  are  other  religious  customs 
which  seem  to  have  been  derived,  through  the  means  of  this  people,  from  Persia. f  It 
was  on  the  whole  the  description  of  religion  likely  to  spring  up  in  a  country  into  which 
a  variety  of  modes  of  devotion  and  doctrine  had  been  imported ;  and  it  is  well  known 
that  the  Phoenicians,  with  that  utter  indifl^erence  to  diversity  of  worship  which  forms  one 
of  the  most  striking  difl'erences  between  the  Pagan  and  the  Christian  religionist,  set  no 
limit  to  the  varieties  of  creed  and  ritual,  with  which,  in  their  career  over  the  globe,  they 
furnished  their  colonies.  Being  in  constant  communication  with  Persia,  for  the  sake  of 
the  Eastern  trade,  it  was  even  a  part  of  the  commercial  policy  of  this  people  to  encourage 
an  intercourse,  on  religious  subjects,  between  their  Eastern  and  Western  customers,  of 
which  they  themselves  should  be  made  the  channel,  and  so  convert  it  to  their  own 
advantage  in  the  way  of  trade. 

The  mixed  nature,  indeed,  of  the  creed  of  the  ancient  Irish  seems  to  be  intimated  in 
their  mode  of  designating  their  own  priesthood,  to  whom  they  applied  as  well  the  Persian 
as  the  Celtic  denominations;  calling  them  indifferently  either  Magi,  or  Druids.  Thus, 
those  Magi  described,  in  the  Lives  of  St.  Patrick,  as  warnino:  tiie  king  against  the  con- 
sequences of  the  new  faith,  are,  in  the  ancient  Hymn  of  Fiech,  on  the  same  subject, 
denominated  Druids. 

The  great  object  of  Phoenician  adoration,  the  Sun,  was,  under  the  same  name  of  Baal, 
or  Bel,  the  chief  deity  of  the  Irish.  Even  the  very  title  of  Beel-Samen,  or  Lord  of  Heaven, 
by  which  the  PhcEnicians,  with  outstretched  hands,  invoked  their  G()d,f  was  preserved 
in  the  Pagan  worship  of  Ireland  ;5  and  the  Festival  of  Samhin,  or  Heaven,  the  great 
Cabiric  divinity,  (honoured,  under  the  same:  name  at  Samothrace,)  marked  one  of  the 
four  divisions  of  the  Irish  year.  That  the  worship  of  the  Sun  formed  a  part  of  the  Pagan 
system  which  St.  Patrick  found  established  on  liis  arrival,  appears  from  the  following 
passage  of  his  Confession  : — "That  Sun  whom  we  behold,  rises  daily,  at  the  command  of 
God,  for  our  use.  Yet  will  he  never  reign,  nor  shall  his  splendour  endure  ;  and  all  those 
who  adore  him  will  descend  wretchedly  into  punishment.  But  we  believe  and  adore  the 
true  Sun,  Christ."||  Even  to  our  own  days  the  names  of  places, — tliose  significant 
memorials,  by  which  a  whole  history  is  sometimes  conveyed  in  a  single  word, — retain 
vestiges  of  the  ancient  superstition  of  the  land,  and  such  names  as  Knoc-greinc  and 
Tuam  Greine,  "Hills  of  the  Sun,"  still  point  out  the  high  places  and  cairns  where,  ages 
since,  the  solar  rites  were  solemnized.  It  will  be  found,  in  general,  that  names  formed 
from  the  word  Grian,  which,  still  in  ihe  Irish,  as  in  the  old  Celtic  language,  signifies  the 
Sun,  and  from  which,  evidently,  the  epithet  Grynaeus,  applied  to  Apollo,  was  derived, 
marked  such  places  as  were  once  devoted  to  the  solar  worship.lT  Thus  Cairne-Grainey, 
or  the  Sun's  Heap,  Granny's  Bed,  corrupted  from  Grain  Bcacht,  the  Sun's  Circle,  &,c. 

*  "Magli-Sleacth,  so  called  from  an  idol  of  the  Irish,  named  CromCriiach— a  stone  capped  with  gold,  about 
which  stood  twelve  other  rough  stones.  Every  people  that  conquered  Ireland  (that  is,  every  colony  esta- 
blished in  Ireland)  worshipped  this  deity,  till  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick.  They  sacrificed  the  first-born  of 
every  species  to  this  deity;  and  Tighernmas  Mac  Follaigh  King  of  Ireland,  commanded  sacrifi'-es  to  this 
deity  on  the  day  of  Saman,  and  that  both  men  and  women  should  worship  him  prostrated  on  the  ground, 
till  they  drew  blood  from  their  noses.  fi)reheads,  ears,  and  elbows.  Many  died  with  the  severity  of  this 
worship,  and  hence  it  was  called  Magh-Sleacth."  — Fet.  JUSS.  quoted  in  the  CoUectan.  de  Reb.  Hibern. 
No.  XII. 

t  See  Borlase,  bonk  ii.  ch.  23.    "  On  the  Resemblance  betwixt  the  Druids  and  the  Persians." 
t   Tatf  X'''i*^  ogryiiv  iK  Tcv;  ou^xvoug  Tr^o;  lov  'Ha/sv. — Euseb.  PrcBparat.  lib.  i.  c.  7, 

§  TouTov  y*g  0>icri  S-sov  ivofxiPcv  /xovov  cvpuvou  icu^tov  BEEASAMHN  kakouvth,  c  t^ri  TTctfi'^^olvl^t  Kt/gwc 
Ovgi.vou. —  P/ti/o.  Bijb.  ex  Sanchoniath.  See  Orellius  on  this  pa.ssage,  for  his  view  of  Sanchoniathon's  account 
of  the  progress  of  idolatry,  "a  cultu  arborum  et  plantarum  ad  solis  astroruraque  cultum,  a  Fetischismo  ad 
SabEBismum." 

Ij  Nam  Sol  iste  quern  videmus  Deo  jubente,  propter  nos  quotidie  oritur,  sed  nunquam  regnabit,  neque  per- 
manebit  splendor  ejus.sed  et  omnes  qui  adoranteum  in  pcenam  miseri  male  devenient.  Nos  autem  credinius 
et  adoramus  Solem  verum, Christum. — St..  Patricii  Confessio. 

If  Rer.  Hibern.  Scriptor.  prol.  I  54. 

4 


34  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

From  the  same  associations,  a  point  of  land,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Wexford,  is  called 
Grenor,  or  the  Place  of  the  Sun's  Fire;  and  the  ancient  town  of  Granard,  where  there 
existed,  in  tlie  fifth  century,  a  sacred  well  of  the  Druids,  and  where  also  St.  Patrick  is 
said  to  have  overturned  an  altar  of  the  Sun,  and  erected  a  church  in  its  place,  was  so 
named  from  being  a  site  of  the  ancient  Irish  worship.  On  like  g-rounds,  the  appellation  of 
Grange  is  supposed  to  have  been  given  to  that  curious  cavern  near  Drogheda,  which, 
from  the  manner  of  its  construction,  as  well  as  from  the  pyramidal  obelisk*  found  in  its 
recesses,  is  thought  to  have  been  consecrated,  like  the  caves  of  the  Mithraic  worship,  to 
the  Sun. f  Airiong  various  other  monuments  of  solar  worship  through  Ireland,  may  be 
noticed  the  remains  of  a  cromlech,  or  tomb-altar,  near  Cloyne,  which  bore,  originally, 
the  name  of  Carig  Croith,  or  the  Sun's  Rock. 

Wherever  the  sun  has  been  made  an  object  of  adoration,  the  moon  has  naturally  shared 
in  the  worship;  and,  accordingly,  in  Ireland  this  luminary  was  adored  under  the  sacred 
name  of  Re.  While  some  of  their  mountains,  too,  appear  to  have  been  dedicated  to  the 
sun,  we  meet  with  Siieve-Mis,  in  the  county  of  Antrim,  signifying  Mountains  of  the 
Moon.  Those  golden  ornaments,  in  the  shape  of  a  crescent,  which  have  been  found 
frequently  in  the  Irish  bogs,  are  supposed  to  have  been  connected  with  this  lunar  worship, 
and  to  have  been  borne  by  the  Druids  in  those  religious  ceremonies  which  took  place  on 
the  first  quarter  of  the  moon's  age.f 

The  worship  of  fire,  once  common  to  all  the  religions  of  the  world,  constituted  also  a 
part  of  the  old  Irish  superstitions.;  and  the  Inextinguishable  Fire  of  St.  Bridget  was  but 
a  transfer  to  Christian  shrines  and  votaries  of  a  rite  connected,  through  long  ages,  with 
the  religious  feelings  of  the  people.  Annually,  at  the  time  of  the  vernal  equinox,  the 
great  festival  of  La  Baal-tinne,  or  the  Day  of  the  Baal-Fire,  was  celebrated  ;5  and  through 
every  district  of  Ireland  it  was  strictly  ordered  that,  on  that  night,  all  fires  should  be 
extinguished;  nor  were  any,  under  pain  of  death,  to  be  airain  lighted  till  the  pile  of 
sacrifices  in  the  palace  of  Tara  was  kindled.  Among  the  Persians  the  same  ceremony, 
according  to  Hyde,  still  prevails:  after  their  festival  of  the  24th  of  April,  the  domestic 
fires  are  every  where  extinguished,  nor  would  any  good  believer  rekindle  them  but  by  a 
taper  lighted  at  the  dwelling  of  the  priest.[|  A  similar  relic  of  Oriental  paganism  exists 
also  in  Jerusalem,  where,  annually,  at  the  time  of  Easter,  a  sacred  fire  is  supposed  to 
.descend  into  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  of  the  tapers  lighted  at  its  flame  a  considerable 
traffic  is  made  by  the  priests.  To  this  day  the  custom  of  making  bonfires  on  the  first 
night  of  May  prevails  throughout  Ireland  ; — the  change  of  the  period  of  the  festival  from 
the  vernal  equinox  to  the  commencement  of  May  having  been  made  soon  after  the 
introduction  of  Christianit}',  in  order  to  guard  against  its  interference  with  the  holy 
season  of  Lent. 

With  the  worship  of  fire,  that  of  water  was  usually  joined  by  the  Gentiles;  and  we 
find,  in  like  manner,  particular  fountains  and  wells  were  held  sacred  among  the  Irish. 
Even  that  heresy,  or,  at  least,  variety  of  opinion,  which  is  known  to  have  prevailed  among 
the  Easterns  on  this  subject,  existed  also  in  Ireland;  as  we  are  told,  in  the  Tripartite  Life 
of  St.  Patrick,  of  a  certain  Magus,  or  Druid,  who  regarded  water  alone  as  an  object  of 
reverence,  considering  fire  to  be  an  evil  genius. IT  Hence,  by  his  own  wish,  it  is  added, 
he  was  buried  under  a  stone  in  a  certain  well,  in  Mayo,  which  had  been  long  venerated 
by  the  people  under  the  name  of  the  King  of  the  Waters.     In  another  history  of  St, 

*  It  was  to  a  stonR,  we  }jnnw,  of  this  pyramidal  sfcapR,  that  tlie  Phnenicians  of  Einesa  offered  up  their 
vows,  invoking  it,  as  a  symbol  of  the  siin,  l)y  ihe  mystic  name  Rlagabalus.— See  Gibbon,  vol.  i.  cli.  6. — This 
stone,  like  most  of  those  dedicated  to  the  sun,  was  black;  and  it  is  rather  remarkable  that,  at  Stonehenge, 
which  is  supposed  in  general  lo  have  been  a  temple  consecrated  to  the  sun,  the  altar-stone  has  been  lately 
discovered,  on  examinniinn,  to  be  black. 

t  '■  The  mociiiiient  at  the  New  Grange  exactly  points  out  to  us  the  manner  in  which  the  Mithratic  cavern 
is  connected  wih  the  Mithratic  pyramid." — "The  narrow  passage,  in  fact,  and  the  stone  howls  of  this  Irish 
grotto  are  merely  the  counterpart  of  those  in  the  cave  of  Troplionius,  the  pagodas  of  Hindostan,  and  the 
pyramids  of  Egypt." — Fabpr,  on  the  Cabiric  MtisUries.  vol  ii.  The  reverend  writer  adds,  that  "the  island  of 
Ogygia,  which  lintarch  atfiinis  to  lie  due  west  of  Hritian.  must  certainly  he  Ireland,  and  no  other." 

\  Sec,  for  a  description  of  these  crescents,  Collectan  No.  XI[I.  Cough's  Camden,  vol.  iii.— A  bas-relief, 
found  at  Autun,  of  which  there  is  an  engraving  given  by  Monlfaucon,  represents  a  Gallic  Druid  h<dding  in 
his  right  liand  a  cre.'cent  re.i^onibling  the  moon  iU  six  days  old;  "which,"  adds  Montfaucon,  '•  agrees  so 
fxacily  with  that  religious  care  of  the  liniids  not  to  celebrate  the  ceremony  of  the  mistletoe  except  on  the 
fixth  day  of  the  moon,  that  I  think  it  cannot  he  doubted  but  that  this  crescent,  which  is  of  the  size  of  the 
Simon  at  that  age,  respects  that  rite  of  the  Druids."— jjKtij   Expliq  vol.  ii   part.  ii.  book  v. 

§  'I'o  this  day,  the  annual  ren.  which  the  farmers  pay  to  their  landlords,  in  the  month  of  May,  is  called  by 
th''m  l-ios-iia  Beallinne,  or  the  rent  of  Kaiil's  fire. 

II  See  account  of  this  ceremony,  from<;hardin,  in  Dupiiis,  Origine  des  Cultes,  torn.  v.  169.  "Tout  le  peiiple 
cr6dule  achete  aussitot  de  cos  bougies,"  This  mode  of  increasing  their  income,  says  Hyde,  is  resorted  to  by 
them  in  addition  to  their  liliies:—"  Prs-ter  decimas  excogitarunt  alium  sacerdotalem  redituni  augendi 
modum." 

^  L.  2  c.  20  — "  This  reminds  ns  of  the  old  Oriental  contests  between  tlie  worshippers  of  fire  and  those  of 
.  water,  and  leads  to  a  conclusion  that  some  connexion  had  existed  between  Ireland  and  remote  parts  of  the 
iiast." — lMni\ian,  Kirlr^in^lirnl  Jfixtoni  o/  Ireland,  vn|    i    rh.Tp.  r>. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  35 

Patrick  it  is  mentioned,  as  the  motive  of  this  lioly  man  fur  visiting  Siane,  that  he  had 
heard  of  a  fountain  there  which  the  Magi  honoured,  and  made  offerings  to  it  as  to  a  god.* 
Even  in  our  own  times  the  Irisli  are  described,  by  one  well  versed  in  their  antiquities,! 
as  being  in  the  habit  of  visiting  fountains,  or  wells,  more  particularly  such  as  are  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  an  old  blasted  oak,  or  an  upriglit  unhewn  stone,  and  hanging  rags  upon 
the  branches  of  the  trees.  When  asked  their  reason  for  this  practice,  the  answer  of  the 
oldest  among  them  is  generally,  we  are  told,  to  the  effect  that  their  ancestors  did  the 
same,  and  that  it  was  designed  as  a  preventive  against  the  sorceries  of  the  Druids.  There 
is  scarcely  a  people  throughout  the  East,  among  whom  this  primitive  practice,  of  hanging 
pieces  torn  from  their  garments  upon  the  branches  of  particulur  tree?,  has  not  been  found 
to  prevail.  The  wild-olive  of  Arrica,:f  and  the  Sacred  Tree  of  the  Hindus,5  bear  usually 
strung  upon  them  this  simple  sort  of  offering  ;  and  more  tlian  one  observant  traveller  in 
the  East  has  been  reminded,  by  this  singular  custom,  of  Ireland, 

Tiiere  are,  however,  some  far  less  innocent  coincidences  to  be  remarked  between  the 
Irish  and  Eastern  creeds.  It  is,  indeed,  but  too  certain  that  the  sacrifice  of  human  victims 
formed  a  part  of  the  Pagan  worship  in  Ireland,  as  it  did  in  every  country  where  the  solar 
god,  Baal,  was  adored.  On  the  eve  of  the  Feast  of  Samhin,  all  those  whom,  in  the 
month  of  March  preceding,  the  Druids  had,  from  their  tribunal  on  Mount  Usneach,  con- 
demned to  death,  were,  in  pursuance  of  this  solemn  sentence,  burned  between  two  fires.|| 
In  general,  however,  as  regarded  both  human  creatures  and  brutes,  the  ceremony  of 
passing  them  between  two  fires  appears  to  have  been  intended  not  to  affect  life,  but 
merely  as  a  mode  of  periodical  puntication.lT  Thus,  in  an  old  account  of  the  Irish  rites, 
it  is  said,  "The  Druids  lighted  up  two  blazing  fires,  and  having  performed  incantations 
over  them,  compelled  the  herds  of  cattle  to  pass  through  them,  according  to  a  yearly 
custom."  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  to  a  late  period,  some  of  the  most  horrible  fea- 
tures of  the  old  Canaanite  superstition  continued  to  darken  and  disgrace  the  anriala  of 
the  Irish;  for,  like  the  Israelite  idolaters,  not  only  did  they  "burn  incense  in  the  high 
places,  and  on  the  hills,  and  under  every  green  tree,"  but  also  the  denounced  crime  of 
Manasseh  and  Ahaz,  in  "causing  their  children  to  pass  through  the  fire,"  was  but  too 
faithfully  acted  over  again  in  Pagan  Ireland.  A  plain,  situated  in  the  district  at  presenl 
called  the  county  of  Leitrim,  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  Magh-Sleacth,  or  Field  of 
Slaughter,  was  the  great  scene,  as  already  has  been  stated,  of  these  horrors  of  primseval 
superstition;  for  there,  on  the  night  of  Samhim,  the  same  dreadful  tribute  which  the 
Carthaginians  are  known  to  have  paid  to  Saturn,  in  sacrificing  to  him  their  first-born 
children,**  was  by  the  Irish  offered  up  to  their  chief  idol,  Crom-Cruach.ft  This  frightful 
image,  whose  head  was  of  gold,  stood  surrounded  by  twelve  lesser  idols,  representing,  it 
is  most  probable,  the  signs  of  the  zodiac; — the  connexion  of  sun-worship  with  astronomy 

*  Sir  W.  Betham's  Irish  Antiquarian  Researches,  Append.  29. 
t  Letters  of  Columbanus,  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  let.  ill. 

I  The  Argali.— rratiefe  iii  Europe  and  Africa,  by  Colonel  Keating.  "A  traveller,"  ohserres  this  writer, 
"  will  see  precisely  the  like  in  the  west  of  Ireland."  Mnnco  Park,  too,  speaks  of  the  large  tree  called  Neema 
Tooba.  "decorated  with  innumerable  rags  and  scraps  of  cloth,"  and  which  "  nobody  now  presumed  to  pass 
without  haneing  up  something." 

§  See  Sir  William  Ouseley's  interesting  Travels  through  Persia,  vol.  ii.  Append.  No.  9.— Among  the  trees 
thus  decorated,  seen  by  Sir  William  in  the  vale  of  Abdui,  and  elsewlieie,  he  mentions  one  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  a  stone  pillar;  bringing  to  his  recollection,  he  says,  various  remains  which  he  had  seen  in  Wales  and 
Ireland. 

II  From  an  old  Irish  manuscript  in  the  possession  of  the  learned  antif]iiary,  Lbuyd,  cited  by  Dr.  O'Connor. 
See  also  O'Brien's  Irish  Dictionary,  Beol,  linne,  where,  however,  the  translation  is  somewhat  diflerent  from 
that  of  Dr.  O'Connor. 

IT  The  superstition  of  purifying  between  two  fires  appears  to  have  been  as  universal  as  it  was  ancient. 
"I.es  adorateurs  de  feu,  dit  Maimonide  (lib  iii.  c.  3-f.,)  publierent  qui  ceu.x  qui  ne  feraient  point  passer  leurs 
enfans  par  le  feu,  les  e.\posoient  au  danger  de  mourir."— jDupui,',-,  tom.  iii.  p  740.  "The  narrative  of  an 
embassy  from  Justin  to  the  Khakan,  or  emperor,  who  then  resided  in  a  fine  vale  near  the  Irtish,  mentions  the 
Tartarian  custom  of  purifying  the  Roman  ambassadors  by  conducting  them  between  '  two  fires.' "—Sir.  W. 
Jones,  Fifth  Discourse,  on  the  Tartars.  "The  more  ignorant  Irish,"  says  Ledwich,  "still  drive  their  cattle 
through  these  fires  as  an  efiectual  means  of  preserving  them  from  future  accidents;"  and  Mariin  tells  us  that 
the  natives  of  the  Western  Isles  of  Scotland,  which  are  known  to  have  been  peopled  from  Ireland,  "  when 
they  would  describe  a  man  as  being  in  a  great  strait,  or  difficulty,  say  that  he  is  between  two  fires  of  Bel." 
The  same  superstitious  practice  was  observed  at  the  festival  of  the  goddess  Pales,  at  Rome.  "  Per  flammas 
saluisse  pecus,  saluisse  co\>mos."— Ovid  Fast.  lib.  iv.  Of  this  old  Roman  ceremony,  Niehuhr  thus  speaks  :— 
"The  Festival  of  Pales,  the  21st,  when  the  country  people  and  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  Rome  used  to 
purify  themselves  by  passing  through  a  strong  fire,  as  our  ancestors  used  to  kindle  fires  on  Mayday." 

**  Diodor.  Sicul.  lib.  20. 

tt  Dinseanchus,  MS.,  quoted  Rer.  Hihrrnic.  Script,  prol.  I.  25fe.  This  image  was  destroyed  by  St  Patrick.— 
"  In  commemoration,"  says  O'Flaherty,  "of  this  memorable  amiihilation  of  idolatry,  I  believe,  the  last  Sun- 
day in  sunimer  is,  by  a  solemn  custom,  dedicated  throughout  Ireland,  and  commonly  called  Domnach  Crom- 
cruach,  that  is,  the  Sunday  of  Black  Croni;  I  suppose  on  account  of  the  horrid  and  deformed  appearance  of 
this  diabolical  spectre."— O^-ywia,  part  iii.  ch.  x.xii.  "  Cromcruach."  says  Keating,  "  was  the  same  god  that 
Zoroaster  worshipped  in  Greece."  To  this  one  flighty  assertion  of  Keating  may  be  traced  the  origin,  perhaps, 
of  all  those  wild  notions  and  fancies  which  Vallancey  afterwards  promulgated. 


36  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

having  been,  in  all  countries,  a  natural  consequence  of  that  creed,  insomuch  that  science, 
no  les^s  than  poetry,  may  be  said  to  have  profited  largely  by  superstition. 

How  far  those  pillar-temples,  or  Round  Towers,  which  form  so  remarkable  a  part  of 
Ireland's  antiquities,  and  whose  history  is  lost  in  the  night  of  time,  may  have  had  any 
connexion  with  the  Pyrolatry,  or  Fire-worship,  of  the  early  Irish,  we  have  no  certain 
means  of  determining.  That  they  were  looked  upon  as  very  ancient,  in  the  time  of 
Giraldus,  appears  from  the  tale  told  by  him  of  the  fishermen  of  Lough  Neagh  pointing  to 
stranp-ers,  as  they  sailed  over  that  lake,  the  tall,  narrow,  ecclesiastical  round  towers 
under  the  water,*  supposed  to  have  been  sunk  there  from  the  time  of  the  inundation  by 
which  the  lake  was  formed.  This  great  event, — the  truth  or  falsehood  of  which  makes 
no  difference  in  the  fact  of  the  period  assigned  to  it, — is  by  the  annalist  Tigernach  refer- 
red to  the  vear  of  Christ  62;  thus  removing  the  date  of  these  structures  to  far  too  remote 
a  period  to'admit  of  their  being  considered  as  the  work  of  Christian  hands. 

The  notion,  that  they  were  erected  by  the  Danes,!  is  unsupported  even  by  any  plau- 
sible oTownds.  In  the  time  of  Giraldus,  the  history  of  the  exploits  of  these  invaders  was 
yet  recent;  and  had  there  been  any  tradition,  however  vague,  that  they  were  the  builders 
of  these  towers,  the  Welsh  slanderer  would  not  have  been  slow  to  rob  Ireland  of  the 
honour.  But,  on  the  contrary,  Giraldus  expressly  informs  us  that  tliey  were  built  "in 
the  manner  peculiar  to  the  country."  Had  they  been  the  work  of  Danes,  there  would 
assuredly  have  been  found  traces  of  similar  edifices,  either  in  their  own  Scandinavian 
regions,  or  in  the  other  countries  of  Europe  which  they  occupied.  But  not  a  vestige  of  any 
such  buildings  has  been  discovered,  nor  any  tradition  relating  to  them ;  and  while,  in  Ireland, 
Round  Towers,  or  the  remains  of  them,  are  found  in  places  which  the  Danes  never  pos- 
sessed, in  some  of  the  principal  seats  of  these  people,  such  as  Waterford  and  Wexford, 
no  building  of  the  kind  has  been  ever  known  to  exist. 

In  despair  of  being  able  to  ascertain  at  what  period,  and  by  whom,  they  were  con- 
structed, our  antiquaries  are  reduced  to  the  task  of  conjecturing  the  purposes  of  their 
construction.  That  they  may  have  been  appropriated  to  religious  uses  in  the  early  ages 
of  the  church,  appears  highly  probable  from  the  policy  adopted  by  the  first  Christians  in 
all  countries,  of  enlisting  in  the  service  of  the  new  faith  the  religious  habits  and  associa- 
tions of  the  old.  It  is  possible,  therefore,  that  they  might,  at  some  period,  have  been 
used  as  stations  for  pilgrims ;  for  to  this  day,  it  appears,  the  prayers  said  at  such  stations 
are  called  Turrish  prayers.J  Another  of  the  notions  concerning  them  is,  that  they  were 
places  of  confinement  for  penitents.  But,  besides  the  absurdity  of  the  supposition,  that  a 
people,  whose  churches  were  all  constructed  of  wood  and  wicker,  should  have  raised 
such  elaborate  stone  towers  for  the  confinement  of  their  penitents,  we  have  means  of 
knowing  the  penitential  discipline  of  the  early  Christian  Irish,  and  in  no  part  of  it  is  such 
a  penance  as  that  of  imprisonment  in  a  Round  Tower  enjoined.  The  opinion  of  Harris, 
that  they  were  intended,  like  the  pillars  of  the  Eastern  Stylitcs  for  the  habitation  of  soli- 
tary anchorets,5  is  in  so  far,  perhaps,  deserving  of  notice,  as  showing  how  naturally  the 
eye  turns  to  the  East,  in  any  question  respecting  the  origin  of  Irish  antiquities.  It  is 
pretended  that  the  models  of  these  Liclusorii, — as,  according  to  this  hypothesis,  the  towers 
are  supposed  to  have  been, — were  brought  from  the  East  by  some  of  those  Irish  monks 
who  are  known  to  have  visited  the  places  of  the  Holy  L:ind.  But  of  any  such  Oriental 
importation,  at  that  period,  there  exists  no  record  whatever;  and  Adamnan,  an  Irish 
writer  of  the  seventh  century,  who,  in  a  work  taken  down  by  him  from  the  lips  of  a 
French  traveller  to  the  East,  gives  an  account  of  the  Tombs  of  the  Patriachs  and  other 
holy  wonders,  makes  no  mention  of  the  abodes  of  these  Pillar  Saints,  nor  of  the  models 
which  they  are  alleged  to  have  furnished  for  bis  country's  Round  Towers.  It  may  be 
mentioned,  too,  as  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  resemblance  here  assumed  is  wanting, 

*  "  Piscatores  Torres  istaa,  quit,  more  patriaj,  avctm  sunt  et  aUs,  necnon  et  rotunda:,  sub  undis  manifeste, 
sereno  tempore,  conspiciunt." — Oiralds.  Ca.mbrevs.     IJist.  II.  c.  9. 

t  The  chief  supporters  of  this  opinion,  as  weU  as  of  the  notion  that  these  towers  were  intended  for  belfries, 
are  Molyneui  (Natural  History  of  Ireland,  Discourse  concerning  tlie  Danish  l\Iounls,&c  ,)  and  Dr.  Ledwich, 
in  his  Antiquities.  As  an  instance  of  the  vitality  of  a  misrepresentation,  it  may  be  noticed  that  Lynch,  the 
author  of  the  Defence  of  Ireland  aeainst  Giraldus,  was  the  first  who  mentioned,  and  only  upon  hearsay,  that 
the  Danes  were  the  builders  of  the  Round  Towers, — "  primi  erexisse  dicuntur."  The  Franciscan,  Vv''alsh, 
professinff  to  copy  Lynch,  converts  into  certainly  what  Lynch  gave  but  as  a  report ;  and  on  this  authority, 
so  misrepresented,  the  learned  Molyneux,  and  others,  found  their  conclusions.  See,  on  this  subject,  Dr. 
Lani^an,  chap.  32.  9 

I  "A  pilgrimage  is  called  Turrish  in  Irish,  and  prayers  said  by  pilgrims  at  stations  are  called  Turrish 
prayers;  a  term  peculiar  to  this  country,  and  perhaps  allusive  to  these  towers." — William  Tighc,  Survey  of 
the  Co.  of  Kilkenny. 

§  '•  This  opinion  seems  to  have  been  first  proposed  by  a  Dean  Richardson,  of  Beltnrbet,  from  whom  it  was 
taken  by  Harris,  who  has  endeavoured  to  make  it  appear  probable." — Lanigan,  Ecclosiast,  hist.  chap.  32. 
The  same  opiiuon  was  adopted  abo  by  Doctor  Milner.—LeUers  from  Ireland,  Let.  14. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  37 

that  Simon  Stylites,  and  his  fanatical  imitators,  lived  upon,  not  within,  their  high 
columns. 

To  the  notion  that  our  Irish  structures  were  intended  for  watch-towers  or  beacons, 
there  are  the  most  conclusive  objections; — their  situation  being  frequently  on  low 
grounds,  where  they  are  overlooked  by  natural  elevations,*  and  the  apertures  at  their 
summit  not  being  sufficiently  large  to  transmit  any  considerable  body  of  light.  Their 
use  occasionally  as  belfries  may  be  concluded  from  the  term,  Clocteach,  applied  to  some 
of  them ;  but,  besides  that  their  form  and  dimensions  would  not  admit  of  the  swing  of  a 
moderately  sized  bell,  the  very  circumstance  of  the  door  or  entrance  being  usually  from 
eight  or  ten  to  sixteen  feet  above  the  ground,  proves  them  to  have  been  in  no  degree 
more  fitted  or  intended  for  belfries,  than  for  any  of  the  other  various  modern  uses  assigned 
to  them. 

In  the  ornaments  of  one  or  two  of  these  towers,  there  are  evident  features  of  a  more 
modern  style  of  architecture,  which  prove  them  to  have  been  added  to  the  original  struc- 
ture in  later  times;  and  the  same  remark  applies  to  the  crucifix  and  other  Christian 
emblems,  which  are  remarked  on  the  tower  at  Swords,  and  also  on  that  of  Donoughmore.)- 
The  figures  of  the  Virgin  and  St.  John,  on  one  of  the  two  Round  Towers  of  Scotland, 
must  have  been,  likewise,  of  course,  a  later  addition;  unless,  as  seems  likely  from  the 
description  of  the  arches  in  which  those  figures  are  contained,  the  structure  itself  is 
entirely  of  recent  date,  and,  like  the  tower  of  Kineth,  in  Ireland,  a  comparatively  modern 
imitation  of  the  old  Pagan  pattern. 

As  the  worship  of  fire  is  known,  unquestionably,  to  hav'e  formed  a  part  of  the  ancient 
religion  of  the  country,  the  notion  that  these  towers  were  originally  fire-temples,  appears 
the  most  probable  of  any  that  have  yet  been  suggested.  To  this  it  is  objected,  that 
enclosed  structures  are  wholly  at  variance  with  that  great  principle  of  the  Celtic  reli- 
gion, which  considers  it  derogatory  to  divine  nature  to  confine  their  worship  within  the 
limits  of  walls  and  roofs; — the  refined  principle  upon  which  the  Magi  incited  Xerxes  to 
burn  the  temples  of  the  Greeks.  It  appears  certain,  however,  that,  at  a  later  period,  the 
use  of  fire-temples  was  adopted  by  the  Persians  themselves;  though,  at  the  same  time, 
they  did  not  the  less  continue  to  ofter  their  sacrifices  upon  the  hills  and  in  the  open  air, 
employing  the  Pyreia  introduced  by  Zoroaster,  as  mere  repositories  of  the  sacred  fire.| 
A  simple  altar,  with  a  brazier  burning  upon  it,  was  all  that  the  temple  contained,  and  at 
this  they  kindled  the  fire  for  their  worship  on  the  high  places.  To  this  day,  as  modern 
writers  concerning  the  Parsees  inform  us,  the  part  of  the  temple  called  the  Place  of  Fire, 
is  accessible  only  to  the  priests  \)  and  on  the  supposition  that  our  towers  were,  in  like 
manner,  temples  in  which  the  sacred  flame  was  kept  safe  from  pollution,  the  singular 
circumstance  of  the  entrance  to  them  being  rendered  so  difficult  by  its  great  height  from 
the  ground  is  at  once  satisfactorily  explained. 

But  there  is  yet  a  far  more  striking  corroboration  of  this  view  of  the  origin  of  the 
Round  Towers.  While  in  no  part  of  Continental  Europe  has  any  building  of  a  similar 
construction  been  discovered,  there  have  been  found,  near  Bhaugulpore,  in  Hindostan, 
two  towers,  which  bear  an  exact  resemblance  to  those  of  Ireland.  In  all  the  peculiarities 
of  their  shape,|| — the  door  or  entrance,  elevated  some  feet  above  the  ground, — the  four 
windows  near  the  top,  facing  the  cardinal  points,  and  the  small  rounded  roof, — these 
Indian  temples  are,  to  judge  by  the  description  of  them,  exactly  similar  to  the  Round 
Towers;  and,  like  them  also,  are  thought  to  have  belonged  to  a  form  of  worship  now 
extinct  and  even  forgotten.  One  of  the  objections  brought  against  the  notion  of  the  Irish 
Towers  having  been  fire-temples,  namely,  that  it  was  not  necessary  for  such  a  purpose  to 
raise  them  to  so  great  a  height, IT  is  abundantly  answered  by  the  description  given  of  some 

*  In  the  deep  and  secluded  valley  of  Glendalough  stands  one  of  the  most  interesting,  from  its  romantic  posi- 
tion, of  all  these  Round  Towers. 

t  A  print  of  this  tower  at  Swords,  with  a  crucifix  on  the  top,  may  be  seen  at  the  end  of  Molyneux's 
work. 

X  "Cependant,  tous  les  auteurs,  Arabes  et  Persans,  cites  par  M.  Hyde  et  M.  D'Herbelot,  attribuent  a  Zer- 
dusht  l'6tablissement  des  Pyrees." — Fouclier,  Memoires  de  I' Acad.  torn.  xxis.  M.  Foucher  has  shown,  that  tlie 
two  apparently  inconsistent  systems, — that  of  Zoroaster,  which  introduced  fire-temples,  and  the  old  primitive 
mode  of  worshipping  in  the  open  air, — both  existed  together.  "  Pour  lever  cette  contradiction  apparente,  il 
sulht  d'observer  que  les  Pyrees  n"eloient  pas  des  temples  proprcment  dits,  mais  de  simples  oraloires,  d'uii 
Ion  tiroit  le  feu  pour  sacritier  sur  les  montajfnes." 

^  Anquetil  du  Perron,  Zend  Avesta.  torn.  ii. 

|(  Voyages  and  Travels,  by  Lord  Valentia,  vol.  ii. — "  I  was  much  pleased,"  says  his  lordship,  "  with  the 
sight  of  two  very  singular  Round  Towers,  about  a  mile  north-west  of  the  town.  They  much  resemble  tljose 
buildings  in  Ireland,  which  have  hitherto  puzzled  the  antiquaries  of  the  sister  kingdoms,  excepting  that  they 
are  more  ornamented.  It  is  singular  that  there  is  no  tradition  concerning  them,  nor  are  they  held  in  any 
respect  by  the  Hindoos.  The  Rajah  of  Jyanegur  considers  them  as  holy,  and  has  erected  a  small  building  to 
shelter  the  great  number  of  his  subjects  who  annually  come  to  worshiphere." 

IT  Dr.  Milner,  Tour  in  Ireland,  letter  xiv.  "  The  tower  at  Kildare  is  calculated  to  be  four  feet  loftier  than 
the  pillar  of  Trajan  at  Rome."— i)'.d/(o«. 


38  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

of  the  Pyrea,  or  fire-temples  of  the  Guebres.  Of  these,  some,  we  are  told,  were  raised  to 
so  high  a  point  as  near  120  feet,*  the  height  of  the  tallest  of  the  Irisli  towers  ;  and  an 
iutelligent  traveller,  in  describing  the  remains  of  one  seen  by  him  near  Bagdad,  says,  "  the 
annexed  sketch  will  show  the  resemblance  this  pillar  bears  to  those  ancient  columns  so 
common  in  Ireland."! 

On  the  strength  of  the  remarkable  resemblance  alleged  to  exist  between  the  pillar- 
temples  near  Bhaugulpore  and  the  Round  Towers  of  Ireland,  a  late  ingenious  historian 
does  not  hesitate  to  derive  the  origin  of  the  Irish  people  from  that  region ;  and  that  an 
infusion,  at  least,  of  population  from  that  quarter  might,  at  some  remote  period,  have 
taken  place,  appears  by  no  means  an  extravagant  supposition.  The  opinion,  that  Iran 
and  the  western  parts  of  Asia  were  originally  the  centre  from  whence  population  diffused 
itself  to  all  the  regions  of  the  world,  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  the  traditional  histories  of 
most  nations,  as  well  as  by  the  results  both  of  philological  and  antiquarian  inquiries.  To 
the  tribes  dispersed  after  the  Trojan  war,  it  has  been  the  pride  equally  both  of  Celtic  and 
of  Teutonic  nations  to  trace  back  their  origin.  The  Saxon  Chronicle  derives  the  earliest 
inhabitantsof  Britain  from  Armenia;  and  the  great  legislator  of  the  Scandinavians,  Odin, 
is  said  to  have  come,  with  his  followers,  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Euxine  Sea.  By 
those  who  hold  that  the  Celts  and  Persians  were  originally  the  same  people4  the  features 
of  affinity  so  strongly  observable  between  the  Pagan  Irish  and  the  Persians  will  be 
accounted  for  without  any  difficulty.  But  independently  of  this  hypothesis,  the  early  and 
long-continued  intercourse  which  Ireland  appears  to  have  maintained,  through  the 
Phojnicians,  with  the  East,  would  sufficiently  explain  the  varieties  of  worship  which 
were  imported  to  her  shores,  and  which  became  either  incorporated  with  her  original 
creed,  or  formed  new  and  distinct  rallying  points  of  belief.  In  this  manner  the  adoration 
of  shaped  idols  was  introduced;  displacing,  in  many  parts — as  we  have  seen,  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  idol  Crom-Cruach— that  earliest  form  of  superstition  which  confined  its 
worship  to  rude  erect  stones.  To  the  same  later  ritual  belonged  also  those  images  of 
which  some  fragments  have  been  found  in  Ireland,  described^  as  of  black  wood,  covered 
and  plated  with  thin  gold,  and  the  chased  work  on  them  in  lines  radiated  from  a  centre, 
as  is  usual  in  the  images  of  the  sun.  There  was  also  another  of  these  later  objects||  of 
adoration,  called  Kerman  Kelstach,*!!  the  favourite  idol  of  the  Ultonians,  which  had  for 
its  pedestal,  as  some  say,  the  golden  stone  of  Clogher,  and  in  which,  to  judge  by  the 
description  of  it,  there  were  about  the  same  rudiments  of  shape  as  in  the  first  Grecian 
Hermae.**  Through  the  same  channel  which  introduced  these  and  similar  innovations, 
it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that,  at  a  still  later  period,  the  pillar-temples  of  the  Eastern 
fire-wofship  might  have  become  known;  and  that  even  from  the  shores  of  the  Caspian 
a  colony  of  Guebres  might  have  found  their  way  to  Ireland,  and  there  left,  as  enigmas  to 
posterity,  those  remarkable  monuments  to  which  only  the  corresponding  remains  of  their 
own  original  country  can  now  afford  any  clue. 

The  connexion  of  sun-worship  with  the  science  of  astronomy  has  already  been  briefly 
adverted  to;  and  the  four  windows,  facing  the  four  cardinal  points,  which  are  found  in 
the  Irish  as  well  as  in  the  Eastern  pillar-temples,  were  alike  intended,  no  doubt,  for  the 
purposes  of  astronomical  observation, — for  determining  the  equinoctial  and  solstitial  times, 
and  thereby  regulating  the  recurrence  of  religious  festivals.  The  Phojnicians  them- 
selves constructed  their  buildings  on  the  same  principle;  and,  in  the  temple  of  Tyre, 
where  stood  the  two  famous  columns  dedicated  to  the  Wind  and  to  Fire,  there  were  also 

*  These  edifices  are  rotundas,  of  about  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  and  raised  in  height  to  a  point  near  120 
feet." — Hanway's  Travels  in  Persia,  vol.  i.  part  iii.  chap.  43. 
t  Hon.  Major  Keppel's  Personal  Narrative,  vol.  i.  chap.  7. 

I  Cluverius,  Keysler,  Pelloutier,  and  others.  "A  regard  des  Porses,"  says  Pelloulier,  "ils  etoient  cer- 
tainement  le  meine  peuple  que  les  Celtes." 

§  By  Governor  Pownall,  in  his  account  of  these  and  other  curious  Irish  remains  to  the  Society  of  Anti- 
quaries, 1774.  In  speaking  of  one  of  the  images,  which  he  supposes  to  have  been  a  symbolic  image  of 
Mithra,  he  remarks,  that  the  Gaditanians  used  such  radiated  figures,  and  adds,  "  from  the  known  and  con- 
firmed intercourse  of  this  Phoenician  or  Carthaginian  colony  with  Ireland,  all  difficulty  as  to  this  symbolic 
form  ceases."  Pursuing  the  view  that  naturally  suggests  itself  on  the  subject,  the  learned  antiquary  adds, 
"Whatever  the  image  was,  I  must  refer  it  to  the  later  line  of  theology  rather  than  to  the  Celtic  Druidic 
theology  of  the  more  ancient  Irish.  To  the  colonies,  or  rather  to  the  settlements  and  factories  of  the  later 
people  of  (/arthage  and  Gades,  and  not  to  the  original  Phoenicians,  I  refer  those  several  things  heretofore 
and  hereinafter  described." 

II  To  a  still  later  mythology  belong  the  belief  of  the  Irish  in  a  sort  of  Genii  or  Fairies,  called  Siilhe.  sup- 
posed to  inhiibit  pleasant  hills.  Lanigan,  vol.  i.  chap.  5.  In  the  same  class  with  the  Sidlie,  Vallancey  places 
the  Bansidhe,  or  Banshee. — "a  young  demon,"  as  he  e.xplains  it,  "supposed  to  attend  each  family,  and  to 
give  notice  of  the  death  of  a  relation  to  persons  at  a  distance."— Findic.  of  Ave.  Hist.  There  were  also  the 
Suire,  or  Nymphs  of  the  Sea,  claimed  by  Vallancey  as  the  Dew  Syria-;  and  described  by  Keating,  as  playing 
around  the  ships  of  the  Milesian  heroes  during  their  passage  to  Ireland. 

IT  The  scholia  of  Cathold  Maguir,  quotod  by  O' Flaherty,  Ogygia,  part  iii.  chap.  22. 
**  "  nxaTT2T:«<  Ji  Kxi  ct^ii^.,  x.:n  oLTTw;,  Kxt  TSTgaj-wof,  Tai  v^iif^uTi  tf'  EgjUJif." — Pnurnulus  dc 
Nalur,  Deor, 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  39 

pedestals,  we  are  told,  whose  four  sides,  facing  the  cardinal  points,  bore  sculptured  upon 
them  the  four  figures  of  the  zodiac,  by  which  the  position  of  those  points  in  the  heavens 
is  marked.*  With  a  similar  view  to  astronomical  uses  and  purposes  the  Irish  Round 
Towers  were  no  doubt  constructed  ;  and  a  strong  evidence  of  their  having  been  used  as 
observatories  is,  that  we  find  them  called  by  some  of  the  Irish  annalists  Celestial  Indexes. 
TJius  in  an  account  given  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  of  a  great  thunder-storm  at 
Armagh,  it  is  said  that  "  the  city  was  seized  by  lightning  to  so  dreadful  an  extent  as  to 
leave  not  a  single  hospital,  nor  cathedral  church,  nor  palace,  nor  Celestial  Index,  that  it 
did  not  strike  with  its  flame."f  Before  this  and  other  such  casualties  diminished  it,  the 
number  of  these  towers  must  have  been  considerable.^  From  the  language  of  Giraldus, 
it  appears  that  they  were  common  in  his  time  through  the  country  ;  and  in  thus  testifying 
their  zeal  for  the  general  object  of  adoration,  by  multiplying  the  tecnples  dedicated  to  its 
honour,  they  but  followed  the  example  as  well  of  the  Greek  as  of  the  Persian  fire- 
worshippers.^ 

There  remain  yet  one  or  two  other  hypotheses,  respecting  the  origin  and  purposes  of 
these  structures,  to  which  it  may  be  expected  that  I  should  briefly  advert.  By  some  the 
uses  to  which  tliey  were  destined  have  been  thought  similar  to  that  of  the  turrets  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Turkish  mosques,  and  from  their  summits,  it  is  supposed,  proclamation 
was  made  of  new  moons  and  approaching  religious  festivities.  A  kind  of  trumpet,|| 
which  has  been  dug  up  in  the  neighbourhood  of  some  of  these  towers,  having  a  large 
mouth-hole  in  the  side,  is  conjectured  to  have  been  used  to  assist  the  voice  in  these 
announcements  to  the  people.  Another  notion  respecting  them  is,  that  they  were  symbols 
of  that  ancient  Eastern  worship,  of  which  the  god  Mahadeva,  or  Siva,  was  the  object  ;ir 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  an  ingenious  writer,  in  one  of  the  most  learnedly  argued,  but 
least  tenable,  of  all  the  hypotheses  on  the  subject,  contends  that  they  were  erected,  in 
the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  by  the  primitive  Coenobites  and  Bishops,  with  the  aid  of 
the  newly  converted  Kings  and  Toparchs,  and  were  intended  as  strong-holds,  in  time  of 
war  and  danger,  for  the  sacred  utensils,  relics,  and  books,  belonging  to  those  churches** 
in  whose  immediate  neighbourhood  they  stood.  To  be  able  to  invest  even  with  plausi- 
bility so  inconsistent  a  notion  as  that,  in  times  when  the  churches  themselves  were 
framed  rudely  of  wood,  there  could  be  found  either  the  ambition  or  the  skill  to  supply 
them  with  adjuncts  of  such  elaborate  workmanship.ff  is,  in  itself,  no  ordinary  feat  of 
ingenuity.  But  the  truth  is,  that  neither  then  nor,  I  would  add,  at  any  other  assignable 
period,  within  the  whole  range  of  Irish  history,  is  such  a  state  of  things  known  authenti- 
cally to  have  existed  as  can  solve  the  difficulty  of  these  towers,  or  account  satisfactorily, 
at  once,  for  the  object  of  the  buildings,  and  the  advanced  civilization  of  the  architects 
who  erected  them.  They  must,  therefore,  be  referred  to  times  beyond  the  reach  of 
historical  record.  That  they  were  destined  originally  to  religious  purposes  can  hardly 
admit  of  question;  nor  can  those  who  have  satisfied  themselves,  from  the  strong  evidence 
which  is  found  in  the  writings  of  antiquity,  that  there  existed,  between  Ireland  and  some 
parts  of  the  East,  an  early  and  intimate  intercourse,  harbour  much  doubt  as  to  the  real 

*  Joseph.  Antiq.  1.  viii.  c.  2. 

t  Aniial.  Ult.  ad  ann.  995.;  also  Tis;ernach,  and  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  for  the  same  year. 
Tigernaoh  adds,  that  "there  never  happened  before  in  Ireland,  nor  ever  will,  till  the  day  of  judgment,  a 
similar  visitation."  The  learned  Colgan,  in  referring  to  this  record  of  the  annalists,  describes  the  ruin  as 
extending  to  the  "church,  belfries,  and  Towers  of  Armagh;"  thus  clearly  distinguishing  the  Round  Towers 
from  the  belfries. 

I  It  is  generally  computed  that  there  are  now  remainins  fifty-six;  but  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wright,  in  his 
account  ofGlendalougli,  makes  the  number  sixty-two;  and  Mr.  Brewer  (Beauties  of  Ireland,  Introduction,) 
is  of  opinion,  that  "several,  still  remaining  in  obscure  parts  of  the  country,  are  entirely  unnoticed  by  topo- 
graphical writers." 

§  In  speaking  of  the  Prytanea,  which,  according  to  Bryant,  were  properly  towers  for  the  preservation  of 
the  sacred  fire,  a  learned  writer  says,  "  When  we  consider  that  before  the  time  of  Theseus,  every  village  in 
Attica  had  its  Prytaneum.  we  may  collect  how  generally  the  fire-worship  prevailed  in  those  limes." — Disser- 
tation vpon  the  Mhenian  Skirophoria.  So  late  as  the  lOtii  century,  when  Ebn  Haukal  visited  Pars,  there  was 
not,  as  he  tells  us,  "any  district  of  that  province,  or  any  village,  without  a  fire-temple." 

II  See  a  description  of  these  trumpets  in  Cough's  Camden,  and  in  Collectan  de  Keb.  Hibern.  No.  13. 

IT  .'See,  for  the  grounds  ol  this  view.  General  Vallancey's  imaginary  coincidences  between  the  Eocad  of  the 
Irish  and  the  Bavani  of  the  Hindoos;  as  also  between  the  Muidhr  or  ;^unstone  of  the  former,  and  the 
Mahody  of  the  Gentoos. —  Vindication  of  an  ancient  History  of  Ireland,  pp.  160,  212.  506.  The  same  notion  has 
been  followed  up  in  Mr.  O'Brien's  clever,  but  rather  too  fanciful  disquisition,  on  the  subject,  lately 
published. 

'**  Inquiry  into  ths  Origin  and  primitive  Use  of  the  Irish  Pillar ■  Toieer ,  by  Colonel  Harvey  de  Montmorency 
Morres. 

tt  Dr.  Milner,  a  high  authority  on  such  subjects,  says  of  these  structures  : — "  The  workmanship  of  them  is 
excellent,  as  appears  to  the  eye,  and  as  is  proved  by  their  durability." — Inquiry.  S^-c.  Letter  14.  No  words, 
however,  can  convey  a  more  lively  notion  of  the  time  they  have  lasted  and  may  still  endure,  than  dots  the 
simple  fact  stated  in  the  following  sentence. — "In  general,  they  are  entire  to  this  day;  though  many 
churches,  near  which  they  stood,  are  either  in  ruins  or  totally  destroyed."— S.  Brereton.on  the  Round  Towers, 
..^rchirolog.  Lond.  Soe. 


40  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

birth-place  of  the  now  unknown  worship  of  which  these  towers  remain  the  solitary  and 
enduring  monuments. 

Having  now  devoted  to  tlie  consideration  of  these  remarkable  buildings  that  degree  of 
attention  which  their  connexion  with  the  history  of  the  country  seemed  to  call  for,  I  shall 
proceed  to  notice  those  other  ancient  remains  with  which  Ireland  abounds,  and  which, 
though  far  less  peculiar  and  mysterious,  bear  even  still  more  unquestionable  testimony  to 
the  origin  and  high  antiquity  of  her  people.  That  most  common  of  all  Celtic  monuments, 
the  Cromleach,*  which  is  to  be  found  not  only  in  most  parts  of  Europe,  but  also  in  Asia,t 
and  exhibits,  in  the  strength  and  simplicity  of  its  materials,  the  true  character  of  the 
workmanship  of  antiquity,  is  also  to  be  found,  in  various  shapes  and  sizes,  among  the 
monuments  of  Ireland.  Of  these  I  shall  notice  only  such  as  have  attracted  most  the 
attention  of  our  antiquaries.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Dundalk,  in  the  county  of  Louth, 
we  are  told  of  a  large  Cromleach,  or  altar,  which  fell  to  ruin  some  time  since,  and  whose 
site  is  described  as  being  by  the  side  of  a  river,  "between  two  Druid  groves."J  On 
digging  beneath  the  ruins,  there  was  found  a  great  part  of  the  skeleton  of  a  human 
figure,  which  bore  the  appearance  of  having  been  originally  enclosed  in  an  urn.  There 
were  also,  mixed  up  with  the  bones,  the  fragments  of  a  broken  rod  or  wand,  which  was 
supposed  to  have  been  part  of  the  insignia  of  the  person  there  interred,  and  might  possi- 
bly have  been  that  badge  of  the  Druidical  office  which  is  still  called  in  Ireland,  the  con- 
juror's or  Druid's  wand.  In  the  neigiibourhood  of  this  ruined  Cromleach  is  another, 
called  by  the  inhabitants  "  the  Giant's  Load,"  from  the  tradition  attached  to  most  of  these 
monuments,  that  they  were  the  works  of  giants  in  the  times  of  old.§  At  Castle-Mary, 
near  Cloyne,  are  seen  the  remains  of  a  large  Cromleach,  called  an  Irish  Carig  Croith,  or 
the  Rock  of  the  Sun, — one  of  those  names  which  point  so  significantly  to  the  ancient 
worship  of  tiie  country  ;  and,  in  the  same  county,  near  Glanworth,  stands  a  monument  of 
this  kind,  called  Labacolly,  or  the  Hag's  Bed,  of  such  dimensions  as  to  form  a  chamber 
about  twenty-five  feet  long  and  six  feed  wide.|| 

Not  less  ancient  and  general,  among  the  Celtic  nations,  was  the  circle  of  upright 
stones,  with  either  an  altar  or  tall  pillar  in  the  centre,  and,  like  its  prototype  at  Gilgal, 
serving  sometimes  as  a  temple  of  worship,  sometimes  as  a  place  of  national  council  or 
inauguration.  That  the  custom  of  holding  judicial  meetings  in  this  manner  was  very 
ancient  appears  from  a  group  which  we  find  represented  upon  the  shield  of  Achilles,  of 
a  Council  of  Elders,  seated  round  on  a  circle  of  polished  stones.H  The  rough,  unhewn 
stone,  however,  used  in  their  circular  temples  by  liie  Druids,  was  the  true,  orthodox 
observance**  of  the  divine  command  delivered  to  Noah,  "  If  thou  wilt  make  me  an  altar 
of  stone,  thou  shalt  not  build  it  of  hewn  stone:"  for  even  those  nations  which  lapsed  into 
idolatry  still  retained  the  first  patriarchal  pattern,  and  carried  it  with  them  in  their 
colonizing  expeditions  throughout  the  world.  All  monuments,  therefore,  which  depart 
from  the  primitive  observance  just  mentioned  are  to  be  considered  as  belonging  to  a  com- 
paratively recent  date. 

*  So  called  in  Irish.  "  It  is  remarkable  that  all  the  ancient  altars  found  in  Ireland,  and  now  distinguished 
by  the  name  of  Cromleachs  or  sloping  stones,  were  originally  called  Bothal,  or  the  House  of  God,  and  they 
seem  to  be  of  the  same  species  as  those  mentioned  in  the  [?ook  of  Genesis,  called  by  the  Hebrews,  Bethel, 
which  has  the  same  signification  as  the  Irish  Bolhal."— Beaw/urd,  Druidism  revived.  Collect.  Hibern.  jYo  7. 

From  the  word  Bethel,  the  name  BcElyli,  applied  to  the  sacred  stones  of  the  Pagans,  was  evidently  derived. 
"  This  sort  of  monument,"  says  Scaliger,  (in  Euseb.)  "  though  b>iloved  by  God  at  first,  became  odious  to  him 
when  perverted  to  idolatrous  purposes  by  the  Canaanites." — Odit  eum  quod  Clianana;i  deduxerunt  ilium 
ungendi  seu  consecrandi  rilum  in  ritum  idololatriaj. 

t  In  Sir  Richard  Hoare's  History  of  Wiltshire,  there  are  representations  given  of  two  Cromleachs  in 
Malabar,  exactly  similar  to  those  of  tlie  British  Isles.  See  also,  Maundrell's  Travels,  for  an  account  of  a 
monument  of  the  same  description  upon  the  Syrian  coast,  "  in  the  very  region,"  says  King,  "of  the  Phoeni- 
cians themselves." — Munimenta  Jintiqua.  King  supposes  this  structure,  described  by  Maundrell,  to  have  been 
of  nearly  the  very  same  form  and  kind  as  the  cromleach.  or  altar,  called  Kit's  Cotty  House,  in  Kent. 

J  Lout/liana,  book  iii.  '1  he  frequent  discovery  of  human  bones  under  these  monuments  favours  the  opinion 
of  Wright  and  others,  that  they  were,  in  general,  erected  over  graves.  See,  for  some  of  the  grounds  of  this 
view,  Wright's  Remarks  on  Plate  V.,  Loulhiana.  It  is,  indeed,  most  probable,  that  all  the  Druidical  monu- 
ments, circles,  cromleachs,  &c.,  whatever  other  uses  they  may  liave  served,  were  originally  connected  with 
interment. 

§  "  Tne  native  Irish  tell  a  strange  story  about  it,  relating  how  the  whole  was  brought  all  at  once,  from  the 
iieishhouring  mountains,  by  a  giant  called  Parrah  bough  M'Shaggean,  and  who,  they  say,  was  buried  near 
this  place." — Louth. 

II  For  an  account  of  various  other  remains  of  this  description  in  Ireland,  see  King's  Muniment.  Antiq., 
vol.  i.  pp  i.'53,  2.51,  &.c. 

E/5tT  iTi  ^iTTolfi  x<9o/?,  li^co  ivt  Kux.xa>, — I>'iad,  xviii.  503. 

For  the  credit  of  the  antiquity  of  these  stones.  King  chooses  to  translate  PiTToia-;(l  know  not  on  what 
authority,)"  rough,  unhewn  stiuies." 

*♦  It  appears  extremely  probable,  that  all  the  Cities  of  Refuge,  of  which  so  niucli  is  said  in  the  Scriptures, 
%vcre  temple.s  erected  in  this  circular  iwiinner."—  Identity  of  the  Reliffions  called  Druidical  and  Ilebreic. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  41 

The  ruinous  remains  of  a  circular  temple,  near  Dundalk,  formed  a  part,  it  is  supposed, 
of  a  great  work  like  that  at  Stonehenge,  being  open,  as  we  are  told,  to  the  east,  and 
composed  of  similar  circles  of  stone  within.*  One  of  the  old  English  traditions  respecting 
Stonchenge  is,  that  the  stones  were  transported  thither  from  Ireland,  having  been  brought 
to  the  latter  country  by  giants  from  the  extremities  of  Africa;  and  in  the  time  of  Giraldus 
Cambrensis  there  was  still  to  be  seen,  as  he  tells,  on  the  plain  of  Kildare,  an  immense 
monument  of  stones,  corresponding  e.xactly  in  appearance  and  construction  with  that  of 
Stonehenge.f 

The  heathen  Irish,  in  their  feeling  of  reverence  for  particular  stones  and  rocks,  but 
followed  the  example  of  most  of  the  Eastern  nations;  and  tiie  marvellous  virtue  supposed 
to  lie  in  the  famous  Lia  Fail,  or  Stone  of  Destiny,  used  in  the  election  of  Irish  monarchs, 
finds  a  parallel  in  the  atizoe,J  or  silvery  stone  of  the  Persians,  to  which  a  similar  charm, 
in  the  choice  of  their  kinirs,  used  to  be  attributed  by  the  Magi.  Tliose  monuments,  too, 
known  by  the  name  of  Rocking  Stones,  and  found  in  Ireland  as  well  as  in  Cornwall 
and  Wales,  appear  in  some  respects  to  resemble  that  sort  of  natural  or  artificial  wonders, 
which  the  Phoenicians  held  sacred,  under  the  name  of  BaDtyli,  or  animated  stones.  These 
they  declare  to  have  been  fabricated  by  the  god  Ouranos,  or  Heaven, ij  the  deity  wor- 
shipped by  the  Samothracians,  and  also,  under  the  title  of  Samhin,  or  Heaven,  by  the 
Irish.  That  these  stones — which  moved,  it  is  said,  as  if  stirred  by  a  demon, || — formed  a 
part  of  the  idolatrous  ceremonies  of  the  East,  may  be  concluded  from  the  mention  of  them, 
by  some  ancient  writers,  as  having  been  seen  at  that  great  seat  of  sun-worship,  Helio- 
polis,  or  the  ancient  Balbic.  In  some  instances  it  would  appear  that  the  Baetyli  were,  in 
so  far,  unlike  the  mobile  monument  of  the  Druids,  that  they  were  but  small  and  portable 
stones,  worn  by  the  religious  as  amulets.lT  There  were  also,  however,  some  answering 
exactly  to  the  description  of  the  Druid  ical  rocking-stones,  as  appears  from  the  account  given 
in  Ptolemy  Hephseestion,  an  author  cited  by  Photius,  of  a  vast  Gigonian  stone,  as  he  calls 
it,  which  stood  on  the  shores  on  the  ocean,  and  which,  though  it  might  be  stirred  by  the 
stalk  of  an  asphodel,  no  human  force  could  remove.**  It  is  rather  remarkable,  too,  that, 
as  we  learn  from  a  passage  of  Apollonius  Rhodius,ft  not  only  was  this  delicate  poise  of 

*  The  remains,  according  to  Wright,  of  a  temple  or  theatre.  "  It  is  enclosed  on  one  side  with  a  rampart 
or  ditch,  and  seems  to  have  been  a  very  great  work,  of  the  same  kind  with  that  of  Stonehenge,  in  Eng- 
land."— Louthiana. 

t  Unde  et  ibidem  lapides  quidam  aliis  simillimi  similique  modo  erecti,  usque  in  hodlernum  conspiciunter. 
Mirum  qualiter  tanli  lapides,  tot  eliam,  &c.  &,c. — Topograph.  Hibcrn.,  c.  18. 

t  "  .Atizflen  in  India  et  in  Perside  ac  Ida  inonte  naaci  tradit,  argenteo  nitore  fiilgentem necessa- 

riam  Magis  regem  coiistituentibus.'' — Plin.  lib.  xx.xvii.  c.  54.  See  also  Boethius,  de  Oemmis.  In  Borlase's 
Antiquities  of  Cornwall,  the  name  of  this  stone  is  printed  incorrectly  Ai-tizoe,  and  as  no  reference  is  given  to 
the  passage  of  Pliny  where  it  is  mentioned,  the  word  has  been  taken  on  trust  from  Borlase  by  all  succeeding 
writers.  Among  others.  General  Valiancy  has  amusingly  founded  on  the  typographical  error  one  of  his  ever 
ready  etymologies.  "  Now,  Art  in  Irish  signifying  a  stone  as  well  as  Clock,  the  name  of  this  stone  of  oint- 
ment, viz.  Artdusaca,  may  have  been  corrupted  by  Pliny  into  Artizoe  of  the  Persians." — Vin<iic.  Ancient  Hist, 
of  Ireland,  chap.  ii.  sect.  2. 

§  Et<  efs  iTrevontri  ©soc  Ov^avos  (itttTvKix  XiSouc  i[ji.-\uyj:,vi  fji.n^div»<rdL/xiyoi. — Philo.  Bijbl.  Stukeley,  in 
his  zeal  to  claim  for  the  Druids  some  knowledge  of  tlie  magnetic  needle,  supposes  these  moving  stones,  attri- 
buted by  Sanconiatho  to  Ouranus,  to  have  been  magnets.— Abunj  Described,  chap.  16.  "  It  was  usual 
(among  the  Egyptians)  to  place  with  much  labour  one  vast  stone  upon  another,  for  a  religious  memorial.  The 
stones  they  thus  placed  titey  oftentimes  poised  so  equally  that  they  were  affected  with  the  least  external 
force:  nay,  a  breath  of  wind  would  sometimes  make  them  vibrate." — Bryant,  Anal  My'hol.  vol.  iii.  The 
following  accurate  description  of  a  Booking  Stone  occurs  in  Pliny: — "  Juxta  Harpasa  oppjdum  Asiae  cautes 
Stat  horrenda,  uno  digito  mobilis:  eadem,  si  toto  corpnre  impellatur,  resistens."     Lib.  ii  cap.  38. 

II  E^a)  fjLiv  ce/um  d'HOTi^ov  tiva.t  to  ^^x/ao.  tcv  /S^ituKou^  o  S-  IcrtJ'cggO':  S-jUfxoti'.v  //ctAXov  sAsj/Sv'  tnai  ytip 
Tiv:t  S'a.tfAOVA  TOV  KtvaviiTO.  eturcv. —  Vita  Isitlori,  apud  Photium.  But  though  Isidorus,  according  to  this 
statement  of  his  biographer  Damascius,  imagined  some  demon  to  be  stirring  within  the  stone,  it  is  gravely 
explained  that  he  did  not  suppose  it  to  be  of  the  class  of  noxious  demons,  nor  yet  one  of  the  immaterial  and 
pure. 

IT  Sometimes,  however,  as  in  the  case  of  that  Bsetylos  vihich  formed  the  statue  of  Cyhele,  and  was  supposed 
to  have  fallen  from  heaven,  they  must  have  been  of  a  larger  size.  See  Remarques  dl'Abbc.  Banier,  vol.  v.  p. 
241.;  as  also  a  Dissertation  sur  Ics  Baityles,  by  M.  Falconet,  Memoircs  dcV Academic,  torn.  vi. 

**  Phot.  lib.  iii. ct-^  av/ovTa?, 

tf   Tuva)  ill  a.fA.<^iguTii  TTiiSfViv,  nAi  «|M«<raTO  j-wav 
Aju<^^  at.uTCl;''  a-T>iXst;  ts  Juee  KxQATTfqBiv  iTiv^iv, 
'  nv  erf^H,  ^AfxCoi  TTigtoTicv  OLvS^^tn  xiuastv, 
Ktmstl  n^uiVTog  VTTCi  TTvom  jSi^iit.. Irgonaut.  1.  1. 

In  Tenns,  by  the  blue  waves  compass'd  round. 
High  o'er  the  slain  he  heap'd  the  funeral  mound  ; 
Then  rear'd  two  stones,  to  mark  that  sacred  ground, — 
One,  poised  so  light  that,  (as  the  mariner  sees 
With  wondering  gaze,)  it  stirs  at  every  breeze  ! 

The  term  Xrnxyt,  here  used,  though  in  its  most  general  acceptation  signifying  a  pillar  or  obelisk,  was 
sometimes  also  employed  to  denote  a  rock.— See  Donnegfin,  who  refers  for  this  meaning  of  the  word  to 
Hermsterlt,  ad  Lucian,  1.  p.  267. 


42  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  stone  produced  sometimes,  as  among  the  Druids,  by  art,  but  a  feeling  of  sacredness 
was  also  attached  to  such  productions,  and  they  were  connected,  as  in  the  Druidicai  ritual, 
with  interment. 

The  sacred  Hills  and  Tumuli  of  the  Irish  were  appropriated  to  a  variety  of  purposes; 
for  there  the  sacrifice  was  offered  by  tlie  priest,  from  ihence  the  legislator  or  judge  pro- 
mulgated his  decrees,  and  there  the  king,  on  his  inauguration,  was  presented  with  the 
Wand  of  Power.  Of  these  consecrated  higii  places,*  the  most  memorable  was  the  Hill 
of  Usneach,  in  West  Meath,  as  well  from  the  National  Convention  of  which  it  was  fre- 
quently the  scene,f  as  because  upon  its  summit,  the  limits  of  the  five  Provinces  of  Ireland 
touched  ;  and,  in  like  manner  as  the  field  of  Enna  was  called  "  the  navel  of  Sicily,"|  and 
the  site  of  the  Temple  of  Delphi  "the  navel  of  the  carth,"^  so  the  stone  which  marked 
this  conmion  boundary  of  the  five  Provinces  into  which  the  island  was  then  divided,  was 
termed  the  "navel  of  Ireland. "||  Here  the  Druids,  on  solemn  occasions,  were  accustomed 
to  hold  their  meetings;'^r  according  to  the  practice  of  their  Gaulish  brethren,  who,  as  we 
learn  from  Ca;sar,  used  to  assemble  annually  on  the  confines  of  the  Carnutes,  in  a  place 
accounted  to  be  the  centre  of  all  Gaul,  and  there,  consulting  upon  all  controversies 
referred  to  them,  pronounced  decrees  v^'hich  were  universally  obeyed.** 

In  the  peculiar  sacredness  attached  to  the  Hill  of  Usneach,  as  the  common  limit  of  the 
five  Pronvinces,  we  recognise  that  early  form  of  idolatry  which  arose  out  of  Uie  natural 
respect  paid  to  boundaries  and  frontiers,  and  which  may  be  traced  throughout  the  ancient 
superstitions  of  most  countries.  Hence  mountains,  those  natural  barriers  between  con- 
tiguous nations,  first  came  to  be  regarded  with  reverence;  and  it  has  been  shown,tt  that 
the  Holy  Mountains  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  Asiatics,  and  Egyptians,  were  all  of  them 
situated  upon  marches  or  frontier  grounds.  When  artificial  limits  or  Termini^]:  came  to 
be  introduced,  the  adoration  that  had  long  been  paid  to  the  mountain,  was  extended  also 
to  the  rude  stone,  detached  fiom  its  mass,  which  performed  conventionally  the  same  im- 
portant function.  From  this  reverence  attached  to  boundaries,  the  place  chosen  by  the 
Gaulish  Druids,  for  their  meetings,  derived  likewise  its  claim  to  sacredness,  being  on  the 
confines  of  that  tribe  of  Celts,  called  the  Carnutes. 

Whenever  an  Irish  King,  or  Chief,  was  to  be  inaugurated  on  one  of  their  Hills,  it  was 
usual  to  place  him  upon  a  particular  slone,^^  whereon  was  imprinted  the  form  of  their 
first  Chieftain's  foot,  and  there  proffer  to  him  an  oath  to  preserve  the  customs  of  the 
country.  "There  was  then,"  says  Spenser,  who  had  himself  witnessed  the  election  of 
an  Irish  Dynast  in  this  mnnner,  "a  wand  delivered  to  him  by  the  proper  officers,  with 
which  in  his  hand,  descending  from  the  stone,  he  turned  himself  round,  thrice  forward 
and  thrice  backward. "|||1  In  an  account  of  the  ceremonies  performed  at  the  initiation  of 
the  Kings  of  Tirconnel,  we  are  told  that,  in  presenting  the  new  king  with  the  wand, 
which  was  perfectly  white  and  straight,  the  Chief  who  officiated  used  this  form  of 

^  The  worship  ch" mountains,  hills,  and  rivers,  among  the  ancient  Britons,  is  mentioned  by  Gildas,  "monies 
ipsos  aul  colles  aut  fluvins  ....  qiiibus  divinus  honour  a  ceeco  tunc  popiilo  cumiilabatur,"  c.  2. ;  and  that 
such  supfirstilion  was  not  peculiar  to  the  Celtic  tribes,  appears  from  the  laws  which,  down  to  the  eleventh 
century,  prohibiti  d  ttie  AH{,'loPaxons  from  worthippinj  the  tree,  the  rock,  the  stream,  or  fountain. — See 
Palgrave's  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  English  Commonwealth,  part  i.  chap.  4. 

t  li  cerlo  aiini  tempore,  in  fiiiibus  Carniitum.  qua;  regio  totiiis  Gallia;  media  habetur,  considunt  in  loco 
coiisecrato.    Hic  otnnes  undiqnequi  controversias  habent  conveniunt,  eorumque  judiciis  decretisque  parent  — 
Vc  Bella  Gallico,  lib.  vi.  cap.  13. 
I  Diodor.  lib.  V.  §  Strab.  lib.  ix. 

|(  In  lapide  quodam  conveiiiunt  apnd  mediara  ju.iita  castrum  de  Kyllari,  qui  locus  et  umbilicus  Hiberniee 
dicitur  quasi  in  medio  et  medullitio  terra-  positus. — Cap.  4. 

ir  "  The  Dynast,  or  Chieftain,  had  certain  judges  under  hitn,  called  Brehons,  who,  at  stated  times,  sat  in 
the  open  air,  generally  upon  some  hill,  on  a  bench  raised  with  green  sods,  where  they  distributed  justice  to 
tile  neiglibiurs  " — Ware,  JtiiUquities  of  Ireland,  chap   xi. 
**  CsE.sar,  lib  vi.  c.  1:1. 

tt  bulaure,  Des  Cultcs  anterieiirs  a  Vldolalrie,  chap.  8.     Among  the  Holy  Mountains  of  Greece,  this  writer 
_has  enumerated  nearly  a  dozen,  all  bearing  the  name  of  Olympus,  and  all  situated  upon  frontiers.    Chap.  i.v. 
XX  Such  was  the  homage  paid   to   this  Deity  of  landmarks  and  boundaries,  that  when  room  was  required 
for  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Olympius  in  the  Capitol,  the  seat  of  every  god,  e.xcept  Terminus,  was  removed. 

§§  The  practice  of  sealing  the  new  king  upon  a  stone,  at  his  initiation,  was  the  practice  in  many  of  the 
countries  of  Europe.  The  Duitcs  of  Carinthia  were  thus  inaugurated  (Joan.  Boem.  de  Morib.  Gentium,  lib. 
iii  )  The  monarchs  of  Sweden  sat  upon  a  stone  placed  in  the  centre  of  twelve  lesser  ones  (Olaus  Magn.  de 
Uitti  gent  septent  i.  c.  18  )  and  in  a  similar  kind  of  circle  the  Kings  of  Denmark  were  crowned.— (Hist,  de 
Daneuiarck  )  In  reference  to  llie  enormous  weight  of  the  stones  composing  this  last  mentioned  monument, 
Mallet  livelily  remarks,  "que  de  tout  temps  la  superstition  a  imagine  qu'on  ne  pouvait  adorer  la  divinite 
qu'en  faisant  pour  elle  des  tours  de  force." 

III!  The  practice  of  turning  round  the  body,  in  religious  and  other  solemnities,  was  performed  differently  by 
different  nations  of  antiquity ;  and  Pliny,  in  stating  that  the  Romans  turned  from  the  left  to  the  right,  or 
sunwise,  adds,  that  the  Gauls  tliought  it  more  religious  to  turn  from  the  right  to  the  left,  lib.  xxviii.  c.  5. 
!r^ee  the  commentators  on  this  passage  of  I'liny,  who  trace  the  enjoinment  of  the  practice  in  question  to  no 
less  authorities  than  I'ythagoras  and  Numa.  The  Celts,  according  to  Posidonius  (apud  Allien,  lib.  iv.,) 
turned  always  to  the  right  in  worshipping.— Tst/f  •&sot/f  TTparKvvou^ tv  tvi  m  Si^ix  a-T^iepi/uivoi.  This 
practice,  under  the  name  of  Deasoil,  or  motion  according  to  the  course  of  the  sun,  is  still  retained  in  the 
Scottish  Isles.— .''t'e  Jumieson's  Scollish  Dictionartj,  Toland's  History  of  the  Druids,  Borlasc's  Cornwall,  &.C.. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  43 

words, — "Receive,  O  King  !  the  auspicious  badge  of  your  authority,  and  remember  to 
imitate,  in  your  conduct,  the  staightncss  and  whiteness  of  tiiis  wand." 

So  solemn  and  awful  were  the  feelings  associated  with  their  Sacred  Hills  by  the  Irish, 
that  one  of  their  poets,  in  singing  the  praises  of  St.  Patrick,  mentions  particularly,  as  a 
proof  of  his  zeal  and  courage,  that  he  "preached  of  God  in  the  Hills  and  by  the  Sacred 
Founts."*  With  such  tenacity,  too,  was  transmitted  from  age  to  age  the  popular  reve- 
rence for  all  such  judgments  as  were  issued  from  those  high  places,  that  so  late  as  the 
time  of  Henry  VIII.  the  same  traditional  feeling  prevailed;  and  we  have  it  on  high 
authority  that,  at  that  period,  "the  English  laws  were  not  observed  eight  days,  whereas 
the  laws  passed  by  the  Irish  in  their  hills  they  kept  firm  and  stable,  without  breaking 
them  for  any  fee  or  reward. "t 

Such  of  these  Sacred  Mounts  as  are  artificial  have  in  general  been  called  either 
Barrows  or  Cairns,  according  as  the  materials  of  which  they  are  composed  may  have  been 
earth  or  stones;  and  both  kmds,  though  frequently  appropriated  to  the  various  purposes 
just  mentioned,  were,  it  is  plain,  in  their  original  destination,  tombs, — such  as  are  to  be 
found  in  every  region  of  the  habitable  world,  and  preceded,  as  monuments  of  the  dead, 
even  the  Pyramids  themselves. |  Among  the  Greeks,  it  was  not  unusual  to  erect  a  pillar 
upon  the  summit  of  the  barrow,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  tumulus  of  Elpenor,  described 
in  the  twelfth  book  of  the  Odyssey,  and  still  more  memorably  in  that  of  Achilles,  on  the 
Sigean  promontory,  which  is  said  still  to  bear  traces  of  the  sepulchral  pillar,  that  once 
surmounted  it.  A  similar  form  of  memorial  is  mentioned  by  antiquaries  as  existing  in 
different  parts  of  Ireland,^  and  the  great  barrow  at  New  Grange  is  said  to  have  originally 
had  a  stone  of  considerable  bulk  upon  its  summit.  Of  the  dedication  of  the  Cairns  and 
Barrows  to  the  Sun,||  there  are  abundant  proofs  throughout  antiquity  ;  and  as  from  Grian, 
the  Celtic  name  of  the  sun,  Apollo  evidently  derived  his  title  of  Gryneeus,  so  to  Carne, 
the  term,  in  Celtic,  for  these  tumuli,  his  title  Carneus  is  no  less  manifestly  to  be 
traced. 

The  veneration  of  particular  groves  and  trees  was  another  of  those  natural  abuses  of 
worship,  into  which  a  great  mass  of  mnnKJnd,  in  the  first  ages,  lapsed;  and,  as  happens 
in  all  such  corrupions  of  religion,  a  practice  innocent  and  even  holy  in  its  origin  soon 
degenerated  into  a  system  of  the  darkest  superstition.  It  was  in  a  grove  planted  by 
himself,  that  Abraham  "called  on  the  everlasting  God,"  and  Gideon's  offering  under  the 
oak  was  approved  by  the  same  heavenly  voice,  which  yet  doomed  the  groves  of  Baal  that 
stood  in  its  neighbourhood  to  destruction. 11  In  the  reign  of  Ahab,  the  period  when 
Idolatry  was  in  its  most  flourishing  state,  we  find  that,  besides  the  priests  of  Baal,  or  the 
sun,  there  existed  also  a  distinct  order  of  priesthood,  who,  from  the  peculiar  worship  they 
presided  over,  were  called  Prophets  of  the  Groves.**  In  the  religious  system  of  the  Celts 
is  found  a  combination  of  both  these  forms  of  superstition,  and  there  exist  in  Ireland,  to 
this  day,  in  the  old  traditions,  and  the  names  of  places,  full  as  many  and  striking  vestiges 
of  the  worship  of  trees  as  of  that  of  the  sun.  Thotigh  at  present  so  scantily  clothed  with 
wood,  one  of  the  earliest  vernacular  names,  this  country  Fiodha  Inis,  or  the  Woody 

*  Metricnl  Life  of  St.  Patricl?,  attributed  to  his  difciple  Fiech;  but  evidently  of  a  somewtiat  later  period. 

t  '*  A  Breviate  of  the  gettini;  of  Ireland,  and  of  the  Decay  of  the  same."  by  Baron  Finglas.  an  Irishman, 
made  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exclieijuer,  in  Ireland,  by  Henry  VIII.,  and  afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's 
Bench. —  Ware's  fVriters. 

I  Afier  comparing  the  primajval  Celtic  mound  with  the  pyramidal  heaps  of  the  East,  Clarke  says,  "  In 
fact,  the  Scythian  Mound,  the  Tartar  Tepe,  the  Teutonic  Barrow,  and  the  Celtic  (  aim,  do  all  of  tlierti  pre- 
serve a  mimiimental  form,  which  was  more  anciently  in  use  than  that  of  the  Pyramid,  because  it  is  less 
artificial ;  and  a  proof  nf  its  alleged  antiquity  may  be  deduced  from  the  mere  circumstance  of  its  association 
with  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  even  if  the  testimony  of  Herodotus  were  less  e.xpiicit  as  to  the  remote  period  of 
its  existence  among  northern  nations." — Travels,  vol.  v.  chap.  5.  In  the  Travels  of  Professor  Pallas  may  be 
found  an  account  of  the  immense  variety  of  these  sepulchral  heaps,  some  of  earth,  some  of  stones,  which  he 
saw  in  traversing  the  regions  inhabited  by  the  Cossacks,  Tartars,  and  Monjul  tribes. 

§  See  Oough's  Camden,  vol.  iii.;  King's  Munimcnta  Avtiqua,  book  i.  This  latter  writer,  in  speaking  of 
]Vew  Grange,  says,  that  it  "  so  completely  corre.*pnnds  with  the  accounts  we  have  of  the  Asiatic  Barrows  of 
Patroclus  and  of  Halyattes,  and  with  the  description  of  the  Tartarian  Barrows  of  the  Schythian  Kings,  that 
in  reading  an  account  of  one,  we  even  seem  to  be  reading  an  account  of  the  other." — Book  i  chap.  6.  Re- 
jecting as  vague  and  unsatisfactory  the  grounds  on  which  New  Grange  and  other  such  monuments  are 
attributed  to  the  Danes,  this  well-informed  antiquary  concludes,  "  VVe  may,  therefore,  from  such  strong 
resemblance  between  primaeval  and  nearly  patriarchal  customs  in  the  East,  and  those  aboriginal  works  in 
Ireland  and  Britain  in  the  West,  much  more  naturally  infer  that  these  sepulchral  barrows  are  almost  with- 
out exception  the  works  of  tlie  first  race  of  settlers  in  these  countries." — lb. 

II  Silius  Italicus  represents  Apollo  as  delighting  in  the  Cairn-lires.— 

"Quum  pius  Arcitenens  incensis  gaudet  acervis." — Lib.  v.  177. 

Among  the  different  sorts  of  Cairns  in  Cornwall,  there  is  one  which  they  call  Karn  Leskyg,  or  the  Karn  of 
Burnings. 

IT  Gen.  xxi.  33  —Judges  vi.  23—28. 

**  "The  Prophets  of  Baal  four  hundred  and  fifty,  and  the  Prophet?  of  the  Groves,  four  hundred."—!  Kings, 
xviii.  19. 


44  HISTOKY  OF  IRELAND. 

Island,  proves  that  the  materials  for  tree  worship  were  not,  in  former  ages,  wanting  on 
her  shores.  The  name  of  the  Vodii,  an  ancient  tribe  inhabiting  the  southern  coast  of 
the  county  of  Cork,  signifies  dwellers  in  a  woody  country,*  and  Youghall,  formerly  Ochill, 
is  said  to  have  been  similarly  derived.  It  appears  that  in  general  the  old  names  of 
places,  whether  hills  or  plains,  are  found  to  be  words  implying  forests,  groves,  or  trees. 
The  poet  Spenser  has  commemorated  the  Ireland  of  his  day  as  abounding  in  shade  and 
foliage,f  and  we  collect  from  Stanihurst  that  the  natives  had  been  accused  of  living 
savagely  in  the  dark  depths  of  their  forests.  It  is,  indeed,  alleged,  by  competent 
authority, f  to  have  been  made  evident  from  an  examination  of  tiie  soil,  that,  at  no  very 
remote  period,  the  country  must  have  been  abundantly  wooded. 

The  oak,  the  statue  of  the  Celtic  Jove,^  was  here,  as  in  all  other  countries,  selected 
for  peculiar  consecration ;  and  the  Plain  of  Oaks,  the  Tree  of  the  Field  of  Adoration, || 
under  which  the  Dalcassian  Chiefs  were  inaugurated,  and  the  Sacred  Oak  of  Kildare, 
show  how  early  and  long  this  particular  branch  of  the  primitive  worship  prevailed. 

By  some  antiquaries,  who  alfect  to  distinguish  between  the  Celtic  and  Gothic  customs 
in  Ireland,  the  mode  of  inaugurating  the  Dalcassian  Cliiefs  is  alleged  to  have  been 
derived  from  the  first  inhabitants  or  Celts;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  the  Lia 
Fail,  or  Stone  of  Destiny,  in  the  ceremony,  was  introduced,  they  say,  by  the  later,  or 
Scythic  colonies.  In  this  latter  branch  of  the  opinion,  they  are  borne  out  by  the  ancient 
traditions  of  the  country,  which  trace  to  the  Danaans,  a  Scythic  or  Gothic  tribe,  the  first 
importation  of  the  custom.  That  the  worship  of  stones,  however,  out  of  which  this  cere- 
mony sprung,  was  a  superstition  common  not  only  to  both  of  these  races,  but  to  all  the 
first  tribes  of  mankind,  is  a  fact  admitted  by  most  inquirers  on  the  subject.  The  same 
may  he  affirmed  of  every  branch  of  the  old  primitive  superstition;  and,  therefore,  to 
attempt  to  draw  any  definite  or  satisfactory  line  of  distinction,  between  the  respective 
forms  of  idolatry  of  the  two  great  European  races,  is  a  speculation  that  must  be  discon- 
certed and  baflled  at  every  step.  A  well-known  dogmatist  in  Irish  antiquities,  desirous 
to  account,  by  some  other  than  the  obvious  causes,  for  that  close  resemblance  which  he 
cannot  deny  to  exist  between  the  Celtic  and  Gothic  superstitions,  has  had  recourse  to  the 
hypothesis,  th;it  a  coalition  between  the  two  rituals  must,  at  some  comparatively  late 
period,  have  taken  place.H  But  a  natural  view  of  the  subject  would,  assuredly,  have  led 
to  the  very  reverse  of  this  conclusion,  showing  that,  originally,  the  forms  of  idolatry 
observed  by  both  races  were  the  same,  and  that  any  difference  observable,  at  a  later 
period,  has  been  the  natural  result  of  time  and  circumstances. 

*  Quasi  Britannice  dicas  Sylvcsircs,  sive,  apud  sylvas  degciites. — Baxter.  Glossar.  Jlntiquitat.  Brit. — 
Smith's  County  of  Cork. 

■f  Cantos  of  Mutability  ;  where  in  describing  Ireland,  lie  spealis  of  "  woods  and  forests  which  therein 
abound."  In  his  View  of  the  State  of  Ireland,  also,  speakinjr  more  particularly  of  the  country  between 
Dublin  and  Wexford,  he  says: — "Though  the  whole  track  of  llie  country  be  mountainous  and  woody,  yet 
there  are  many  goodly  valleys,"  &c.  Campion  likewise  asserts,  that  the  island  was  covered  with  forests; 
yet,  so  rapid  must  have  been  their  destruction,  that,  not  much  more  than  a  century  after  Spenser  and 
Campion  wrote,  we  find  Sir  Henry  Piers,  in  his  Chorographical  Description  of  the  County  of  Meath,  com- 
plaining of  the  want  of  timber  of  bulk,  "  wherewith  it  was  anciently  well  stored  ;"  and  recommending  to 
parliament  a  speedy  provision  for  "  planting  and  raising  all  sorts  of  forest  trees." — Collectan,  vol.  i. 

J  "  I  never  saw  one  hundred  contiguous  acres  in  Ireland  in  which  there  were  not  evident  signs  that  they 
were  once  wood,  or  at  least  very  well  wooded.  Trees,  and  the  roots  of  trees,  of  the  largest  size,  are  dug  up 
in  all  the  bogs;  and,  in  the  cultivated  countries,  the  stumps  of  trees  destroyed  show  that  the  destruction  has 
not  been  of  very  ancient  date." — Artliut  i'ouvir.  Tour  in  Ireland. 

§  AyuKfAX  S'i  Aim  KiXTtKOV  v-^nXn  J'guc. — Maz.  Tyr.  Serm.  38. 

II  MaghAdhair. — "  A  plain,  or  lield  of  adoration  or  worship,  where  an  open  temple,  consisting  of  a  circle  of 
tall  straight  stone  pillars,  with  a  very  largo  fiat  stone,  called  cromlcac.  serving  for  an  allar,  was  constructed 
by  the  Druids,  .  .  .  several  plains  of  this  name,  Magh-Adhair,  were  known  in  Ireland,  particularly  one  in  the 
country  now  called  the  County  of  Clare,  wliere  the  kines  of  the  O'Brien  race  were  inaugurated." — O'Brien's 
Irish  Dictionary.  It  was  under  a  remarkable  tree  on  this  plain  tliat  the  ceremony  of  initiating  the  Dalcas- 
sian Kings  took  place.  {O' Brien,  in  voce  Magh  bile.)  In  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  for  the  year  981, 
there  is  an  account  of  the  destruction  of  this  Sacred  Tree. 

For  the  origin  of  four  of  the  great  Dalcassian  families,  viz  the  O'Briens,  the  Mac  Mahons,  the  O'Kennedys, 
and  the  Mar.namaras,  see  Rer.  Biberniear.  Script,  prol.  1.  133. 

IT  The  Druids,  when  known  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  had  united  the  Celtic  and  Scythic  rituals,  and 
exercised  their  functions  both  in  groves  and  caves."— Ledwich,  ..Antiquities  of  Ireland,  p.  49. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  45 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  DRUIDS,  OR  MAGI  OF  THE  IRISH. 

The  religious  system  of  the  Pagan  Irish  having  been  thus  shown,  as  regards  both  its 
ceremonies  and  its  objects,  to  have  been,  in  many  respects,  peculiar  to  themselves,  it 
remains  to  be  considered  whether  the  order  of  priesthood  which  presided  over  their 
religion  did  not  also,  in  many  points,  differ  from  the  Priests  of  Britain  and  of  Gaul. 
Speaking  generally,  the  term  Druidism  applies  to  the  whole  of  that  mixed  system  of 
hierurgy,  consisting  partly  of  patriarchal,  and  partly  of  idolatrous  observances,  wliich  the 
first  inhabitants  of  Europe  are  known  to  have  brought  with  them  in  their  migration  from 
the  East;  and  the  cause  of  the  differences  observable  in  the  rituals  of  the  three  countries 
where  alone  that  worship  can  be  traced,  is  to  be  sought  for  as  well  in  the  local  circum- 
stances peculiar  to  each,  as  in  those  relations  towards  other  countries  in  which,  either  by 
commerce  or  position,  they  were  placed.  Thus,  while  to  her  early  connexion  with  the 
Phoenicians  the  Sacred  Island  was  doubtless  indebted  for  the  varieties  of  worship  wafted 
to  her  secluded  shores,  the  adoption  by  the  Gallic  Druids  of  the  comparatively  modern 
gods  of  Greece  and  Rome,  or  rather  of  their  own  original  divinities  under  other  names, 
may,  together  with  the  science  and  the  learning  they  were  found  in  possession  of  by  the 
Romans,  be  all  traced  to  the  intercourse  held  by  them,  for  at  least  five  hundred  years 
before,  with  the  colony  of  Phocaean  Greeks  established  at  Marseilles. 

Of  all  that  relates  to  the  Druids  of  Gaul,  their  rites,  doctrines,  and  discipline,  we  have 
received  ample  and  probably  highly  coloured  statements  from  the  Romans.  Our  know- 
ledge of  the  Irish  Magi,  or  Druids,  is  derived  partly  from  the  early  Lives  of  St.  Patrick, 
affording  brief  but  clear  glimpses  of  the  dark  fabric  which  he  came  to  overturn,  and 
partly  from  those  ancient  records  of  tiie  country,  founded  upon  others,  as  we  shall  see, 
still  more  ancient,  and  so  reaching  back  to  the  times  when  Druidism  was  still  in  force. 
With  the  state  or  system  of  this  order,  in  Britain,  there  are  no  such  means  of  becoming 
acquainted.  It  is  a  common  error,  indeed,  to  adduce  as  authority  respecting  the  British 
Druids,  the  language  of  writers  who  profess  to  speak  only  of  the  Druidical  priesthood  of 
Gaul;  a  confusion  calculated  to  convey  an  unjust  impression  of  both  these  bodies;  as  the 
latter, — even  without  taking  into  consideration  their  alleged  conferences  with  Phy- 
thagoras,  which  may  be  reasonably  called  in  question, — had  access,  it  is  known,  through 
the  Massilian  Greeks,  to  such  sources  of  science  and  literature,  as  were  manifestly 
beyond  the  reach  of  their  secluded  brethren  of  Britain.  Even  of  the  Gaulish  Druids, 
however,  the  description  transmitted  by  the  Romans  is  such  as,  from  its  vagueness  alone, 
might  be  fairly  suspected  of  exaggeration;  and  the  indefinite  outline  they  left  has  been 
since  dilated  and  filled  up  by  others,  till  there  is  scarcely  a  department  of  human  know- 
ledge with  which  these  Druids  are  not  represented  to  have  been  conversant.  Nor  is 
this  embellished  description  restricted  merely  to  the  Gaulish  priesthood,  but  given  also 
as  a  faithful  picture  of  the  Druids  of  Britain;  though,  among  all  the  Greek  and  Roman 
writers  who  have  treated  of  the  subject,  there  is  not  one — with  a  slight  exception, 
perhaps,  as  regards  Pliny, — who  has  not  limited  his  remarks  solely  and  professedly 
to  Gaul. 

The  little  notice  taken  by  the  Romans  of  the  state  of  this  worship  among  the  Britons, 
is  another  point  whicli  appears  worthy  of  consideration.  Instead  of  being  general 
throughout  the  country,  as  might  have  been  expected  from  the  tradition  mentioned  by 
Caesar,  the  existence  of  Druidism  appears  to  have  been  confined  to  a  few  particular  spots; 
and  the  chief  seat  of  its  strength  and  magnificence  lay  in  the  region  nearest  to  the  siiores 
of  Ireland,  North  Wales.  It  was  there  alone,  as  is  manifest  from  their  own  accounts, 
and  from  the  awe  and  terror  with  which,  it  is  said,  the  novelty  of  the  sight  then  affected 
them,*  that  the  Romans  ever  encountered  any  Druids  during  their  whole  stay  in  Britain  ; 
nor  did  CaBsar,  who  dwells  so  particularly  upon  the  Druids  of  Gaul,  and  even  mentions 
the  prevalent  notion  that  they  had  originated  in  Britain,  ever  hint  that,  while  in  that 
country,  he  had  either  met  with  any  of^  their  order,  or  been  able  to  collect  any  informa- 
tion concerning  their  tenets  or  rites.     The  existence  still,  in  various  parts  of  England,  of 

*  Novilate  ai^jjettus  perculuic  inililes.— Tacit.  Annal.  lib.  xiv.  c.  30. 


46  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

what  are  generally  called  Druidical  monuments,  is  insufficient  to  prove  that  Druidism 
had  ever  flourished  in  those  places ;  such  monuments  having  been  common  to  all  the 
first  races  of  Europe,*  and  though  forming  a  part  of  the  ritual  of  the  Druids,  by  no  means 
necessarily  implying  that  it  had  existed  where  they  are  found.  In  the  region  of  Spain 
occupied  anciently  by  the  Turditana,  the  most  learned  of  all  the  Celtic  tribes,  there  is  lo 
be  found  a  greater  number  of  what  are  called  Druidical  remains  than  in  any  other  part 
of  the  Peninsula. t  Yet,  of  the  existence  of  an  order  of  Druids  among  that  people,  neither 
Strabo  nor  any  other  authority  makes  mention. 

The  only  grounds  that  exist  for  extending  and  appropriating  to  the  British  Druids  all 
that  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  have  said  solely  of  those  of  Gaul,  are  to  be  found  in 
the  single,  but  doubtless  important,  passage  wherein  it  is  asserted  by  Csesar,^  that 
Druidism  had  first  originated  in  Britain,  and  was  from  thence  derived  by  the  Gauls. 
Presuming  on  the  truth  of  this  assertion,  it  has  been  farther  concluded,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  that  all  the  features  of  the  parent  were  exactly  similar  to  those  attributed  to  the 
offspring;  and  upon  this  arbitrary  assumption  have  all  the  accounts,  so  fully  and  confi- 
dently given,  of  the  rites,  doctrines,  and  learning  of  the  British  Druids  been  founded. 
With  respect  to  the  statement,  however,  of  Csesar,  an  obvious  solution  suggests  itself, 
arising  naturally  out  of  all  that  has  been  advanced  in  the  preceding  pages,  and  amply 
sufficient,  as  I  think,  to  account  for  the  curious  tradition  which  he  mentions.  We  have 
seen,  by  the  strong,  though  scattered,  lights  of  evidence,  which  have  been  brought  to 
concentre  upon  this  point,  at  what  an  early  period  Ireland  attracted  the  notice  of  that 
people,  who  were,  in  those  times,  the  great  carriers,  not  only  of  colonies  and  commerce,  but 
also  of  shrines  and  divinities,  to  all  quarters  of  the  world.  So  remote,  indeed,  is  the  date 
of  her  first  emergence  into  celebrity,  that  at  a  time  when  the  Carthaginians  knew  of 
Albion  but  the  name,  the  renown  of  lerne  as  a  seat  of  holiness  had  already  become 
ancient;  her  devotion  to  the  form  of  worship  which  had  been  transported,  perhaps  from 
Samothrace,  to  her  shores,  having  won  for  her,  as  we  have  seen,  the  designation  of  the 
Sacred  Island.  Those  who  look  back  to  the  prominent  station  then  held  by  her,  as  a 
sort  of  emporium  of  idolatry,  will  not  deem  it  unlikely  that  a  new  religion  may  have 
originated  on  her  shores;  and  that  it  was  to  her  alone  the  prevalent  tradition  of  the 
times  of  Csesar  must  have  attributed  the  reputation  of  having  first  moulded  the  common 
creed  of  all  the  Cells  into  that  peculiar  form  which  has  become  memorable  under  the 
appellation  of  Druidism. 

Whatever  changes  this  form  may  have  undergone  in  its  adoption  by  Gaul  and  Britain, 
were  the  natural  result  of  local  circumstances,  and  the  particular  genius  of  each  people; 
while  the  greater  infusion  of  orientalism  into  the  theology  of  the  Irish,  arose  doubtless 
from  the  longer  continuance  of  their  intercourse  with  the  East.  How  large  a  portion  of 
the  religious  customs  of  Persia  were  adopted  by  the  Magi  or  Druids  of  Ireland,  has 
already  been  amply  shown;  and  to  these  latter  Pliny^  doubtless  refers,  under  the  same 
mistake  as  Cjesar,  when,  in  speaking  of  the  Magi  of  difl^erent  countries,  he  remarks  of 
the  ceremonies  practised  in  Britain,  that  they  were  of  such  a  nature  as  to  render  it  pro- 
bable that  they  were  the  original  of  those  of  the  Persians.  The  favourite  tenet  as  well 
of  Druidism  as  of  Magism,  the  transmigration  of  the  soul,i|  which  the  Druids  of  Gaul  are 
thought  to  have  derived  from  the  Massilian  Greeks,  might  have  reached  them,  through 
Ireland,  from  some  part  of  the  East,  at  a  much  earlier  period;  this  favourite  doctrine  of 
all  Oriental  theologues,  from  the  Brachmans  of  India  to  the  priests  of  Egypt,  being  found 
inculcated  also  through  the  medium  of  some  of  the  traditions  of  the  ancient  Irish.  The 
use,  both  by  Pliny  and  Csisar,  of  the  name  Britain  instead  of  Ireland  argues  but  little 
against  the  presumption  that  the  latter  was  the  country  really  designed.     The  frequent 

»  For  prnof:i  of  the  adoption  of  ciicular  stone  temples,  and  other  such  monuments,  by  the  Gothic  nations, 
sec  Ledwich's  Antiquities  {Pagan  Stale  nf  Ireland,  and  its  Remains,)  and  Pinkerton"s  Inquiry,  &.c.  part  iii. 
chap.  12. 

t  History  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  Cab.  Ctclo.  Introduction. 

%  Disciplina  in  Britannia  reperta,  atqne  inde  in  Galliam  translata  esse  e.\istimatur. — De  Bell.  Gall.  lib. 
vi.  c.  13. 

§  Britannia  hodiequo  earn  attonito  celebrat  tanlis  ca-remoniis,  nt  dedisse  Persis  videri  possit. — Plin.  JVal. 
I/ist.  lib.  x.\.\.  c.  4.  On  the  intimation  contained  in  this  passage,  VVhitaker  lias  founded  a  supposition,  that, 
at  some  period,  which  lie  calls  the  Divine  Age,  the  doctrine  of  the  Western  Druids  may  have  penetrated  so 
far  East;  "  thus  solving,"  he  says,  '•  Pliny's  conjecture  of  the  Persians  receiving  it  from  them,  which  must 
have  been  in  times  comparatively  to  which  the  foundation  of  Rome  is  hardly  not  a  modern  incident." — 
CcUic  Vor.ahulary. 

\\  The  prevalence,  among  them,  of  a  belief  in  the  transmigration  of  the  soul,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fable 
respecting  Ruan,  one  of  ilie  colony  that  landed  in  Ireland,  under  Partholan,  some  two  or  three  centuries 
after  the  Flood.  Of  this  ancient  personage,  it  was  believctd  that  he  continued  to  live,  through  a  long  series 
of  transmigrations,  till  so  late  as  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  when,  having  resumed  the  human  shape,  he  com- 
municated to  the  saint  all  he  knew  of  the  early  history  of  the  island,  and  was  then  baptised  and  died. — 
Ji'icholson' s  Library,  chap.  ^.—lierum  Ilibcrn.  Script,  lip.  Nunc, 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  47 

employment  of  the  plural,  Britanniao  *  to  denote  the  whole  of  the  British  Isles,  was,  in 
itself,  by  no  means  unlikely  to  lead  to  such  a  confusion.  Besides,  so  ignorant  were  the 
Roman  scholars  respecting  the  geography  of  these  regions,  that  it  is  not  impossible  they 
may  have  supposed  Britain  and  Ireland  to  be  one  and  the  same  country;  seeing  that,  so 
late  as  the  period  when  Agricola  took  the  command  of  the  province,  they  had  not  yet 
ascertained  whether  Britannia  was  an  island  or  continentf 

To  his  statement,  that  Britain  was  thought  to  have  originated  the  institution  of 
Druidism,  Csesar  adds,  that  those  who  were  desirous  of  studying  diligently  its  doctrines, 
repaired  in  general  to  that  country  for  the  purpose.^  If,  as  the  reasons  I  have  above 
adduced  render  by  no  means  improbable,  the  school  resorted  to  by  these  students  was 
really  Ireland,  the  religious  pre-eminence  thus  enjoyed  by  her,  in  those  pagan  days,  was  a 
sort  of  type  of  her  social  position  many  centuries  after,  when  again  she  shone  forth  as 
the  Holy  Island  of  the  West;  and  again  it  was  a  common  occurrence,  as  in  those 
Druidical  times,  to  hear  said  of  a  student  in  divinity,  that  he  was  "gone  to  pursue  a 
course  of  sacred  instruction  in  Hibernia."^ 

While,  from  all  that  has  been  here  advanced,  it  may  be  assumed  as  not  improbable 
that  Ireland  was  the  true  source  of  this  ancient  creed  of  tiie  West,  there  is  yet  another 
point  to  be  noticed,  confirmatory  of  this  opinion,  which  is,  that  the  term  Druid,  concern- 
ing whose  origin  so  much  doubt  has  e,\isted,  is  to  be  found  genuinely,  and  without  any 
of  the  usual  straining  of  etymology,  in  the  ancient  Irish  language.  The  supposed  deriva- 
tion of  the  term  from  Drus,  the  Greek  word  for  an  oak,  has  long  been  rejected  as  idle;|| 
the  Greek  language,  though  flowing  early  from  the  same  Asiatic  source,  being  far  more 
likely  to  have  borrowed  from  than  contributed  to  that  great  mother  of  the  most  of  the 
European  tongues,  the  Celtic.  It  is,  however,  unnecessary  to  go  any  farther  for  the 
origin  of  the  name  than  to  the  Irish  language  itseltj  in  which  the  word  Draoid  is  found, 
signifying  a  cunning  man,  or  Magus,  and  implying  so  fully  all  that  is  denoted  by  the 
latter  designation  as  to  have  been  used  as  an  equivalent  for  it  in  an  Irish  version  of  the 
Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  where,  instead  of  "  the  wise  men,  or  Magi,  came  from  the  East," 
it  is  rendered,  "the  Druids  came  from  the  East;"  and,  in  like  manner  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, Exod.  vii.  11.,  the  words  "magicians  of  Egypt"  are  made  "Druids  of  Egypt."!! 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  IRISH  LANGUAGE, LEARNING  OF  THE  IRISH  MAGI  OR  DRUIDS. 

Our  accounts  of  the  learning  of  the  Irish  Druids,  though  far  more  definite  and  satis- 
factory than  any  that  relate  directly  to  the  Druids  of  Britain,  are  still  but  imperfect  and 
vague.  Before  we  enter,  however,  on  this  topic,  a  few  remarks  on  a  subject  intimately 
connected  with  it,  the  ancient  language  of  the  countr}',  will  not  be  deemed  an  unne- 
cessary preliminary.  Abundant  and  various  as  are  the  monuments  to  which  Ireland  can 
point,  as  mute  evidences  of  her  antiquity,  she  boasts  a  yet  more  striking  proof  in  the 
living  language  of  her  people, — in  that  most  genuine,  if  not  only  existing,  dialect,  of  the 
oldest  of  all  European  tongues, — the  tongue  which,  whatever  name  it  may  be  called  by, 
according  to  the  various  and  vague  theories  respecting  it,  whether  Japhetan,  Cimmerian, 

*  Thus  Catullus  :— "  Hunc  GalliaR  timent,  hiinc  timent  Britanisc."— Corm.  27. 

t  Hanc  Oram  novissimi  maris  tunc  primum  Roniana  classis  circumvecta  insulam  esse  Britanniam  aflirm- 
avit — Tacit.  Agric.  10.  Plutarch,  in  his  Life  of  C;esar,  asserts  tliat  the  very  existence  of  such  a  place  as 
Britain  had  been  doubted. 

X  Et  nunc  qui  diligentius  earn  rem  cognoscere  volunt  plerumque  illo  discendi  causa  proficiscuntur— Z>c 
Bell.  Gall.  lib.  vi.  c.  13. 

§  '•  St.  Patrick's  disciples  in  Ireland  were  such  great  proficients  in  the  Christian  religion,  that,  in  the  age 

following,  Ireland  was  termed  Sanctorum  Patria,  i.  e  the  Country  of  Saints The  Saxons,  in  that  age, 

flocked  hither  as  to  the  great  mart  of  learning;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  we  find  this  so  often  in  our 
writers, — '  Amondatus  est  ad  disciplinam  in  Hibernia,'  sucti  a  one  was  sent  over  into  Ireland  to  be  educated." — 
Cavidcn. 

II  For  the  various  derivations  of  the  term  Druid  that  have  been  suggested  by  different  writers,  see  Frickius 
de  Druid,  pars  i.  cap.  i. 

IT  Matt.  ii.  1.  The  Irish  version  is  thus  given  by  Toland  :— Feuch  tangadar  Draoithe  o  naird  shoir  go 
Hirulasem:— and  the  passage  in  Exod.  vii.  11.  is  tlius  rendered  :— Anos  Draoithe  na  Hegipte  dor  innedur- 
sanfis  aran  modligceadna  Ic  nandroigheachtuibh. 


48  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Pelasgic,  or  Celtic,  is  accounted  most  generally  to  have  been  the  earliest  brought  from 
the  East,  by  the  Naochidae,  and  accordingly  to  have  been  "the  vehicle  of  the  first  know- 
ledge that  dawned  upon  Europe."*  In  the  still  written  and  spoken  dialect  of  this 
primEeval  languagef  we  possess  a  monument  of  the  high  antiquity  of  the  people  to  whom 
it  belongs,  which  no  cavil  can  reach,  nor  any  doubts  disturb. 

According  to  the  view,  indeed,  of  some  learned  philoiogers,  the  very  imperfections 
attributed  to  the  Irish  language, — tlje  predominance  in  it  of  gutturals,  and  the  incom- 
pleteness of  its  alphabet, — are  both  but  additional  and  convincing  proofs,  as  well  of  its 
directly  Eastern  origin,  as  of  its  remote  antiquity;  the  tongues  of  the  East,  before  the 
introduction  of  aspirates,  having  abounded,  as  it  appears,  with  gutturals,|  and  the  alphabet 
derived  from  the  Phoenicians  by  the  Greeks  having  had  but  the  same  limited  number  of 
letters  which  compose  the  Irish. 5  That  the  original  Cadmeian  number  was  no  more 
than  sixteen  is  the  opinion,  with  but  few  exceptions,  of  the  whole  learned  world ;  and 
that  such  exactly  is  the  number  of  the  genuine  Irish  alphabet  has  been  proved  satis- 
factorily by  the  reverend  and  learned  librarian  of  Stowe.||  Tiius,  while  all  the  more 
recent  and  mixed  forms  of  language  adopted  the  additional  letters  of  the  Greeks,  the  Irish 
alonelT  continued  to  adhere  to  the  original  number — the  same  number  no  doubt  which 
Herodotus  saw  graven  on  the  tripods  in  the  temple  of  Apollo  at  Thebes — the  same 
number  which  the  people  of  Attica  adhered  to  with  such  constancy,  that  it  became  a 
customary  phrase  or  proverb,  among  the  Greeks  to  say  of  any  thing  very  ancient,  that  it 
was  "in  Attic  letters."**  To  so  characteristic  an  extent  did  the  Irish  people  imitate  this 
fidelity,  that  even  the  introduction  among  them  of  the  Roman  alphabet  by  St.  Patrick 
did  not  tempt  them  into  any  innovation  upon  their  own.  On  the  contrary,  so  wedded 
were  they  to  their  own  letters,  that,  even  in  writing  Latin  words,  they  would  never 
admit  any  Roman  character  that  was  not  to  be  found  in  their  primitive  alphabet,  but 
employed  two  or  more  of  their  own  ancient  characters  to  represent  the  same  organic 
sound.ft 

*  Inquiries  concerning  the  First  Tiiliahitants,  Languages,  &.c.  of  Europe,  by  Mr.  Wise. 

t  According  to  the  learned  but  fanciful  Lazius,  the  Irish  language  abounds  with  Hebrew  words,  and  had 
its  origin  in  tjie  remotest  ages  of  the  world.  {De  Oentium  Mig-rationibus.)  A  French  writer.  Marcel,  also, 
in  speaking  of  the  Irish  idiom  or  dialect,  says,  "  On  pent  dire  avec  quelque  probabilitiS  qu'il  doit  remonter  ii 
une  6pnque  beuucoup  plus  recul6e  que  les  idiomes  de  la  plupart  des  autres  contrees  de  I'Europe."  This 
writer,  wlio  was  Directeur  de  I'Empriinerie  Impiriale,  under  Napoleon,  published  an  Irish  alphabet  from 
types  belonging  to  the  Propaganda  of  Home,  which  uere  sent,  by  the  order  of  Napoleon,  to  Paris.  Prefixed 
to  his  publication  are  some  remarks  on  the  grammatical  structure  of  the  Irish  language,  which  he  thus  con- 
cludes;— "  Par  cette  rnarche  conjugati  ve  elle  se  rapproche  de  la  simplicity  des  langues  anciennes  et  orientales. 
Elle  s"en  rapproche  encore  par  les  lettres  serviles  ou  auxiliares,  les  affixes  et  Ics  pr^fi.xes,  qu'elle  eraploie 
comme  la  Inngue  Htibraique."  With  the  types  of  tlie  Propaganda,  the  Irish  Catechism  of  Molloy,  called 
Lucerna  Fidelium,  was  printed. 

I  "  La  lingua  Punica  certamente  venne  pronnnziata  anticamente  colla  gorgia,  e  ne  resla  provato  in  quel 
piccol  monumento  che  la  scena  prima  rii  Plauto  ci  ha  lasciato  col  caratter*  Letino."— G.  P.  Agius  de 
Solandis,  quoted  in  Vallencey's  Essay  on  the  Antiquity  of  the  Irish  Language  "  In  the  Oriental  languages 
gutturals  abounded;  those  by  degrees  softened  into  mere  aspirates."  &c. — Rees's  Cyclopedia,  art.  Oothic 
Language.  In  tracing  the  Eastern  origin  of  the  Celtic,  Dr.  Pritchard  remarks,  that  "  words  derived  by  the 
western  from  the  eastern  languages  are  changed  in  a  peculiar  way.  The  most  general  of  these  alterations  is 
the  substituting  of  guttural  for  sibilant  letters.  May  not  such  words,  however,  have  been  derived  previously 
to  the  introduction  of  aspirates  and  sibilants? 

§  "  Now,  if  this  alphabet  (the  Irish)  had  not  been  borrowed  at  least  before  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war. 
when  Palamedes  made  the  first  addition  to  it,  we  can  hardly  conceive  it  should  be  so  simple.  Or,  if  the 
Druids  should  cull  it,  it  would  be  remarkable  that  they  should  hit  precisely  on  the  letters  of  Cadmus,  and 
reject  none  but  the  later  additions." — Smith's  Qaelic  Antiquities,  chap.  4. 

Iluddlestone,  the  editor  of  Toland,  also  remarks  upon  this  subject, — "  If  the  Irish  had  culled  or  selected 
their  alphabet  from  that  of  the  Romans,  how,  or  by  what  miracle,  could  they  have  hit  on  the  identical  letters 
which  Cadmus  brought  from  Phoenicia,  and  rejected  all  the  rest?  Had  they  thrown  sixteen  dice  sixteen 
times,  and  turned  up  the  same  number  every  time,  it  would  not  have  been  so  marvellous  as  this."- 

II  Delractis  itaque  quinque  diptliongis,  et  consonantihus  supra  memoratis,  qui  nullibi  in  lingua  Hibernica 
extant,  non  remanent  plures  quarn  sexdecim  simplicia  elementa,  quot  fuisse  antiquissimas  Cadmeias,  Plinius, 
et  Nonnus,  et  antiquissimi  scriptores  una  voce  testatum  reliquere. — O'Connor,  Annal.  Inisfall.  Dc  Iiiscript. 
Ogham. 

H  "  If  they  had  letters  first  from  St.  Patrick,  would  they  have  deviated  from  the  forms  of  the  letters  ?  Would 
they  have  altered  the  order?  Would  they  have  sunk  seven  (eight)  letters?  For  in  every  country  they  have 
rather  increased  than  diminished  the  number  of  letters,  except  those  of  the  Hebrew  and  Irish,  which  are  in 
statu  qvo  to  this  day  " — Parson's  Remains  ofjaphct. 

**  In  reference  to  this  proverb,  Lilius  Geraldus,  quoting  the  assertion  of  some  ancient  writer  that  treaties 
against  the  barbarians  were  ratified  in  Ionic,  not  iu  Attic,  letters,  adds,  "quasi,  ut  puto,  dicat  Uteris  recen- 
tioribus."— ii/.  Girnld.  de  Poetis. 

ft  "  Thus  in  all  words  begun  or  ended  by  X,  instead  of  writing  that  simple  character,  they  never  chose  to 
represent  it  otherwise  than  by  employing  two  of  the  Roman  characters,  viz.  gs  or  cs ;  a  trouble  they  cer- 
tainly might  have  saved  themselves,  at  least  in  writing  the  Latin,  had  they  not  rejected  it  as  an  exotic 
character,  and  not  existing  in  their  alphabet." — Literature  of  the  Irish  after  Chrislianilij,  CoUectan.  No.  5. 

This  mode  of  expressing  this  letter  X  was  anciently  practised  by  the  Romans  themselves  ;  but  had  been 
disused  ages  before  the  time  when  it  could  be  supposed  to  have  been  communicated  to  them  by  the  Irish. 
Another  curious  point,  respecting  the  Irish  alphabet,  is  thus  noticed  by  the  author  of  Oalic  Antiquities : — 
"  They  could  much  easier  have  spared  one  of  Cadmus's  letters  than  some  of  those  which  have  been  after- 
wards joined  to  it.  The  Greek  ^,  for  example,  expresses  a  sound  so  common  in  the  Galic,  and  so  imperfectly 
expressed  by  the  combined  powers  of  c  (or  k)  and  A,  that  they  could  not  possibly  have  omitted  it,  had  it  been 
in  the  alphabet  when  they  adopted  the  rest  of  the  letters." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  49 

It  will  be  perceived,  from  the  foregoing  remarks,  that  I  conceive  the  Irish  to  have 
been  early  acquainted  with  the  use  of  letters;  and  such  appears  to  me,  I  own,  the  con- 
elusion  to  which — attended,  though  it  be,  with  some  difficulties — a  fair  inquiry  into  lliig 
long-agitated  question  ought  to  lead.  In  asserting  that  letters  were  anciently  known  to 
this  people,  it  is  by  no  means  implied  that  the  knowledge  extended  beyond  the  learned 
or  Druidical  class — the  diffusion  of  letters  among  the  community  at  large  being,  in  all 
countries,  one  of  the  latest  results  of  civilized  life.  It  is  most  probable,  too,  that,  among 
the  Irish,  the  art  was  still  in  a  rude  and  primitive  state;  their  materials  having  been,  as 
we  are  told,  tablets  formed  of  the  wood  of  the  beech,  upon  which  they  wrote  with  an 
iron  pencil,  or  stylus,  and  from  whence  the  letters  themselves  were  called,  originally, 
Feadha,  or  Woods.  With  implements  denoting  so  early  a  stage  of  the  art — a  stage  cor- 
responding to  that  in  which  the  Romans  wrote  their  laws  upon  wood — the  uses  to  which 
writing  could  have  been  applied  were  of  course  limited  and  simple,  seldon>  extending, 
perhaps,  beyond  the  task  of  transmitting  those  annals  and  genealogies  which,  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe,  as  we  shall  see,  were  kept  regularly  from,  at  least,  the  first 
century  of  our  era. 

By  the  doubters  of  Irish  antiquities  the  time  of  the  apostleship  of  St.  Patrick  has  been 
the  epoch  generally  assigned  for  the  first  introduction  of  letters  into  that  country.  This 
hypothesis,  however,  has  been  compelled  to  give  way  to  the  hi^h  authority  of  Mr.  Astle, 
by  whom  inscribed  monuments  of  stone  were  discovered  in  Ireland,  which  prove  the 
Irish,  as  he  says,  "  to  have  had  letters  before  the  arrival  af  St.  Patrick  in  that  kingdom."* 
It  is  true,  this  eminent  antiquary  also  asserts,  that  "none  of  these  inscribed  monuments 
are  so  ancient  as  to  prove  that  the  Irish  were  possessed  of  letters  before  the  Romans  had 
intercourse  with  the  Britons;  but  the  entire  surrender  by  him  of  the  plaasible  and  long- 
maintained  notion,  that  to  St.  Patrick  the  Irish  were  indebted  for  their  first  knowledge 
of  this  gift,  leaves  rw  other  probable  channel  through  which,  in  later  times,  it  could  have 
reached  them ;  and  accordingly  sends  us  back  to  seek  its  origin  in  those  remote  ages, 
towards  which  the  traditions  of  the  people  themselves  invariably  point,  for  its  source.  Of 
any  communication  held  by  the  Romans  with  Ireland,  there  is  not  the  least  trace  or 
record;  and  the  notion  that,  at  a  period  when  the  light  of  history  had  found  its  way  into 
these  regions,  such  an  event  as  the  introduction  of  letters  into  a  newly  discovered  island 
should  have  been  passed  unrecorded  by  either  the  dispensers  or  the  receivers  of  the  boon, 
seems  altogether  improbable. 

Besides  the  alphabet  they  used  for  ordinary  occasions,  the  ancient  Irish  were  in  pos- 
session also,  we  are  told,  of  a  secret  mode  of  writing,  such  as  is  known  to  have  been 
used  for  sacred  purposes  among  the  hierarchies  of  the  East.  And  here,  again,  we  find 
their  pretensions  borne  out  by  such  apt  concurrence  with  antiquity,  as  could  hardly  have 
been  concerted  in  even  the  most  subtle  scheme  of  vanity  and  imposture.  It  has  been 
already  mentioned,  that  the  first  Irish  letters  were,  from  the  material  on  which  they  had 
been  first  inscribed,  called  Feadha,  or  Woods, — in  the  same  manner  as,  according  to  a 
learned  Hebraist,  every  word  denoting  books  in  the  Pentateuch  has  direct  reference  to 
the  material,  whether  wood  or  stone,  of  which  they  were  composed. f  With  a  similar 
and  no  less  striking  coincidence,  the  name  Ogam,  or  Ogma,  applied  traditionally  to  the 
occult  forms  of  writing  among  the  Irish,  and  of  whose  meaning  the  Irish  themselves 
seem,  till  of  late,  to  have  been  ignorant,|  is  found  to  be  a  primitive  Celtic  term,  signify- 
ing the  Secrets  of  Letters ;•§  and,  to  confirm  still  farther  this  meaning,  it  is  known  that 
the  Gaulish  god  of  Eloquence  was,  on  account  of  the  connexion  of  his  art  with  letters, 
called,  by  his  worshippers,  Ogmius.|| 

We  have  seen  that,  among  the  inscribed  monuments  of  stone,  of  which  there  are  so 
many  throughout  Ireland,  the  learned  Astle  found  proofs  to  satisfy  him  that  the  Irish  had 
letters  before  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick.  Could  some  of  the  inscriptions,  said  to  be  in  the 
Ogham  character,  be  once  satisfactorily  authenticated,  they  would  place  beyond  a  doubt 
the  claims  of  the  natives  to  an  ancient  form  of  alphabet  peculiarly  their  own.  It  is 
possible  that,  in  a  few  of  these  instances,  the  lines  taken  for  letters  may  have  been  no 
more  than  the  natural  marks,  or  furrows,  in  the  stone;  as  was  frequently  the  case  with 

*  Origin  and  Progress  of  Writing,  chap.  v. 

t  "  II  n'y  a  pas  une  e.xpression  dans  Moyse  on  il  parle  des  I jvres  qui  ne  puisse  s'expliquer  dans  le  sens  de  ces 
tables  de  pierre  et  de  bois." — Calmet.  The  wood  of  the  beech  has  been  the  material  used  for  the  tirst  attempts 
at  writing  in  most  countries.  "  Non  displicet  a  fago  arbore  derivari  quae  Gernianis  adhuc  hodie  die  Buche, 
Suecis  Soken,  Danis  Bog  dicitur."  See  J.  P.  Murray,  Animadvers.  in  Literal.  Runic  Commentat.  Soc.  Reg. 
Scient.  Ootting.  torn,  ii.,  where  a  number  of  other  curious  particulars  on  this  subject  may  be  found. 

t  The  word  is  not  to  be  found  in  O'Brien's  Irish  Dictionary,  and  is,  I  believe,  omitted,  also  in  most  of  the 
others. 

§  Probe  noverim  vocabulum  Oga,  Ogum,  vel  Ognia,Celte  significasse  secreta  lilerarum,  vel  Irteras  ipsas.— 

Keyslcr,  Jintiqq.  Scptent. 
II  Lucian.  Hercul.  Gall, 

6 


50  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

those  lines,  supposed  to  be  mystic  characters,  upon  the  Bsetyli,  or  Charmed  Stones  of  the 
ancients.*  The  professed  date,  too,  of  the  Ogham  inscription,  on  the  mountain  of  Callan, 
of  which  so  many  and  various  versions  have  been  suggested,  has  been  called  in  question  by 
a  learned  antiquary  seldom  slow  to  believe  in  the  evidence  of  his  country's  early  civiliza- 
tion.f  Neither  does  any  discovery  seem  to  have  been  yet  made  of  the  tomb  of  Fiacra, 
a  hero  commemorated  in  the  ancient  Book  of  Ballymote,  who  received  his  death-wound 
in  the  battle  of  Caonry,  a.  d.  380,  and  was  buried  in  Mcath,  with  his  name  inscribed,  in 
the  Ogham  character,  on  his  tomb.|  There  is,  however,  an  account  given  in  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy,  on  the  authority  of  two  most  intelligent  and  trust- 
worthy witnesses,^  of  the  discovery  of  a  stone  inscribed  with  undoubted  Ogham  letters, 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  town  of  Armagh,  and  on  a  spot  resembling,  in  many  of  its 
features,  the  remarkable  tumulus  at  New  Grange.|j 

In  addition  to  the  consistency  of  this  hierogrammatic  mode  of  writing,  with  all  else 
that  is  known  of  the  antiquities  of  the  country,  the  traditions  relating  to  its  use  in  sepul- 
chral inscriptions  may  be  traced  far  into  past  times;  and  among  other  ancient  writings 
in  which  allusion  to  it  occurs,  may  be  mentioned  the  tale  of  the  Children  of  Usneach, 
"  one  of  the  Three  Tragic  Stories  of  Eirin,"  in  which  the  interment  of  the  young  lovers 
is  thus  druidicaliy  represented: — "After  this  song,  Deirdri  flung  herself  upon  the  Naisi 
in  the  grave,  and  died  forthwith;  and  stones  were  laid  over  their  monumental  heap,  their 
Ogham  name  was  inscribed,  and  their  dirge  of  lamentation  was  sung.*'ir 

I  have  already  mentioned,  as  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  an  original  alphabet  in  the 
country  before  the  introduction  of  that  of  the  Romans,  the  characteristic  obstinacy  with 
which  they  adhered  to  their  own  limited  number  of  letters, — insomuch  as  that,  even  in 
writing  Latin  words,  they  took  the  unnecessary  trouble  of  supplying,  by  combinations 
from  their  own  original  characters,  the  place  of  those  additional  letters  of  the  Romans 
which  they  regarded  as  exotic.  It  may  here  be  added,  that  the  peculiar  order  of  their 
native  alphabet,  in  which  b,  l,  i,  r,  stand  as  the  initial  letters,  would  afford  such  an 
instance  of  downright  caprice  and  dictation,  in  mere  beginners  with  these  elements,  as 
may  be  pronounced  utterly  incredible. 

Another  argument,  equally  strong,  in  favour  of  their  claims  to  an  original  ancient 
alphabet,  may  be  drawn  from  the  use,  in  Irish  orthography,  of  what  are  called  quiescent 
consonants,  which,  though  always  preserved  in  writing,  are  omitted  in  pronunciation. 
If  this  characteristic  of  the  language  be  really  ancient,  and  not  rather  one  of  those  cor- 
ruptions or  innovations  which  the  bardic  rhymers  are  accused  of  introducing  for  the  sake 
of  thee  uphony  of  the  rhythm,**  there  could  be  no  more  convincing  proof  of  the  existence 
of  letters,  from  a  very  early  period ;  as  by  no  other  means,  it  is  plain,  than  by  a  written 
standard  could  the  memory  of  letters,  left  unpronounced  in  speaking,  have  been  pre- 
served. 

The  state  of  purity  in  which,  considering  its  great  primaeval  antiquity,  the  dialect  of 
the  Celtic  spoken  in  Ireland  was  found  existing,  when  first  that  country  attracted  the 
notice  of  modern  Europe,  appears  in  itself  a  sufficient  proof  that  the  use  of  letters  had 
long  been  known  to  her  people.  It  seems  hardly  possible,  indeed,  to  conceive  that, 
without  the  aid  of  a  written  standard,  this  language  could  have  retained  to  such  a  degree 
its  original  structure  and  forms,  as  even  to  serve  as  a  guide  and  auxiliary  to  the  philologer 
in  his  researches  info  the  affinities  and  gradual  formation  of  other  more  recent  tongues. 
That  there  may  be  inherent  in  an  original  language  like  the  Irish  a  self-conservative 
principle,  it  is  most  easy  to  believe ;  but  we  yet  perceive,  in  the  instance  of  the  Highlands 

*  "  Some  of  the  Bastyls,"  says  M.  Falconnet,  "  avoiont  dos  l/gnns  gravces  sur  leiir  surface.  Damasciiis  les 
appelle  lettics  pour  reiulre  la  chose  plus  myeterieuse :  elit'ctivcuient,  ces  lisnes  que  je  orois  etrc  precisement 
ce  qu'Orpliiie  appelle  riiies,  forment  tine  apparence  do  caracleres." — Dissert,  sur  les  Bwtyls. 

t  Dr.  O'Connor,  de  inscript.  Ogliani. — Jlnnal.  Inisfal. 

f  Vallancey,  Irish  Grammar,  Pref  i2.—0'Convor.  E-p.  JVunc  33.  and  Mnval.  Tnisfall.  136. 

§  Doctor  Brown  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Young,  both  fellows  of  Trin.  Coll.,  Dublin.  In  a  letter  from  Doctor 
Brown  (quoted  in  a  paper,  vol.  viii.  of  the  Irish  Transactions,)  he  is  represented  to  have  said,  that,  "  not- 
withstanding all  that  lias  been  written,  by  very  learned  men,  of  the  Ogham  character,  and  some  modern 
testimonies  respecting  its  e.xistence,  he  was  extremely  incredulous  as  to  any  monuments  being  actually 
extant  on  which  it  could  be  found,  and  disposed  to  thinli  that  literary  enthu.siasm  had  mistaken  natural 
furrows  on  the  stone  for  engraved  characters:  but,  having  satisfied  himself  that  he  was  in  error,  he  thought 
it  a  duty  to  the  Academy  to  mention  a  monument  of  the  kind  that  had  come  under  his  knowledge." 

II  "  They  observed  enough  to  impress  them  with  a  strong  persuasion  that  the  hill  is  excavated,  the  entrance 
being  very  like  that  at  New  Grange.  Another  resemblance  is  in  the  surrounding  circle  of  upright  stones, 
which  (together  with  the  want  of  a  ditch  or  fosse)  always  distinguishes  such  tumuli."— />»-.  Brown's 
.Account. 

IT  For  a  prose  version  of  this  ancient  Irish  story,  which  furnished  the  foundation  of  Macpherson's  Dar- 
thula,  see  Travsactions  of  the  Gaelic  Society  of  Dublin. 

**  See,  for  the  modes  by  which  "  the  bards,  or  versificators,  were  accustomed  to  stretch  out  words  by 
miiltiplying  the  syllables  according  to  the  exigency  of  their  rhymes,"  O'Brien's  Irish  Diet.  {Remarks  on  the 
Letter  A.)  One  of  those  methods  was  "  by  ihrovving  between  two  vowels  an  adventitious  consonant,  to 
stretch  and  divide  the  two  vowels  with  two  difflrcnt  syllables." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  51 

of  Scotland,*  how  much  the  dialect  of  the  Irish  spoken  by  that  people  has,  from  the 
want  or  disuse  of  a  written  standard,  become,  in  the  course  of  time,  changed  and  cor- 
rupted ;  and  still  more  remarkably  in  the  instance  of  Ireland  itself,  where,  notwithstanding 
its  acknowledged  possession  of  the  art  of  writing  from  the  time  of  the  mission  of  St. 
Patrick,  so  great  a  change  has  the  language  undergone  during  that  interval,  not  only  as 
spoken  but  as  written,  that  there  are  still  extant  several  fragments,  of  ancient  laws  and 
poems,  whose  obsolete  idiom  defies  the  skill  of  even  the  most  practised  Irish  scholars  to 
interpret  them.t 

When  so  signal  a  change  has  been  operated  in  the  Irish  language,  during  this  period, 
in  spite  of  the  standard  maintained,  through  a  considerable  portion  of  it,  by  a  regular 
succession  of  public  annalists,  as  well  as  by  the  writings  of  native  legendaries  and  bards, 
it  seems  fair  to  conclude,  that,  if  left  without  any  such  safeguards,  and  in  the  state  of 
barbarism  their  absence  would  imply,  the  general  speech  of  the  people  must,  in  time, 
have  degenerated  into  a  mere  vague  jargon,  retaining  but  little  trace  of  those  features  of 
relationship  towards  some  of  the  most  polished  tongues  of  Europe,  which  induced  the 
great  Leibnitz  to  recommend  a  diligent  study  of  the  Irish  language  as  highly  conducive, 
in  his  opinion,  to  the  knowledge  and  promotion  of  Celtic  literature.j 

With  respect  to  the  medium  through  which  the  Irish  may  be  supposed  to  have  early 
received  the  knowledge  of  letters,  it  might  be  sufficient  to  point  to  Gaul  as  the  not  improbable 
region  from  whence  the  British,  as  well  as  the  Irish  Druids,  may  have  been  furnished  with 
the  gift.  That  the  use  of  letters  was  known  to  the  Gauls,  the  whole  context  of  Caesar's 
remarks  on  the  subject  proves.  The  single  sentence,  indeed,  where  he  states  that  the 
Druids  forbade  their  doctrines  to  be  committed  to  writing,  fully  suffices  to  prove  this  art 
to  have  been  already  introduced  into  the  country;  the  very  circumstance  of  its  being 
prohibited  clearly  implying  its  pre-existence.  For  all  the  ordinary  purposes  of  life,  they 
made  use,  adds  Cassar,  of  the  Greek  letters;  and  those  they  derived,  it  is  supposed,  from 
the  Greek  colonies  established  at  Marseilles.  We  have  already  seen,  and  also  on 
Caesar's  authority,  that  to  Britain,  the  cradle  and  school  of  Druidism,  such  Gaulish 
students  as  wished  to  perfect  themselves  in  its  mysteries,  resorted.  Without  insisting 
any  farther  on  the  highly  probable  supposition,  that  the  Magi  or  Druids  of  Ireland  were, 
in  realty,  those  instructors  to  whom  the  Gauls  sent  their  youth  to  be  initiated  in  the 
higher  mysteries,  and  whose  rites  Pliny  describes  as  so  singularly  resembling  those  of 
the  Persians,  there  would  be  at  least  no  violent  degree  of  assumption  in  supposing  such 
an  intercourse  to  have  early  existed  between  the  three  countries,  as  might  have  been 
the  means  of  supplying  the  Druids,  both  of  Britain  and  Ireland,  with  that  knowledge  of 
letters  so  long  possessed  by  their  brethren  of  Gaul. 

But  there  is  still  an  earlier  and,  as  far  as  Ireland  is  concerned,  more  obvious  channel, 
through  which  this  acquisition  may  have  been  derived  by  her  people.  Those  who  have 
accompanied  the  course  of  inquiry  pursued  in  the  foregoing  pages,  may  have  seen  reason 
to  believe  that  the  Irish,  from  their  evident  connexion  both  with  Phoenician  and  Cartha- 
ginian sources,  were  far  more  early  and  more  directly,  than  even  the  Gauls  themselves, 
in  the  way  of  receiving  a  gift  so  familiar  to  most  of  their  Eastern  visiters,  and  which, 
there  are  good  grounds  for  supposing,  was  in  those  days  much  more  extensively  circu- 
lated, among  at  least  the  learned  or  sacred  classes  of  all  countries,  than  it  has  been  the 
fashion  of  modern  hypothesis  to  admit.  How  wholly  improbable  it  is,  that  the  Irish  should 
not  have  been  furnished  with  this  important  knowledge  from  the  same  nation  that  supplied, 
in  a  great  part,  their  creed  and  their  ritual,  the  names  of  their  gods  and  festivals,  of  their 
sacred  hills  and  promontories,  has  already,  perhaps,  been  more  than  sufficiently  urged. 
In  those  parts  of  Spain  with  which  the  Irish  were  most  acquainted,  the  Phoenicians  had, 
from  the  time  of  Moses,  established  themselves ;5  and,  accordingly,  letters  are  known  to 

*  "  It  is  well  known  that  the  Erse  dialect  of  the  Gaelic  was  never  written  nor  printed  until  Mr.  Macfar- 
lane,  late  Minister  of  Killinvir,  in  Argyleshire,  published,  in  1754,  a  translation  of  Baxter's  'Call  to  the 
Unconverted.'  " — Shaw's  Inquiry,  i^c.  The  author  of  the  "  Claims  of  Ossian,"  also,  asserts  that,  "  till  within 
these  thirty  years,  the  Caledonians  had  never  possessed  so  much  as  the  skeleton  of  a  national  grammar." 

t  Lingua  enim  Hibernica  qua  incoloe  Hiberniae  et  Alhani<e  nunc  vulgo  utuntur  in  pluribus  diversa  est  ab 
antiqua;  et  cum  id  in  Codicibus  scriptis  pateat,  quis  nisi  fatuis  studiis  abreptus  non  percipit,  diversitatera 
longfi  majorem  necessario  oriri  debere  in  lingua  non  scripta. — Rei:  Hibern.  Script.  Ep.  nunc. 

The  learned  Colgan,  in  speaking  of  some  poems  ascribed  to  Ddllan,  an  Irish  Bishop  of  the  sixth  century, 
declares  them  to  have  been  written  in  so  ancient  a  style  as  to  be  wholly  unintelligible,  even  to  many  who 
were  versed  in  the  ancient  idiom  of  the  country: — "A  multis  alioquin  in  veteri  patrio  idiomate  versatis 
nequeunt  penetrari."    (Quoted  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  L'rol.  ii.  I.txiv.) 

X  Postremo,  ad  perficiendam,  vel  certe  valde  promovendam  literaturara  Celticam,  diligentius  lingUcB  Hiber- 
nicae  studiiim  abjungenduin  censeo. — CoUeclaii.  Etijmol.  vol.  i. 

nXtiMi;  Of^npou. — Strab.  lib.  iii.  However  exaggerated  rnay  have  been  Strabo's  hearsay  account  of  the  Tur- 
ditani,  who,  he  tells  us,  were  said  to  have  been  in  possession  of  poems,  laws  in  verse,  and  other  written 
monuments  of  antiquity,  for  the  space  of  six  hundred  years,  such  an  extent  of  assertion  would  hardly  have 
been  without  some  foundation  in  fact.    See,  fur  the  passage,  his  Third  Book. 


52  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

have  flourished  in  those  regions  before  the  Romans  were  even  in  existence,  as  Romans 
themselves  have  acknowledged.*  That  an  island  situated  in  the  very  neighbourhood  of 
such  sources  of  civilization,  and  so  long  connected,  as  it  appears,  with  the  people  who 
were  the  great  dispensers  of  the  knowledge  of  letters  in  those  days,  should  alone  be 
excluded  from  an  advantage  enjoyed  by  all  their  other  allies  and  dependencies,  is  a 
supposition  far  too  improbable  to  be  entertained. f  When  we  add  to  all  this,  that,  at  the 
time  when  the  Irish  first  broke  forth,  as  scholars  and  missionaries,  upon  Europe,  they 
were  found  in  possession  of  modes  of  writing  peculiar  to  themselves,  of  elements  acknow- 
ledged to  have  no  prototypes  in  any  known  language,|  and  differing  in  name,  number, 
and  order  from  those  of  every  other  existing  alphabet,  such  a  coincidence  with  all  that 
we  know  of  the  early  fortunes  of  the  country,  as  well  as  with  all  that  her  own  traditions 
lay  claim  to,  forms  a  case  assuredly  in  favour  of  those  claims  which  is  not  to  be  easily 
controverted;  while  there  is,  on  the  other  hand,  but  little  more  than  the  vague  doubts  and 
cavils  of  a  no  very  liberal  school  of  skepticism  opposed  to  all  this  evidence. 

It  is  thought  that  the  Gauls,  who,  in  the  time  of  Cagsar,  made  use  of  the  Greek  letters 
derived  from  the  colony  of  Marseilles,  had  possessed  originally  an  alphabet  of  their  own, 
which  was  then  forgotten  or  superseded  by  that  of  the  Greeks;^  and  a  similar  fate  seems 
to  have  attended  the  ancient  alphabet  of  the  Irish,  as  the  letters  adopted  by  them,  after 
the  mission  of  St.  Patrick,  though  differing  widely,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  Roman,  in 
number,  order,  and  power,  bear  a  considerable  degree  of  resemblance  to  them  in  shape. 
This,  combined  with  the  pains  St.  Patrick  is  known  to  have  taken  to  introduce  among 
them  the  Roman  characters,  warrants  the  conclusion,  that  his  efforts  had  thus  far  suc- 
ceeded, and  that,  though  unable  to  persuade  them  to  adopt  the  additional  letters,  or  to 
depart  from  the  order  of  their  own  ancient  Bethluisnon,  he  prevailed  in  inducing  them  to 
attempt  those  rude  imitations  of  the  Roman  characters  which  their  present  alphabet 
exhibits,  and  which  are  acknowledged  to  have  been,  not  long  after,  adopted  from  them  by 
the  Saxons.ll 

From  the  near  resemblance  which  some  Irish  words,  implying  a  knowledge  of  letters, 
such  as  a  book,  to  read,  to  write,  &c.,  bear  to  the  Latin  terms  for  the  same  objects  and 
operations,  it  has  been  hastily  concluded  that  the  Romans  must  have  first  introduced 
these  words,  and  accordingly  that  the  art  to  which  they  refer  must  have  been  also  pre- 
viously unknown. IT  But  besides  that  to  seek  the  source  of  Celtic  words  in  the  Latin,  is 
wholly  to  reverse  the  natural  course  of  derivation,  it  might  just  as  reasonably,  on  the 
same  grounds,  be  concluded,  that  the  Irish  were  indebted  to  the  Romans  for  their  first 
knowledge  of  the  natural  relationships  of  father  and  mother,  since  the  words  employed  in 
the  Latin  and  Irish  to  express  these  relations  are  no  less  evidently  of  a  cognate  origin.** 

An  ingenious  Englishman,  General  Vallancey,  accustomed  to  follow  with  far  more 
zeal  than  judgment  that  clew  to  Ireland's  antiquities  which  their  manifest  connexion 
with  Phoenician  sources  supplies,  lias  gone  so  far,  it  is  well  known,  as  to  persuade  himself 
that  in  certain  speeches,  professing  to  be  Punic,  which  are  put  by  Plautus  into  the  mouth 
of  one  of  his  dramatic  personages,  he  could  discover  genuine  Irish.  The  casual  coinci- 
dences he  has  pointed  out  between  several  Irish  words  and  the  corrupt  jargon,  as  it  is 
most  probably,  which  Plautus  produces  as  Punic,  are  certainly  curious  and  imposing;  and 
more  than  one  writer  pf  high  authority,  on  such  subjects,  have  lent  their  sanction  to  the 

*  In  i,.'  etiam  rcgionibiis,  unde  Scotorura  origiiiis  cognilio  eruenda  est,  nempe  in  occidentalibus  Iberiae 
paitibus,  a  Pliocnicibus,  ab  ipso  Moysis  fBvo,  habitatis,  literas  ante  Romanorum  teinpora  viguisse,  ipsi  Ro- 
niani  testantur.— /fer.  Jlibern.  Script  Ep.  JViinc. 

t  The  same  argument  has  been  made  use  of  by  Astle  against  Wise,  who  held  that  the  Egyptians  were 
unacquainted  with  the  use  of  letters.  "  As  they  had  commercial  intercourse,"  says  this  learned  writer, 
"with  their  neighbours  the  Phoenicians,  they  probably  had  the  knowledge  of  letters." 

I  "  It  follows,  therefore,  that,  as  there  was  no  prototype  to  copy  them  (the  Irish  alphabets)  from,  they  must 
be  orieinal." — Harris  on   JVare,  chap.  iii. 

§  •'  The  Gauls,  in  particular,  had  evidently  lost  the  use  of  their  original  a]phahel."—  ft'hituker  JHst.  of  Man- 
chester, book  i.  chap.  10.  sect.  6. 

II  Anglo-Saxones  rationem  fnrmandi  literas  accepisse  ab  Ilibcrnis,  cum  eodem  plane  characteusi  fucrit  qui 
hodie  Hibernis  est  in  nsu. —  Camden. 

ir  This  was  first  suggested,  i  tiiink,  by  Innes,  Crit.  Essay,  &c.  vol.  ij.  sect.  2;  and  Mr.  Turner,  in  his  valu- 
able history,  has  condescended  to  follow  in  the  s:ime  track.  Innes  adduces  a  similar  reason  for  supposing 
that  tlie  ancient  Irish  were  unacquainted  with  the  art  of  numbering.  See  on  this  subject  Dr.  Pritchard's 
Fatisfdctory  wotk,  T/ie  Eastern  Origin  of  the  Celtic  M'aiions ;  particularly  chap.  iii.  where  he  adduces  proofs  of 
a  common  origin  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  Celtic  and  other  Indo-European  languages. 

**  In  writing  these  sentences,  I  was  litfle  aware  that  the  case  which  I  here  but  contemplated  had  actually 
occurred;  and  that,  alreaily  on  the  grounds  above  stated,  it  had  been  sapiently  concluded  that  the  ordinary 
relationship  of  father,  mother,  brother,  &c.,  were  unknown  to  the  ancient  Irish. — "  Close  as  the  relation 
was,"  says  Mr.  Wood,  "  between  a  son  and  his  parents,  brothers  and  sisters,  there  are  no  words  in  the  Celtic 
language  distinct  from  those  which  appear  to  be  derivations  from  the  Latin  language,  and  e.xpress  this  con- 
sanguinity. Thus  athair.  a  father,  seems  to  be  derived  from  pater ;  mathair,  a  inother,  from  mater;  brathair, 
a  brother,  from /)-a(cr ;  siur,  a  sister,  from  sorur.  This  opinion,  which  was  formed  from  the  affinity  observa- 
ble between  the  derivations  and  the  Latin,  is  strengthened  not  only  by  the  general  mode  of  this  uncultivated 
family,  (the  Celts,)  but  by  the  promiscuous  intercouVse  which  subsisted,"  icc—lnqniry.  Sec. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  53 

supposed  discovery.*  The  learned  antiquary,  however,  would,  in  his  ardour,  prove  too 
much;  and,  paradoxical  as  the  assertion  may  appear,  the  more  completely  his  pretended 
case  is  made  out,  the  more  improbable  it  becomes:  since,  to  produce  so  close  a  conformity 
between  the  Phoenician  and  the  Irish,  as,  in  his  zeal,  he  has  endeavoured  to  make  appear, 
it  would  have  been  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  Punic  language  should  have 
undergone  no  considerable  change  during  the  six  centuries  that  elapsed  from  the  founda- 
tion of  Carthage  till  the  time  when  Plautus  wrote;  and  that,  in  the  next  place,  Ireland 
herself  should  not  only  have  been  colonized  directly  from  Carthage,  but  have  retained 
the  language,  through  so  many  centuries,  little  altered  from  its  first  source.f  But  the 
mere  statement  of  such  an  hypothesis  is  a  sufficient  exposure  of  its  absurdity.  That 
process  of  corruption  by  which  the  primitive  language,  or  languages  of  Europe,  came  to 
be  broken  up  into  so  great  a  variety  of  dialects  has  continued  to  operate  with  the  same 
rapidity  ever  since,  till  not  only  have  the  different  nations,  at  this  day,  all  distinct  tongues, 
but  even  the  early  form  of  each  of  these  tongues  has  become,  in  the  course  of  a  few  cen- 
turies, wholly  unintelligible  to  the  direct  descendants  of  those  who  first  wrote  and  spoke 
it.  Even  in  ancient  times,  so  widely  had  some  of  the  Celtic  nations  already  departed 
from  their  common  language,  that,  as  appears  from  Polybius,  it  was  only  through  the 
medium  of  an  interpreter  that  the  Carthaginians,  in  the  time  of  Hannibal,  could  hold 
communication  with  the  Gauls, 

In  their  prohibition  of  the  use  of  letters,  as  a  means  of  communicating  instructions,  lay 
the  essential  point  of  difference  between  the  Gaulish  and  Irish  Druids.  The  declared 
principle  upon  which  the  former  abstained  from  recording  their  science — a  principle  held 
by  them,  we  know,  in  common  with  most  of  the  sages  of  antiquity — was,  tiiat  Memory 
being  the  greatest  living  depositary  of  knowledge,  it  was  to  be  feared  that,  if  once  accus- 
tomed to  consign  her  treasures  to  writing,  she  might  feel  absolved  from  the  high  trust, 
and,  by  degrees,  relax  in  her  guardianship  of  the  precious  stores  committed  to  her.+ 
That,  on  this  speculative  point,  the  Irish  Magi  differed  from  the  Druids  of  Gaul,  is  proved 
by  their  possession,  as  we  have  seen,  of  a  secret  form  of  writing,  expressly  designed  at 
once  to  transmit  the  sacred  learning  to  their  successors,  and  yet  effectually  conceal  it 
from  the  inquisitive  eyes  of  the  profane. 

Wherever  the  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies  has  prevailed,  there  astronomy,  as  the 
natural  handmaid  of  such  a  religion,  has  been  found  likewise  to  flourish  ;  and  the  Phoeni- 
cians, the  great  sun-worshippers  of  antiquity,  were  also  the  greatest  astronomers.^  The 
skill  of  the  Irish  Druids  in  this  science  would  seem,  in  one  very  important  particular,  to 
have  outgone  that  of  their  brethren  of  Gaul,  who  measured  the  year,  as  we  collect  from 
Pliny,  but  by  lunations,  or  revolutions  of  the  moon,  whereas,  the  Irish  appear  to  have 
attained  some  glimmering  notion  of  the  mode  of  reconciling,  by  the  means  of  intercalary 
days,  the  difference  between  the  lunar  and  solar  year.  This,  they  are  alleged  to  have 
effected  by  adding  to  the  360  days,  of  which  the  twelve  lunations  consisted,  five  days  and 

*  Lord  Uosse  (Defence  of  ancient  Jreland)  axiA  Sir  William  Betham; — the  latter  a  practised  Irish  scholar. 
S?e  his  Oael  and  Cijmbri. 

In  some  instances  the  Punic  of  Plautus  and  the  Irish  confronted  with  it  by  Vallancey,  are  almost  identical, 
as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  specimen  : — 

PLAUTUS. 

Bytli  lym  mo  thym  noctothii  nel  ecli  an  ti  daisc  machon 
Ys  i  de  lebrim  thyfe  lyth  cliy  lys  chon  temlyph  ula. 


Beth  liom!  mo  thime  noclaithe,  niel  ach  an  ti  daisic  mac  coinne 
Is  i  de  leabhraim  tafach  leith,  chi  lis  con  teampluibh  ulla. 

See,  for  the  rest,  Vallancey's  Irish  Grammar. 

It  appears,  from  a  late  disclosure  (See  Ilardiman's  Irish  Minstrelsy,  Introduction,)  that  this  curious  disco- 
very of  Irish  in  Plautus,  by  which  Vallancey  gained  so  much  celebrily,  is,  after  all,  not  his  own,  but  was 
borrowed,  without  any  acknowledgment,  from  a  manuscript  which  came,  by  accident,  into  his  hands. 

t  Lord  Rosse,  Defence  of  Ireland. 

I  See  a  remarkable  passage,  in  the  Phfedrus  of  Plato,  of  which  the  above  is  the  substance,  where  the  god 
Thoth  is  represented  as  recommending  his  invention  of  letters  to  a  king  of  Egypt,  and  is  answered,  in  a 
strain  of  acute  observation,  by  the  king.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  soundness  of  his  arguments,  as 
directed  against  all  use  of  letters  whatsoever,  to  a  very  general  diffusion  of  that  gift  they  will  be  found,  I 
fear,  but  too  applicable.  "  I  would  lead  men,"  says  the  king,  "  to  a  sort  of  false  and  useless  learning,  teach- 
ing them  opinions,  not  truth — 2o^/«c  Ja  TOi?  yU=t6sT:t/f  cTo^av  cvx.  oLhuSiistv  3-cg/^f/c— the  natural  consequence 
of  which  is,  that  they  will  become  opinionated,  not  wise — A^^o(ro<poi  uvti  (i-o(fiiv." 

§  "  That  which  hath  given  the  Sabians  the  greatest  credit  among  the  people  of  the  East  is,  that  the  best  of 
their  astronomers  have  been  of  this  sect ;  for  the  stars  being  the  gods  they  worshipped,  they  made  them  the 
chief  subject  of  their  studies."— PriWcaxi's  Connexion,  book  iii.  part  i. 


54  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

a  quarter  of  the  period  annually  devoted  by  them  to  the  celebration  of  their  ancient 
Taltine  Games.* 

The  very  custom,  indeed,  of  a  great  annual  festival  existing,  for  any  time,  among  a 
people,  would  seem,  of  itself,  to  imply  that,  in  regulating  the  length  of  their  year,  they 
employed  some  more  certain  measure  than  the  revolutions  of  the  moon;  since  otherwise, 
the  same  confusion  must,  in  time,  have  arisen,  on  the  recurrence  of  such  a  festival,  as 
provoked  the  ridicule  of  Aristophanes  against  the  calendar  of  the  Greeks.  But,  among 
the  Irish,  there  appear  to  have  been  observed,  at  least,  three  annual  festivals,  each  mark- 
ing one  of  those  Rallis,  or  quarters,  into  which  their  year  was  divided.  Beginning  the 
year,  in  the  manner  of  the  Persians,  at  the  Vernal  Equinox,  they  then  solemnized  their 
great  Fire  Feast,  La  Bealtinne;  and  the  second  Rath,  which  commenced  at  the  Summer 
Solstice,  and  was  called  the  Course,  or  Season  of  Gaiety,  they  signalized  by  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  Taltine  Games,  or  Sports.  In  three  months  after  were  performed,  in  the  Field 
of  Howling,  those  dreadful  sacrifices,  of  which  mention  has  already  been  made,  and  by 
which  the  opening  of  the  third  Rath,  or  Autumnal  Equinox,  was  commemorated. f  The 
remaining  three  months  of  the  year,  unmarked,  as  far  as  appears,  by  any  periodical 
solemnity,  except  the  usual  lighting  up  of  fires  on  the  high  places,  constituted  the  fourth 
Rath,  or  quarter. 

The  degree  of  knowledge  as  to  the  equinoctial  and  solstitial  points,  which  this  division 
of  the  twelve  months  seems  to  imply,  would  incline  us  to  believe,  that  the  ancient  Irish 
were  not  entirely  unacquainted  with  that  first  approach  to  a  correct  measure  of  time,  the 
luni-solar  year;  and  some  of  the  terms  employed,  in  their  language,  on  the  subject,  tend 
to  confirm  this  view.  Thus,  the  year  was  called  by  them  Bel-ain,  or  the  Circle  of  the 
Sun,  while  the  Zodiac  they  named  Beach-Grian,  or  the  Revolution  of  the  Sun ;  and  the 
Solstices  were  termed  Grian-stad,  or  the  Sun's  stopping  places.  It  has  been  conjectured, 
and  with  much  probability,  that  the  stone  circles  of  the  Druids  were  employed  no  less  as 
rude  observatories  than  as  places  of  judicature  and  worship  ;  and  the  position,  in  most  of 
them,  of  the  great  perpendicular  stones,  of  which  some,  it  is  said,  are  placed  generally  in 
or  near  the  meridian  of  the  spot,  while  others  are  as  carefully  stationed  to  the  right  or 
left  of  the  centre,!  would  seem  to  indicate,  in  their  construction,  some  view  to  astronomi- 
cal purposes.^  It  is  remarked,  too,  that  they  are  situated  chiefly  on  eminences  com- 
manding an  extensive  range  of  horizon;  and  a  circle  thus  placed,  in  Merionethshire,  is 
called  Cerig  Brudyn,  or  the  Astronomer's  Stones,  or  Circle.  ||  A  similar  monument, 
bearing  much  the  same  designation,  is  described  by  antiquaries  as  existing  near  Dundalk. 

In  addition  to  this  and  other  remains,  supposed  to  have  been  connected  as  well  with 
astronomy  as  with  religion,  the  ancient  Irish  had  also  their  Round  Towers,  or  Fire-Tem- 
ples, which  appear  to  have  been  applied  to  the  same  double  purpose.  It  is,  indeed,  highly 
probable,  from  the  name  "  Celestial  Indexes  "  affixed  to  them  by  the  chroniclers,  that  one 
of  the  chief  uses  of  these  structures  was  to  stand  as  gigantic  gnomons,  and  by  their  sha- 
dows measure,  from  solstice  to  solstice,  the  gradual  increase  and  decrease  of  the  day. 

From  a  passage  which  occurs  in  an  old  life  of  Moctheus,  the  first  Bishop  of  Louth,1I  it 
has  been  conjectured  that  the  division  of  lime,  by  the  week  or  cycle  of  seven  days,  was 
not  unknown  to  the  Pagan  Irish;  and  if  there  be  any  good  grounds  for  such  a  notion,  it 
affords  an  additional  confirmation  of  the  very  early  origin  claimed  for  Druidism;  since  it 
appears,  that  soon  after  the  lapse  of  mankind  into  idolatry,  the  observance  of  the  Mundane 
week  fell  every  where  into  disuse,  excepting  only  among  the  family  of  Abraham,  by 
whom  it  was  faithfully  preserved,  and  from  them  transmitted  down  through  the  descend- 
ants of  Ishmael  to  the  Mahometans.** 

*  Cliiemadmnduni  in  iiostro  Civili  Computn,  annus,  universali  consensus  constat  diebus  tantuni  365,  excepto 
quovis  anno  quarto  sen  Bissextili  dieium  3GG,  sic  etiain  apud  Dniidos  Hibernos  invaluisse  assero  artem,  qua 
Ludos  Taltinios  ad  Solstitia,  expletis  Lunationibiis  12  accorainodabant,  quinque  dies  cum  quadraute  addentes 
anno  Lunari  dieruni  3t;0,  ut  popularem  annum  adimplerent. — Rer.  Hibern.  Script.  Prol.  1.  34. 

t  Rer.  Uibern.  Script.  Ep.  Nunc. 

I  King's  Munimenta  Antiqua.  vol.  i. 

§  For  the  same  purpose,  it  would  appear  that  upright  stones  and  rocks  were  employed  by  the  Goths  and 
Sucons  "  They  liave  no  use,"  says  Glaus,  "  of  sundials,  but  they  use  only  the  high  stones  of  rocks  that  are 
placed  partly  by  nature,  partly  by  cunning,  that  by  an  infallible  conjecture  do  overshadow  the  sunbeams  and 
distinguish  tlie  parts  of  the  day."— 0/«Ki  Magiius,  bonk  i.  chap.  19. 

In  the  Transactions  of  the  lioyal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  xiv.,  may  be  found  an  account  of  a  remarkable  old 
building  on  the  north  side  of  Kenmare  river,  called  Staigne  Fort,  and  supposed,  by  Mr.  Nimmo,  to  have  been 
originally  intended  for  an  observatory.  See  his  reasons  annexed  to  the  essay. — "  It  appeared  to  me,"  he 
says,  "  tiiat  the  structure  exhibited  a  sort  of  rude  graduation  of  the  horizon." 

II  "There  is  also,  in  Ireland,"  .-says  King,  "an  astronomer's  hill  belonging  to  the  Druids,  called  Carrick 
Edmond,  which  cannot  but  remind  us  of  the  Kcrrig  Edris  in  Wales." 

^  I'eractis  vero,  ut  moris  erat  Gentilium,  diebus  septen»  exequiarum. 

**  This  view  of  the  history  of  the  Sabbatical  institution  may  be  found  argued  at  some  length,  and  upon 
apparently  solid  grounds,  by  a  commentator  on  Pliny,  lib.  xvi.  c.  95.  (Valpy's  Edition.)  This  writer,  how- 
«ver,  denies  that  the  Druids  were  acquainted  with   the  hebdomadal  cycle.    •' Quod  hie  obiter  annotandum 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  55 


CHAPTER  V. 


POETIC,  OR  BARDIC,  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  EARLY  INHABITANTS  OE  IRELAND. 

So  intermixed  together  are  reality  and  fiction  in  the  first  record  of  most  nations,  and 
each,  in  passing  through  the  medium  of  tradition,  assumes  so  deceivingly  the  features  of 
the  other,  that  the  attempt  to  distinguish  between  them  is  a  task  of  no  ordinary  responsi- 
bility; more  especially  where  national  vanity  has  become  interested  in  the  result;  or 
where,  as  in  the  case  of  Ireland,  a  far  deeper  feeling  of  wounded  pride  seeks  relief  from 
the  sense  of  present  humiliation  and  suffering,  in  such  indistinct  dreams  of  former  glory. 

As  the  earliest  chroniclers,  too,  of  most  countries,  have  been  poets,  tiie  duty  of  strip- 
ping off  those  decorations  and  disguises  in  which  matter  of  fact  comes  frequently  arrayed 
from  such  hands,  is,  in  general,  the  first  the  historian  is  called  upon  to  perform;  and 
often,  in  attempting  to  construct  truth  out  of  materials  so  shadowy.  History  has  become 
but  the  interpreter  of  the  dreams  of  Poesy.  By  this  process  it  is  that  the  fanciful  fictions 
of  Greece  and  of  Egypt  have  been  resolved  into  real  records  of  human  personages  and 
events;  and  even  their  gods,  dislodged  from  their  high  station,  have  been  brought  back 
by  history  to  the  humble  earth  from  whence  they  sprung.  Far  different,  however,  from 
the  mythic  traditions  of  these  classical  nations  are  the  dry  memorials  of  past  adventures 
and  personages  which  our  native  historians  have  handed  down ;  and  while  to  the  Greeks 
belonged  the  power  of  throwing  gracefully  the  veil  of  fiction  over  reality,  the  Bardic 
Historians  may  lay  claim  to  the  very  different  merit  of  lending  to  the  wildest  and  most 
extravagant  fictions  the  sober  lineaments  of  fact. 

Respecting  the  degree  of  credit  due  to  the  early  history  of  Ireland,  two  directly  oppo- 
site opinions  are  entertained; — both  equally,  as  in  all  such  occasions,  removed  from  the 
fair  medium  of  truth.  While  to  some  the  accounts  given  by  the  Bardic  writers  of  all 
that  passed  in  the  ancient  Pagan  times  appear  undeserving  of  any  credit  whatsoever, — 
their  opinion  being,  that  it  is  only  with  the  dawn  of  the  Christian  faith  in  that  country, 
that  its  history  begins  to  assume  any  credible  shape — there  are  others,  on  the  contrary, 
who  believe  in  all  that  flatters  their  feeling  of  national  glory,  surrendering  their  reason 
wilfully  to  the  guidance  of  fanciful  historians,  who,  by  means  of  a  deceptive  system  of 
chronology,  have  invested  fable  with  much  of  the  grave  and  authoritative  aspect  of  history. 
Between  these  two  extreme  views  of  the  subject,  the  over-skeptical  and  the  credulous,  a 
just  medium  may,  as  in  most  such  cases,  be  found;  and  the  true  value  of  our  traditionary 
memorials  be  correctly  ascertained,  without  either  questioning  indiscriminately  their 
claims  to  credence  with  the  one  party,  or  going  headlong  into  the  adoption  of  all  their 
fictions  and  extravagances  with  the  other. 

The  publication,  by  Doctor  O'Connor,  the  late  reverend  librarian  of  Stowe,  of  the  Irish 
Chronicles,  in  their  original  language,  accompanied  by  a  Latin  translation  and  explana- 
tory notes,  has,  for  the  first  time,*  put  the  world  in  possession  of  the  means  of  judging 
for  itself  of  the  truth  and  value  of  documents  which  had  before  only  been  known  through 
the  reports  of  modern  Irish  writers,  conveyed  in  all  the  vagueness  of  allusion  and  mist  of 
paraphrase. 

To  the  real  importance  of  these  records,  which  differ  wholly,  in  form,  matter,  and 
authenticity,  from  those  compilations  of  the  middle  ages  of  which  mention  has  just  been 

est,  mirum  profecto  nullum  apud  Romanos  Grsccosve  vel  hos  etiam  Druidos,  hebdomadaium  usum  fuisse. 
Cyclum  scilicet  septem  dierum  Deum  ipsummet  habet  auctorem  :  sed  Abrahfe  temporibus  negleclus  ab  homi- 
nibus  quia  essent  in  idolotatriam  omnea  fere  prolapsi.  Sola  hunc  ser  vavit  AbiahiE  donius:  et  mos  solis 
Abraha;  posteris  est  cognitus." 

According  to  one  of  Whitaker's  etymological  conjectures,  not  only  did  the  British  Druids  observe  the  cycle 
of  seven  days,  but  the  name  Sabaith,  he  thinks,  was  likewise  siven  by  them  to  their  Sunday,  or  Day  of  the 
Sun,  though  bearing  an  entirely  different  meaning  from  that  of  the  Sabbath  of  the  Jews;  "and  it  was  in 
order,"  he  says,  "  to  take  advantase  of  this  accidental  coincidence,  that  the  Jewish  Sabbalii  was  transferred 
by  the  Christians  to  the  Druidical  Sunday."— Ceftk  Vocabulary,  p.  94. 

*  In  the  work  of  Keating,  written  originally  in  Irish,  are  imbodied  most  of  the  old  national  traditions;  but, 
besides  that  he  has  strung  them  together  wi-'^out  any  selection  or  judgment,  and  but  seldom  attempts  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  record  of  the  annalist  and  the  fable  of  the  bard,  his  work  has  to  answer,  it  seems,  for 
even  more  than  its  own  original  extravagances,  as  some  of  the  fictions  that  most  disfigure  it,  and  have  most 
contributed  to  drawdown  ridicule  on  Irish  history,  are  said  to  have  been  the  fraudulent  interpolations  of  his 
translator,  Dermod  O'Connor.  The  aptest  description  of  Keating's  book  is  that  given  by  tlie  clever  and  tur- 
bulent Peter  Talbot,  who  pronounces  it  "  Insigue  plane,  sed  insanum  opus." 


56  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

made,  there  will  occur,  in  the  course  of  this  work,  opportunities  of  more  particularly 
adverting.  Our  business,  at  present,  as  well  with  them  as  with  the  other  class  of  docu- 
ments alluded  to,  which,  though  branching  out  so  extravagantly  into  fable,  have  often 
their  roots  laid  deep  in  traditional  truth,  must  be  to  refer  to  them  merely  as  repositories 
of  the  ancient  traditions  of  the  country,  as  retaining  traces  of  those  remote  times  to 
which  no  history  reaches,  and  as,  therefore,  of  use  in  the  task  imposed  upon  all  inquirers 
into  the  first  origin  of  a  people, — that  of  seeking,  through  the  dim  vista  of  tradition,  some 
glimmerings  of  truth.  And  even  here,  in  this  obscure  region  of  research,  it  is  far  less 
in  the  actual  events  related  by  the  Bards  and  Seanachies,  than  in  the  absurdly  remote 
period  to  which  the  first  links  of  their  chain  of  tradition  is  carried,  that  any  very  insur- 
mountable obstacle  to  our  belief  in  most  of  their  narratives  lies:  and  this  disposition  to 
extend  and  elevate  their  antiquity,  has  marked  the  first  imperfect  attempts  at  chronology 
in  all  countries.  Even  among  some  whose  history,  in  other  respects,  has  received  the 
authenticating  sanction  of  ages,  the  same  ambition  is  known  to  have  prevailed.  Thus, 
in  the  calculations  of  the  Egyptians,  the  interval  between  two  of  their  kings  was  made 
to  occupy  no  less  a  period  than  11,340  years;  and  yet  that  two  such  kings  really  existed, 
and  were  named  Menes  and  Sethon,  is  accounted  by  no  means  the  less  probable  or  his- 
torical for  this  absurd  flight  of  calculation;  nor  is  it  at  all  questioned,  that  under  the 
serene  skies  of  Chaldsea  astronomy  may  have  had  its  birth,  because  that  people  boasted  of 
having  made  observations  upon  the  stars  through  a  period  of  470,000  years. 

So  far  back  in  the  night  of  time  have  our  Bardic  Historians  gone  in  quest  of  materials, 
that,  from  the  very  first  age  of  the  world,  we  find  marked  out  by  them  a  regular  series 
of  epochs,  which  have  each  been  signalized  by  the  visit  of  some  new  colony  to  their 
shores.  Beginning  a  few  weeks  before  the  Flood,  when,  as  they  say,  a  niece  of  Noah, 
named  Cesara,  arrived  with  a  colony  of  antediluvians  upon  the  Irish  coast,*  they  from 
thence  number,  through  the  lapse  of  ages,  no  less  than  five  or  six  different  bands  of  adven- 
turers, by  which  the  island,  at  various  intervals,  had  been  conquered  and  colonized. 

To  dwell,  at  any  length,  on  the  details  of  the  earlier  of  these  settlements, — details 
possessing  neither  the  certainty  of  history,  nor  the  attractiveness  of  fable, — can  hardly  be 
deemed  necessary.  Still  so  much  of  truth  is  occasionally  intermixed  with  their  fictions, 
and  so  many  curious,  if  not  important  speculations,  have  arisen  out  of  this  period  of  Irish 
history,  that  to  pass  it  over  without  some  degree  of  notice,  would  be  to  leave  the  task 
attempted  in  these  pages  incomplete.    . 

From  the  time  of  Cesara,  who  is  allowed  on  all  hands  to  have  been  a  purely  fabulous 
personage,  there  occurs  no  mention  of  any  colony  till  about  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century  after  the  Flood,  when  Ireland  was  invaded,  and  taken  possession  of,  by  a  chief, 
of  the  race  of  Japhet,  named  Partholan,  who,  landing  at  Imbersciene,  in  Kerry,  says 
O'Flaherty,  "  the  14th  day  of  May,  on  a  Wednesday,"  fixed  his  residence  in  the  province 
of  Ulster,  upon  an  island  named  Inis-Samer,  in  the  river  Erne.  The  fables  related  by 
the  Irish  bards  respecting  Partholan, — his  faithless  wife,  her  favourite  greyhound,  the 
seven  lakes  that  burst  forth  after  his  arrival, — may  all  be  found  in  the  rhyming  form  that 
best  suits  them,  in  the  marvellous  pages  of  Keating.  After  holding  possession  of  the 
count  7  for  three  hundred  years,  the  race  of  Partholan  were  all  swept  away  by  a  plague; 
and  the  Hill  of  Howth,  then  called  Ben-Heder,  was  the  scene  of  the  most  awful  ravages 
of  this  pestilence. 

To  this  colony  succeeded  another,  about  the  time,  it  is  said,  of  the  patriarch  Jacob, 
who  were  called,  from  the  name  of  their  leader,  Nemedians,  and  are  said  to  have  come 
from  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  Sea.  The  fierce  wars  waged  by  this  people  with  the 
Fomorians,  a  tribe  of  African  sea-rovers,  who  then  infested  the  coast  of  Ireland,  forms  one 
of  the  most  picturesque  subjects  of  the  ancient  Irish  Muse.  The  stronghold  of  these 
African  mariners,  who  are  supposed,  not  improbably,  to  have  been  Carthaginian  traders, 
was  the  Tower  of  Conan,  which  stood  upon  an  island  on  the  sea-coast  of  Ulster,  named 
from  this  structure  Tor-inis,  or  the  Island  of  the  Tower.  This  fortress  the  Nemedians 
stormed  ;  and,  after  dislodging  from  thence  their  formidable  enemy,  left  not  a  trace  of  the 
mighty  structure  standing.  An  Irish  poem  called  "  The  Storming  of  the  Tower  of 
Conan,"  still  exists  in  the  noble  library  of  Stowe.  The  Fomorians,  however,  having 
been  joined  by  fresh  supplies  offeree,  a  general  battle,  by  land  and  sea,  ensued,  in  which 

*  According  to  Bardic  autliorilifis,  cited  by  Keating,  the  arrivals  in  Ireland,  before  the  Deluge,  were  nume- 
rous; and,  among  other  visiters,  three  daughters  of  Cain  are  mentioned.  The  famous  White  Book,  so  much 
ridiculed  by  some  of  the  Scotch  controversialists,  is  the  authority  cited  for  this  story.  See  chapter  headed, 
"Of  the  first  Invasion  of  Ireland  before  the  Flood." 

It  is  probable  that  for  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  wild  inventions  respecting  Partholan  and  the  Nemedians,  we 
are  indebted  to  a  poet  or  Seanachie  of  the  tenth  century,  named  Eochaidh  O'Floinn,  of  whose  numerous 
writings  an  account  may  be  found  in  the  Transactions  of  the  IbernoCeltic  Society  for  1820. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELANB.  57 

the  Africans  were  victorious,  and  the  Nemedian  colony  being  all  dispersed  and  destroyed, 
the  country  was  once  more  left  at  the  mercy  of  those  foreign  marauders,  and  relapsed 
into  wildness  and  desolation  for  the  space  of  two  hundred  years. 

The  next,  and,  in  number,  the  third,  of  these  colonies,  which  was  known  to  the  Irish, 
by  the  name  of  Fir-Bolgs,  first  imposed  upon  them,  it  is  said,  the  yoke  of  regal  authority, 
and  dividing  the  island  into  five  parts  or  provinces,  established  that  pentarchal  form  of 
government,  which  continued,  with  but  few  interruptions,  till  the  twelfth  century  of  our 
era.  The  five  sons  of  Dela,  under  whose  command  the  colony  had  landed,  shared  the 
kingdom,  according  to  this  division,  between  them,*  placing  a  stone  in  the  centre  of  the 
island  at  the  spot  where  their  five  shares  met.  Their  tenure  of  royalty,  however,  was 
but  short;  for,  not  more  than  thirty  or  forty  years  had  this  quintuple  sovereignty  re- 
mained in  their  hands,  when  they  were  dispossessed  by  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan,  a  people 
famed  for  necromancy,  who,  after  sojourning  for  some  time  in  Greece,  where  they  had 
learned  this  mysterious  art,  proceeded  from  thence  to  Denmark  and  Norway,  and  became 
possessors,  while  in  those  countries,  of  certain  marvellous  treasures,  among  which  were 
the  Stone  of  Destiny,  the  sorcerer's  spear,  and  the  magic  caldron.  Armed  with  these 
wonderful  gifts,t  the  tribe  of  the  Danaans  next  found  their  way  to  Scotland,  and,  after  a 
rest  there  for  some  years,  set  sail,  under  the  auspices  of  their  chieftain,  Nuad  of  the 
Silver  Hand, J  for  Ireland.  Here,  landing  secretly,  under  cover  of  a  mist  whicli  their 
enchantments  had  raised,  these  sorcerers  penetrated  into  the  country,  and  had  reached 
Sliabh  an  laruinn,  the  Mountain  of  Iron,  between  the  lakes  of  Allen  and  Eirne,  before 
their  presence  was  discovered.  The  alarmed  Belgians,  thus  taken  by  surprise,  retreated 
before  them  rapidly  into  Connaught,  where,  at  Moytura,  on  the  borders  of  Lake  Mas<r, 
that  sanguinary  battle  took  place,  which,  under  the  name  of  the  Battle  of  the  Field  of  the 
Tower,  was  long  a  favourite  theme  of  Irish  song.^  Defeated  signally  by  their  invaders, 
the  Belgians  fled  to  the  Isle  of  Man,  North  Aran,||  and  the  Hebrides,  and  the  victorious 
Danaans  became  in  their  turn  sole  masters  of  the  country. 

In  process  of  time,  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan  were  themselves  dispossessed  of  their  sway: 
a  successful  invasion  from  the  coast  of  Spain  having  put  an  end  to  the  Danaanian  dynasty, 
and  transferred  the  sceptre  into  the  hands  of  that  Milesian  or  Scotic  race,  which,  through 
so  long  a  series  of  succeeding  ages,  supplied  Ireland  with  her  kings.  This  celebrated 
colony,  though  coming  directly  from  Spain,  was  originally,  we  are  told,  of  Scythic  race, 
and  its  various  migrations  and  adventures  before  reaching  its  Isle  of  Destiny  in  the  West, 
are  detailed  by  our  Bards,  with  all  that  fond  and  lingering  minuteness  in  which  fancy, 
playing  with  its  own  creations,  so  much  delights  to  indulge.  Grafting  upon  this  Scythic 
colony  the  traditional  traces  and  stories  of  their  country,  respecting  the  Phoenicians,  they 
have  contrived  to  collect  together,  without  much  regard  to  either  chronology,  history,  or 
geography,  every  circumstance  that  could  tend  to  dignify  and  add  lustre  to  such  an 
event; — an  event  upon  which  not  only  the  rank  of  their  country  itself  in  the  heraldry  of 
nations  depended,  but  in  which  every  individual,  entitled  by  his  Milesian  blood  to  lay 
claim  to  a  share  in  so  glorious  a  pedigree,  was  interested.  In  order  more  completely  to 
identify  the  ancestors  of  these  Scythic  colonists  with  the  Phoenicians,  they  relate  that  by 
one  of  them,  named  Fenius,  to  whom  the  invention  of  the  Ogham  character  is  attributed, 
an  academy  for  languages  was  instituted  upon  the  Plain  of  Shenaar,  in  which  that  purest 
dialect  of  the  Irish,  called  the  Bearla  Feini,  was  cultivated. 

From  thence  tracing  this  chosen  race  in  their  migrations  to  different  countries,  and 

*  According  to  Hanmer'a  Chronicle,  there  arose  dissensions  between  these  brothers,  and  the  youngest, 
Slainge,  having,  (as  Hanmer  expresses  it,)  "  encroached  round  about  the  middle  stone  and  fixed  meare  afore- 
said," usurped  at  length  the  sole  rule  of  the  country. 

t  In  one  of  the  old  Irish  romances,  on  the  subject  of  Finn  Mac  Comhal,  that  hero  is  imagined  to  have  de- 
rived a  portion  of  his  knowledge  from  the  waters  of  a  ceitain  magical  fountain,  which  was  in  the  possession 
of  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan,  and  of  which  a  single  draught  was  sold  for  three  hundred  ounces  of  gold. 

I  So  called  from  an  artificial  silver  hand,  which  he  wore  to  supply  the  loss  sustained  from  a  wound  he 
received  in  the  battle  of  Moytura.     We  are  told  seriously  by  O'Flaherty,  that  "  Cred,  a  goldsmith,  formed 

the  hand,  and  Miach,  the  son  of  Dian  Kect,  well  instructed  in  the  practical  parts  ofchirurgery  set  the  arm  " 

Ogygia,  part  iii.  ch.  10. 

One  of  the  grandsons  of  this  Nuad,  named  Erittanus,  or  Maol  Briotan,  is  said  to  have  passed  over,  after 
their  defeat,  into  North  Britain  ;  and  from  him,  according  to  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,  the  Britons  derived'  their 
origin.  To  this  tradition  Camden  alludes,  in  a  note  on  his  Introduction  . — "  Brittannia  dicta  est  a  quodam 
qui  vocabatur  Britannus."  There  is  also  another  of  the  grandsons  of  Nuad,  named  Simon  Breac,  who  is 
made  to  play  a  distinguished  part  in  the  Scotch  version  of  our  Milesian  story;  being  represented  therein  as 
the  importer  of  the  famous  Stone  of  Destiny,  and  even  substituted,  in  place  of  Heremon  as  the  founder  of 
the  Milesian  monarchy.  (Fordun,  1.  i  c.  26.  See,  a\so,  Sti/lingjleers  Origin.  Britan.  cap.  5.)  The  Scotch 
antiquarians,  however,  seem  to  have  confounded  this  primitive  Simon  Breac  with  another  of  the  same  name, 
also  grandson  of  a  King  Nuad,  who  flourished  four  centuries  later.    See  Innes,  vol.  ii.  sect.  2. 

§  "There  are  in  the  library  of  Stowe,"  says  Dr.  O'Connor,  "  no  less  than  five  metrical  chronicles,  in  which 
this  battle  of  Moytura  is  commemorated."— J?cr.  Hibern.  Script.  Pro/,  ii.  37. 

II  See  Sketch  of  the  History  and  Antiquities  of  the  Southern  Isles  of  Aran,  by  John  T  O'Flahertv  Trans, 
of  Royal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  .tiv. 

7 


58  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

connecting  them,  by  marriage  or  friendship,  during  their  long  sojourn  in  Egypt,  with 
most  of  the  heroes  of  Scripture  history,  our  Bards  conduct  them  at  length,  by  a  route,  not 
very  intelligible,  to  Spain.  There,  by  their  valour  and  enterprise,  they  succeed  in  libe- 
rating the  country  from  its  Gothic  invaders,*  and,  in  a  short  time,  make  themselves 
masters  of  almost  the  whole  kingdom.  Still  haunted,  however,  in  the  midst  of  their 
glory,  by  the  remembrance  of  a  prophecy,  which  had  declared  that  an  island  in  the 
Western  Sea  was  to  be  their  ultimate  place  of  rest,  the  two  sons  of  their  great  leader, 
Milesius,  at  length  fitted  out  a  grand  martial  expedition,  and  set  sail,  in  thirty  ships, 
from  the  coast  of  Gallicia  for  Ireland.  According  to  the  Bardic  chronology,  1300  years 
before  the  birth  of  Christ,  but  according  to  Nennius,  iEngus,f  and  others,  near  five  cen- 
turies later,  this  "  lettered  and  martial  colony,"  (to  use  the  language  of  one  of  its  most 
zealous  champions,)]:  arrived  under  the  command  of  the  sons  of  Milesius,  on  the  Irish 
coasts;  and  having  effected  a  landing  at  Inbher  Sceine,  the  present  Bantry  Bay,  on 
Thursday,  the  first  of  May,  a.  m.  2934,^  achieved  that  great  and  memorable  victory  over 
the  Tuatha-de-Danaan,||  which  secured  to  themselves  and  their  princely  descendants,  for 
more  than  2000  years,  the  supreme  dominion  over  all  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


HISTORICAL  VIEAV  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  OF  IRELAND. 

When  stripped  of  their  fanciful  dates,  and  reduced  witliin  due  bounds  of  antiquity, 
these  traditions  of  the  first  settlements  in  Ireland,  however  fabulously  coloured,  may  be 
taken  as  preserving  the  memory  of  some  of  those  early  invasions,  of  which,  in  times  when 
the  migratory  spirit  was  alive  over  the  whole  earth,  this  island  must  frequently  have 
been  the  object.  The  story  of  a  colony,  in  remote  ages,  under  a  chieftain  of  the  race  of 
Japhet,  falls  in  with  the  hypothesis  of  those  who,  in  tracing  westward  the  migration  of 

'  We  have  here  a  specimen  of  that  art  of  annihilating  both  space  and  time  which  is  so  prodigally  exhibited 
throughout  the  Milesian  story.  Among  the  many  different  nations  that  in  succession  became  masters  of 
Spain,  the  occupation  of  that  kingdom  by  the  Goths,  which  is  here  assumed  as  having  talten  place  in  the 
remote  Milesian  times,  did  not  really  occur  till  about  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  of  our  era. 

t  Psalter-na- Rann.  ^ngus  is  here  referred  to  merely  as  the  putative  author  of  this  work,  a  high  authority 
having  pronounced  that  there  are  no  grounds  for  attributing  it  to  him.  (Lanigan,  Ecclesiastical  History  of 
Ireland,  vol.  3.  c.  20  )  The  very  nature,  indeed,  of  some  of  the  contents  of  this  Psalter,  if,  as  Bishop  Nicholson 
asserts,  it  contains  a  catalogue  of  the  kings  of  Ireland,  from  Heremon  down  to  Brian  Boroimhe,  who  was 
slain  in  1014,  shows  that  it  could  not  hav€  been  the  production  of  a  writer  of  the  eighth  century. 

X  Dissertations  on  Irish  History,  sect.  21. 

§  Ogygia,  part,  iii.ch.  1(5.  O  Flaherty  lias  here  reduced,  it  will  be  observed,  the  calculation  of  the  Bards, 
and  computes  the  dates  of  his  landing  to  have  been  only  a  thousand  years  before  our  era;  while  Keating 
adheres  to  the  authority  of  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,  in  fixing  it  three  centuries  earlier.  The  author  of  Disserta- 
tions on  the  History  of  Ireland,  (as  I  shall  hencefoith  designate  Mr.  O'Connor,  of  Belanagare,  in  order  to  dis- 
tinguish him  from  his  reverend  descendant,  the  late  lilwarian  of  Stovve.)  at  first  adopted  the  calculation  of 
O'Flaherty,  but  saw  reason  afterwards  to  abate  near  five  centuries  of  that  date  (see  Ogyg.  Vindic.,  preface; 
also,  Rejlectiuns  on  History  of  Ireland,  (Jollectan.  No  10;)  and  Dr.  O'Connor  is  content  to  refer  the  coming  of 
the  Milesians  to  the  year  before  Christ,  43!).  (Rer.  Hibern.  Script.  Prol.  ii.  45.)  The  most  extravagant,  how- 
ever, of  all  the  computations  of  this  event  is  that  made  by  Donald  O'Neil,  a  king  of  Ulster,  who,  writing  in 
the  year  1317,  to  Pope  John  XXII  ,  assures  his  holiness  that  the  Milesian  colony  settled  in  Ireland  about 
2300  years  before  the  Christian  era.  See  Fordun,  (Scotichron,)  to  whom  we  must  trust  for  the  authenticity 
of  this  curious  document.  It  is  also  quoted,  but  without  reference  to  any  authority,  by  Usher,  Eccles.  Jlnti- 
quilat.  c.  16.  In  endeavouring  to  fix  the  period  of  the  Argonautic  expedition,  the  learned  author  of  The  Re- 
mains of  Japhet  comes  gravely  to  the  conclusion  that  it  must  have  been  about  the  same  number  of  years  from 
the  flood  as  the  beginning  of  tlie  reign  of  the  Milesians;  and  adds,  "  so  that  if  Jason  did  sail  to  Ireland,  it 
must  have  been  soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  Milesians  in  that  kingdom." 

II  The  fondness  of  the  Irish  for  their  old  national  traditions  is  shown  in  the  names  given  to  remarkable 
places  throughout  the  country,  most  of  which  may  be  traced  to  .some  famous  hero  or  heroine,  commemorated 
in  ancient  songs  and  tales.  Even  the  shore  on  which  the  antediluvian  nyinph  Cesara  was  said  to  have  been 
buried,  used  to  be  pointed  out,  in  the  days  of  Giraldus,  with  reverence.  {Topog.  Dist.  3.  c.  I.)  Memorials, 
in  like  manner,  of  the  great  battle  between  the  Milesians  and  the  Tuathade-Danaan  were  preserved  for 
ages  on  the  spot  where  that  combat  is  said  to  have  occurred.  Not  only  of  the  chieftains,  but  of  the  ladies 
and  druids  who  fell  in  the  fight,  the  names  were  associated  with  the  valleys  and  hills  in  that  neighbourhood. 
An  old  poem  on  the  Battle  of  Sliabh  Mis  is  referred  to  by  Smith,  (History  of  Kerry,)  who  adds,  that  "  the 
monumental  stones  said,  in  the  above  poem,  to  have  been  ericted  over  the  graves  of  the  noble  warriors,  are 
still  remaining  on  Mount  Caliircoruee,  one  (if  the  Sliabhuiis  niountaiiis  in  Kerry." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  69 

the  Noachidse,  include  both  Britain  and  Ireland  among  those  Isles  of  the  Gentiles*  which 
became,  on  the  partition  of  the  earth,  the  appanage  of  the  descendants  of  Japhet.  The 
derivation  of  a  later  settlement,  the  Nemedians,  from  some  country  near  the  Euxine  Sea, 
coincides  no  less  aptly  with  the  general  current  of  European  tradition,  according  to  which 
the  regions  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Caucasian  mountains  are  to  be  regarded  as  the 
main  source  of  the  population  of  the  Westf 

We  have  shown  it  to  be  probable,  as  well  from  foreign  as  from  native  tradition,  that 
Ireland  derived  her  primitive  pMjpulation  from  Spain.  The  language  brought  by  these 
first  settlers  was  that  which  was  common  then  to  all  the  Celts  of  Europe.  Those  Spanish 
colonies,  therefore,  placed  by  Ptolemy  on  the  south  and  south-western  coasts  of  Ireland, 
must  have  arrived  there  at  some  much  later  period,  when  the  dialect  of  the  Celtic, 
anciently  spoken  in  Spain,  had  become  corrupted  by  mixture  with  other  tongues;  as  it  is 
plainly  from  these  later  Spanish  settlers  must  have  flowed  that  infusion  into  the  Irish 
language  of  a  number  of  Basque  or  Cantabrian  words,  which  induced  the  learned  anti- 
quary, Edward  Lhuyd,  to  imagine  a  degree  of  affinity  between  these  tongues.| 

In  the  direction  of  Spain,  it  is  most  likely,  whatever  of  foreign  commerce  or  inter- 
course the  ancient  Irish  may  have  possessed,  was,  down  to  a  comparatively  recent  period, 
maintained.  The  description  given,  indeed,  by  a  poet  of  our  own  days,  of  the  geogra- 
phical position  of  Ireland,  as  standing  "  with  her  back  turned  to  Europe,  her  face  to  the 
West,"  is  far  more  applicable  to  the  state  of  her  political  and  commercial  relations  in 
those  times  of  which  we  are  speaking.  Wholly  withdrawn  from  the  rest  of  Europe,  her 
resort  lay  along  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  alone;  and  that  commerce  which  frequented 
her  ports  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  was  maintained,  not  certainly  with  the  Romans, 
to  whom  she  was  then  and  for  ages  after  unknown,  but  with  Iberian  merchants  most 
probably,  and  with  those  descendants  of  the  ancient  Phoenician  settlers  who  inhabited  the 
western  coasts  of  Spain. 

A  remark  above  applied  to  the  Spanish  colonization,  will  be  found  applicable  also  to 
the  colonies  from  Gaul.  Whatever  share  may  have  been  contributed  by  that  country  to 
the  first  Celtic  population  of  Ireland,  it  was  not  till  a  much  later  period,  most  probably, 
that  the  Gaulish  colonies,  named  by  Ptolemy,  established  themselves  in  the  island.  The 
people  called  Fir-Bolgs  by  the  Bards  were,  it  is  evident,  Belgse,  of  the  same  race  with 
those  in  Britain;  but  at  what  period  they  fixed  themselves  in  either  country,  and  whether 
those  who  took  possession  of  Ireland  were  derived  mediately  through  Britain,  or  direct 
from  Belgic  Gaul,  are  questions  that  must  still  remain  open  to  conjecture.  The  Menapii 
and  the  Cauci,  both  nations  of  the  Belgic  coast.J  came  directly,  it  is  most  probable,  to 
Ireland,  as  there  is  no  trace  of  them  to  be  found  in  Britain, — the  town  of  Menapia  in 
Wales  having  been  founded,  it  is  thought,  by  the  Irish  Menapii. |(  In  the  Bardic  histo- 
rians we  find  a  romantic  account  of  a  monarch,  named  Labhra  Longseach,  who  having 
been  exiled,  in  his  youth,  to  Gaul,  returned  from  thence  at  the  head  of  a  Gaulish  colony,ir 
which  he  established  in  the  regions  now  known  as  the  counties  of  Wicklow  and  Wex- 
ford. This  site  of  the  settlement  corresponds  exactly,  as  will  be  seen,  with  the  district 
assigned  by  Ptolemy  to  the  Menapii;  and,  in  farther  confirmation  both  of  the  tradition 
and  of  this  geographer's  accuracy,  we  find  the  old  Irish  name  for  the  harbour  which  these 
foreigners  first  entered  to  have  been  Loch  Garman,  or  the  harbour  of  the  Germans. 

*  "The  first  language  spoken  in  Europe,"  says  Parsons,  "  was  the  Japhetan,  called  afterwards  the  Pelas- 
gian  :  and  this  ianguage,"  he  asserts,  "  is  now  to  be  found  only  in  Irefand,  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  and 
Wales."  According  to  the  Chronicle  of  tlie  Celtic  Kings,  Japhet  was  the  first  British  monarch.  See 
Sammes,  ch.  10. 

t  See  Sir  William  Jones's  Sixth  Discourse,  On  the  Persians. 

X  "  As,  by  collating  the  languages,  I  have  found  one  part  of  the  Irish  reconcileable  to  the  Welsh ;  so,  by  a 
diligent  perusal  of  the  New  Testament,  and  some  manuscript  papers  I  received  from  the  learned  Dr.  Edward 
Brown,  written  in  the  language  of  tlie  Cantabrians,  I  have  had  a  satisfactory  knowledge  as  to  the  afiitiity 
of  the  other  part  with  the  old  Spanish."— Prf/ace  to  Lhuyd's  Glossography .  The  attempt  to  prove  this  alleged 
affinity  is  admitted  to  have  been  an  utter  failure:  the  instances  of  resemblance  between  the  two  languages 
being  no  greater  than  may  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  such  engraAments  on  the  original  speech  of  a 
country  as  foreign  colonies  are  always  sure  to  introduce.  See  Baxter,  on  the  word  Ibernia,  where  he  has 
allowed  himself  to  be  misled  by  this  false  notion  of  Lhuyd  into  some  very  erroneous  speculations. 

§  "  Both  these  nations,"  says  the  Monk  Richard,  "  were  undoubtedly  of  Teutonic  origin,  but  it  is  not  known 
at  what  period  their  ancestors  passed  over."  Whitaker,  however,  who  will  allow  no  fact  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  his  own  hypothesis,  with  respect  to  the  peopling  of  Ireland  exclusively  from  Britain,  deserts  his 
favourite  guide,  Richard,  on  this  point,  and  insists  that  the  Menapii  and  the  Cauci  were  not  German,  but 
British  tribes.  (Hist,  of  Manchester,  book  i.  cli.  12.  sect.  4.)  Camden,  Dr.  O'Connor,  Wood,  {Inqjiiry  into  the 
Primitive  Inhabitants  of  Ireland,)  and  other  authorities,  ail  pronounce  these  tribes  to  have  been  of  German 
origin;   as  were,  most  probably,  the  neighbours  of  the  Menapii,  the  Coriondi. 

II  "  They  must  have  come  from  Belgic  Gaul  and  Germany,  for  we  meet  with  no  trace  of  them  in  Britain; 
Menapia,  in  Wales,  being  founded  by  the  Irish  Menapii." — Ledwich,  Antiquities. 

U  From  the  long  spears,  called  Laighean,  with  which  the  Gauls  who  accompanied  this  prince  were  armed, 
the  province  of  Leinster  is  said  to  have  derived  its  ancient  name  of  Coige-Laigbean,  or  tlie  province  of  the 
Spears.    See  O'Halloran,  vol.  ii.  ch.  6. 


60  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

In  that  maze  of  uncertainty  and  confusion  which,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been 
written  upon  the  subject,  continues  to  perplex  the  inquiries  of  the  learned  into  the  lineage 
of  the  different  races  of  Europe,  it  remains  still  a  contested  question,  whether  the  Belgse 
were  a  Celtic  or  a  Teutonic  race.*  In  England,  whose  early  history  is  so  much  involved 
in  the  decision,  not  merely  as  regards  the  origin  and  composition  of  her  people,  but  also 
in  all  that  relates  to  the  formation  of  her  language  and  the  gradual  rise  of  her  institu- 
tions, the  opinions  hitherto  advanced  on  the  subject  have  been  pretty  equally  balanced ; 
and  while,  on  the  one  side,  Whitaker,  Chalmers,  and  others,  re-enforced  recently  by  the 
able  concurrence  of  Dr.  Pritchard,t  have  held  the  Belgaa  to  be  of  Celtic  origin,  several 
distinguished  writers,  on  the  other  hand,  among  whom  is  the  author  of  the  learned  Inquiry 
into  the  Rise  of  the  English  Commonwealth,!  have,  as  it  appears  to  me,  on  far  more 
tenable  grounds,  both  of  reasoning  and  authority,  pronounced  this  people  to  have  been  of 
purely  Teutonic  descent.  With  respect  to  Ireland,  the  term  Scythic,  applied  to  the 
Eelgic  colony,  leads  to  the  inference  that  they  were  there  held  to  be  a  northern  or  Gothic 
race;  and  that  their  language  must  have  been  different  from  that  of  the  Celtic  natives, 
appears  from  the  notice  taken  in  the  Book  of  Lecane,^  of  a  particular  form  of  speech 
known  by  the  name  of  the  Belgaid. 

The  Tuatha-de-Danaans,  by  whom  the  Belgae  were,  as  we  have  seen,  defeated  and 
supplanted,  are  thought  by  some  to  have  been^a  branch  of  the  Damnonians  of  Cornwall; 
while  others,  more  consistently  with  tradition,  derive  their  origin  from  those  Damnii  of 
North  Britain,  who  inhabited  the  districts  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  river  Dee  and  the 
Frith  of  Clyde.  11  Of  the  historical  verity  of  these  two  colonies,  the  Fir-Bolgs  and  Danaans, 
no  doubt  can  be  entertained ;  as  down  to  a  period  within  the  fair  compass  of  history, 
the  former  were  still  a  powerful  people  in  Connaught,  having,  on  more  than  one  im- 
portant occasion,  distinguished  themselves  in  the  intestine  commotions  of  the  country; 
and  the  famous  GoU,  the  son  of  Morni,  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  Ossianic  age,  was  said  to 
be  of  the  blood-royal  of  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan  princes. IT 

Among  the  tribes  marked  by  Ptolemy  in  his  map,  a  fev,'  suggest  themselves  as  re- 
quiring particular  notice.  It  was,  as  might  be  expected,  in  the  south  and  south-western 
parts  of  Ireland,  the  region  nearest  to  the  coasts  of  Spain,  that  the  tribes  originating  in 
that  country  were  to  be  found.  Thus  the  Iverni,  whose  chief  city,  according  to  Ptolemy, 
was  Ivernis,  or  Hybernis,  occupied,  in  addition  to  a  portion  of  Cork,  all  that  part  of  Kerry 
which  lies  between  the  Promontorium  Austrinum,  or  Mizen  Head,  and  the  river,  an- 
ciently called  the  lernus,  now  the  river  Kenmare.  We  can  have  little  doubt  as  to  the 
source  from  whence  the  lernus  derived  its  name,  when  we  find,  on  the  north-west  coast 
of  Spain,  another  river  lerne,  and  also  a  promontory  in  its  immediate  neighbourhood, 

*  The  cause  of  this  confasion,  which  has  arisen  principally  from  the  intermixture  of  the  Germans  and 
Gauls,  by  reciprocal  colonization,  is  well  stated  by  a  writer  in  the  Memoires  de  I'Academie,  torn,  xyiii.    "  II 

est  sur  que  les  Celtes  et  les  Germains,  etoient  deux  nations  difTerenles, mais  les  colonies  qui  avoient 

passe  du  midj,  ou  de  la  Gaule,  dans  la  Gerroanie,  et  ceiles  qui  etoient  descendus  de  la  Gerraanie  dans  la 
Gaule.  les  avoient  extremement  melees,  et  je  ne  doute  pa?  qu'il  ne  falliit  une  certaine  attention  pour  demeler 
les  differences  qui  les  disiit>guoient  "  Pinkerton,  also,  has  given  an  explanation,  perhaps  still  more  satisfac- 
tory, of  the  origin  of  this  confusion  between  the  races . — "  As  the  Celts  had  anciently  possessed  all  Gaul,  their 
name  was  continued  by  some,  and  by  the  distant  Greek  writers  especially,  to  all  the  Gauls :  though  the  Belgae 
and  Aquitani,  the  Galii  Braccati,  and  others,  or  the  far  greater  part  of  the  Gauls,  were  not  Celts,  but  the 
expellers  of  the  Celts.  The  case  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  English,  who  ate  called  Britons,  not  as  being  old 
Britons,  but  as  expellers  of  those  Britons,  and  as  living  in  Britain." — Dissertalion  on  the  Scythians  or  Ooths, 
part  ii.  ch.  4. 

t  Researches  ivto  the  Physical  History  of  Mankind.  One  of  the  reasons  alleged  by  this  writer,  for  supposing 
the  Belgic  to  have  been  akin  to  the  Erse,  is,  that  "several  names  of  persons  and  places  in  those  parts  of 
South  Britain  which  were  probably  occupied  by  Belgic  people,  belong,  according  to  their  orthography,  to  the 
Erse,  and  not  to  the  CambroCeltic  dialect."  But  the  real  solution  of  the  ditficulty  here  stated  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  demonstrated  by  Lhuyd  and  others,  that  the  primitive  possessors  of  the  country  now  called  Wales 
were  a  race  speaking  a  dialect  of  the  Erse,  or  Irish,  and  that  from  them,  not  from  the  BelgK,  the  permanent 
features  of  the  country  derived  their  names. 

I  "  The  main  body  of  the  population  of  England  is  derived  from  the  Belgic  nation,  one  of  the  three  great 
families  into  which  the  Teutones  are  divided." — Sir  F.  Palgrate's  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  English  Common- 
veallh,  vol.  i.  ch.  2.  See,  also,  for  curious  remarks  upon  tlie  affinity  between  the  Frisic  and  Anglo-Saxon 
languages  (the  former  being,  it  is  there  paid,  the  least  altered  branch  of  the  Belgic,)  Ed.  Rev.  vol  iii.  art.  1.— 
Nor  must  the  acute,  though  dogmatic,  Pinkerton,  be  forgotten  among  the  supporters  of  the  Gothic  origin  of 
the  BelgE.  See  Dissert,  on  the  Goths,  part  ii  ch.  3.,  where,  in  addition  to  his  own  opinion  and  authority,  he 
adds  the  following  in  a  note: — "  Paul  Merula,  in  his  Cosmographia,  seems  to  be  the  first  who  saw  that  the 
ancient  BelgjB,  on  account  of  their  German  origin,  spoke  the  Gothic  tongue;  and  his  reasons  to  prove  it 
(pars  i.  lib.  3.)  cannot  be  answered." 

§  As  quoted  by  Wood  (Inquiry  into  the  Primitive  Inhabitants,  &.C  )— This  writer,  who  follows  Pinkerton  in 
supposing  the  Belga?  to  have  been  the  Scots,  adopts  also,  of  course,  his  opinion  as  to  the  former  being  Teu- 
tones. "The  only  inhabitants  of  Ireland  (he  says)  who  seem  to  have  attracted  the  notice  of  British,  Roman, 
and  other  foreign  writers,  were  the  enterprising  Belgae,  whom,  as  Goths  or  Scythians,  they  denominated 
Bcoti  or  Scuit." 

II  "  From  hence,  perhaps,  they  borrowed  the  name  of  Tuath  Dee ;  that  is,  a  people  living  contiguous  to  the 
river  Dee." — Ozyg.,  part  i. 

IT  See  Translation  of  an  Ode,  attributed  to  Goll,  by  OHalloran,  Transactions  of  Royal  Irish  Academy  for 
the  year  1788. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  61 

bearing  the  same  name.  The  term  thus  applied  signifies,  in  Celtic,  Ihe  ulterynost  point ; 
and  in  its  appropriation  thus  successively  to  each  of  these  places,  we  trace,  by  stages,  as 
it  were,  the  progress  of  Phoenician  discovery  in  the  west;  ihe  same  name,  which  they 
who  first  reached  the  western  coasts  of  Spain  left  as  a  mark  of  the  uttermost  bounds  of 
their  knowledge  in  that  direction,  having  been  afterwards,  on  the  discovery  of  Ireland, 
transferred,  in  the  same  sense,  to  her  shores.* 

The  Velabri,  a  people  situated  near  Kerry  Head,  were  also,  it  is  supposed,  of  Spanish 
origin ;  while  the  Gangani  (more  properly  Concani)  and  the  Luceni,t  tribes  inhabiting 
near  each  other  in  Spain,  continued  also,  after  migration,  to  be  near  neighbours  in 
Ireland;  the  Luceni  having  established  themselves  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Shannon, 
while  the  Concani,  from  whom  Connaught  is  said  to  have  been  named,  fixed  their  station 
upon  the  western.  The  claims  of  Brigantes  to  be  accounted  a  Spanish  colony,  appear 
by  no  means  so  valid ;  though  from  the  share  assigned  to  this  people  in  the  romantic 
adventures  of  the  Milesians,  it  becomes  a  point  of  importance  with  the  believers  in  that 
story  to  establish  their  direct  descent  from  Spain.  According  to  the  Bards,  it  was  by 
Breoghan,  the  great  ancestor  of  the  Milesians,  that  their  city  Brigantia,  near  the  site  of 
the  present  Corunna,  was  built;  and  it  was  from  the  top,  as  they  tell  us,  of  a  lofty  light- 
house, or  Pharos,  erected  on  the  Gallician  coast,  tliat  Ith,  the  son  of  Breoghan,  looking 
northward,  one  starry  winter  night,  discovered,  by  means  of  a  miraculous  telescope,  the 
Isle  of  Erin  to  which  they  were  destined.  It  is  added,  that  the  descendants  of  these 
Spanish  heroes  were,  to  a  late  period,  distinguished  by  the  title  of  the  Clan  Breogan,J 
and  that  to  them  the  name  of  Brigantes  was  applied  by  Ptolemy  in  his  map.  All  this, 
however,  plausibly  as  it  may  seem  to  be  supported  by  the  existence  of  an  actual  city 
named  Brigantia,^  in  Gallicia, — the  very  region  from  whence  most  of  the  Spanish  colo- 
nies were  derived, — is  but  a  creation  evidently  of  the  later  national  historians,  founded 
upon  the  true  and  ancient  traditions  of  a  colonization  from  the  north-west  of  Spain. 

The  most  probable  account  of  the  Brigantes  is,  that  they  were  a  branch  of  that  power- 
ful tribe  of  the  same  name  in  Britain,  whose  territories  extended  over  no  less  than  five 
of  the  present  English  counties,  and  who  became  the  most  potent  and  numerous  people 
of  all  the  ancient  Britons.  ||  On  the  strength  of  a  mere  conjecture,  suggested  by  Camden, IF 
the  date  of  their  migration  into  Ireland  is  fixed  so  late  as  the  year  of  our  era  76,  when 
Petilius  Cerealis  was  Governor  of  Britain.  But  for  this  assumption  there  appears  to  be 
no  historical  authority  whatsoever.  The  mention,  indeed,  of  the  Brigantes  in  Ptolemy's 
map  of  Ireland,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  only  the  more  ancient  of  her  tribes  are  marked 
down,  sufliciently  disproves  the  recent  date  thus  assigned  to  their  migratior>. 

The  Nagnatse,  a  people  inhabiting  Connaught,  and  supposed  to  have  contributed  to 

*  "The  reason  which  concludes  me  in  the  helief  that  Ireland  took  its  name  from  the  Phoenicians,  is 
because  in  the  uttermost  coast  of  Spain,  westward,  is  a  promontory,  called  by  Strabo,  lerne,  and  the  river 
next  to  it  is  called  by  Mela,  lerne  ;  but  when  tlrese  islands  were  discovered,  then  Ireland  tooii  this  name  as 
the  uttermost." — Sammes.  Brilann.  .intiq.  Illust.  chap.  5.  Though  by  Camden  and  several  other  writers,  the 
authority  of  Strabo  is,  in  like  manner,  referred  to,  for  the  existence  of  a  Spanish  promontory,  called  lerne, 
there  is,  in  reality,  no  such  headland  mentioned  by  that  geographer.  According  to  Hoifman,  it  was  a  moun- 
tain that  was  thus  named  {Lexic.  in  voce ;)  and  he  also  refers  to  Strabo,  but,  as  far  as  I  can  find,  with  no 
better  authority. 

Similar  to  Sammes's  derivation  of  the  name  lerne,  is  that  of  Hibernia,  as  given  by  Bochart,  who  says  that 
it  signifies  the  last  or  most  western  dwelling-place.  "Nihil  aliud  est  quam  /Aern(«  ultima  habitatio;  quia 
ultra  Hiberniam  versus  occasum  veteres  nihil  noverant  quam  vastum  mare." — Ocograph..  Sac.  lib.  xii.  c.  39. 

t  "The  Luceni  of  Ireland  seem  to  derive  their  name  and  original  from  the  Lucensii  of  Gallitia,  in  the 
opposite  coast  of  Spain,  of  whose  names  some  remains  are  to  this  day  in  the  barony  of  Lixnaw." — Camden. 

X  Dissertations  on  the  History  of  Ireland.,  chap.  13. 

§  On  no  other  grounds  did  Florianus  del  Campo,  an  author  mentioned  by  Camden,  undertake  to  prove  that 
the  Brigantes  of  Britain  were  derived,  through  Ireland,  from  his  own  country,  Spain.  There  is  also  an 
Essay,  by  Mons.  le  Brigant  (published  1762,)  in  which  he  professes  to  prove  that  they  "  were  the  most  ancient 
inhabitants  of  Spain,  France,  Germany,  Portugal,  England,  and  of  Ireland  in  part."  Baxter  had  already 
given  much  the  same  account  of  them,  deriving  them  originally  from  the  ancient  Phrygians.  Availing  him- 
self, too,  of  a  whimsical  reading  of  Scaliger.  who,  in  a  passage  of  Seneca,  converts  "Scuto  Brigantes"  into 
"  Scoto-Brigantes,"  Baxter  applies  this  latter  name,  througlwut  bis  work,  to  the  Scots  who  colonized  North 
Britain,  choosing  to  consider  them  as  a  mixed  race  between  the  Brigantes  of  Britain,  and  the  Ix'i&h.—Qlossar. 
Antiq.  passim.  .. 

|l  Brigantium  civitatem,  qujb  numerosissima  provincis  totius  perhibetur. —  Tacit.  Agric.  c.  17. 

IT  "If  it  may  not  be  allowed  that  our  Brigantes  and  those  in  Ireland  bad  the  same  names,  upon  the  same 
account,  I  had  rather,  with  my  learned  friend,  Air.  Thomas  Savil,  conjecture  that  some  of  our  Brigantes, 
with  others  of  the  British  nations,  retired  into  Ireland  upon  the  coming  over  of  the  Romans— some  for  tlie 
sake  of  ease  and  quietness,  others,"  «fcc.  &c.  On  this  point,  Whitaker  and  his  follower.  Wood,  are,  as  usual, 
satisfied  with  the  authority  of  the  Monk  Richard,  whose  words  bear  most  suspiciously,  I  must  say,  the  ap- 
pearance of  having  been  copied  from  the  above  passage  of  Camden: — "  Nationes  quae  cum  vel  ab  hoste  finitimo 
non  daretur  quies  vel,  &c.  &c.  in  hanc  terram  trajecerunt."  There  are,  indeed,  strong  grounds  for  suspecting 
that  this  pretended  work  of  the  Monk  of  Cirencester,  upon  which  Whitaker,  Chalmers,  Wood,  and  others, 
have  founded  so  many  speculations,  was  but  a  clever  forgery  of  the  last  century,  fabricated,  it  is  probable, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  imposing  upon  the  learned  but  credulous  Dr.  Stukely,  to  whom  the  manuscript  sf 
it  was  so  suspiciously  transmitted. 


62  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


;  compound  name  of  that  province,*  deserve  to  be  peculiarly  noticed  on  account  of 
jir  cliief  city,  Nagnata,  to  which  Ptolemy  applies  the  epithet  "eminent,"  or  "illus- 


the 

their  .  ■       ^        ■  - 

trious,"!  and  wiiich  is  conjectured  to  have  stood  not  far  from  the  present  Sligo4     We 

find,  also,  among  the  towns  enumerated  by  this  geographer,  Eblana,  or  Deblana,§  a  city 

belonging  to  the  tribe  called  the  Eblanii,  and  placed  by  Ptolemy  under  the  same  parallel 

with  the  present  Dublin. 

Having  touched  briefly  on  all  that  appeared  to  me  most  worthy  of  observation  among 
the  earlier  tribes  and  septs  of  Ireland,  I  shall  now  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  that 
latest  and  most  important  of  all  her  settlements,  the  Scythic,  or  Scotic,  from  whence  the 
whole  of  her  people  in  the  course  of  time  received  the  name  of  Scots,  and  retained  it 
exclusively  to  so  late  a  period  as  the  tenth  century  of  our  era. 11  A  sketch  of  the  history 
of  this  colony,  as  contained  in  the  Psalters  and  metrical  records  of  the  Bards,  has  been 
already  given  in  the  preceding  chapter,  and  may  be  found  at  large  in  the  work  of 
Keating,  which  is  drawn  almost  wholly  from  these  romantic  sources. 

It  is  a  task  ungracious  and  painful,  more  especially  to  one  accustomed  from  his  early 
days  to  regard,  through  a  poetic  medium,  the  ancient  fortunes  of  his  country,  to  be 
obliged,  at  the  stern  call  of  historical  truth,  not  only  to  surrender  his  own  illusions  on 
the  subject,  but  to  undertake  also  the  invidious  task  of  dispelling  the  dreams  of  others 
who  have  not  the  same  imperative  motives  of  duty  or  responsibility  for  disenchanting 
themselves  of  so  agreeable  an  error.  That  the  popular  belief  in  this  national  tale  should 
so  long  have  been  cherished  and  persevered  in,  can  hardly  be  a  subject  of  much  wonder. 
So  consolatory  to  the  pride  of  a  people  for  ever  struggling  against  the  fatality  of  their 
position  has  been  the  fondly  imagined  epoch  of  those  old  Milesian  days,  when,  as  they 
believe,  the  glory  of  art  and  arms,  and  all  the  blessings  of  civilization  came  in  the  train 
of  their  heroic  ancestors  from  the  coasts  of  Spain,  that  hitherto  none  but  the  habitual 
revilcrs  and  depreciators  of  Ireland,  the  base  scribes  of  a  dominant  party  and  sect,  have 
ever  thought  of  calling  in  question  the  authenticity  of  a  legend  to  which  a  whole  nation 
had  long  clung  with  retrospective  pride,  and  which  substituting,  as  it  does,  a  mere 
phantom  of  glory  for  true  historical  fame,  has  served  them  so  mournfully  in  place  of  real 
independence  and  greatness.  Even  in  our  own  times,  all  the  most  intelligent  of  those 
writers  who  have  treated  of  ancient  Ireland,  have  each,  in  turn,  adopted  the  tale  of  the 
Milesian  colonization,  and  lent  all  the  aid  of  their  learning  and  talent  to  elevate  it  into 
history. IF  But,  even  in  their  hands,  the  attempt  has  proved  an  utter  failure;  nor  could 
any  effort,  indeed,  of  ingenuity  succeed  in  reconciling  the  improbabilities  of  a  story, 
which  in  no  other  point  of  view  differs  from  the  fictitious  origins  invented  for  their  re- 
spective countries  by  Hunibald,  Suffridus,**  Geoffrey  Monmouth,  and  others,  than  in 
having  been  somewhat  more  ingeniously  put  together  by  its  inventors,  and  far  more 
fondly  persevered  in  by  the  imaginative  people,  whose  love  of  high  ancestry  it  flatters, 
and  whose  wounded  pride  it  consoles. 

In  one  respect,  the  traditional  groundwork  on  which  the  fable  is  founded,  may  be 
accounted  of  some  value  to  the  historian,  as  proving  the  prevalence  in  the  country  itself 
of  early  traditions  and  remembrances  respecting  that  connexion  with  the  coasts  of  Spain 
and  the  East,  which,  as  well  from  Punic  as  from  Grecian  authorities,  we  have  shown 
that  the  lerne  of  other  ages  must  have  maintained. 

Had  the  Bards,  in  their  account  of  the  early  settlements,  so  far  followed  the  natural 
course  of  events  as  to  place  that  colony  which  they  wished  to  have  considered  as  the 

*  Compounded,  possibly,  says  Camden,  of  Concani  and  Nagnatae. 

t  TloKi;  iTTta-nfAOi. 

J  "  I  cannot  discover,"  says  Ware,  "  the  least  footsteps  of  a  city  so  called,  in  all  that  tract  of  country— so 
all-devouring  is  Time !"— Chap.  6. 

$  Ita  enim  plan6  reponendum  in  Ptoleniaeo  pro  truncato  Eblana. — Baxter,  Gloss.  Antiq.  Britan. 

li  Quod  ut  ante  undecimum  post  Christi  navitatem  seculum  haud  quaquam  factum,  in  fine  prEecedentis 
Capitis  declaravimus;  ita  neminem  qui  toto  antecedentium  annoram  spatio  scripserit,  produci  posse  arbi- 
tramur  qui  Scotia:  appellatione  Albaniam  unquara  designaverit.— f/sAer,  De  Britannic.  Eccles.  Primord. 
cap.  IG. 

ir  Lord  Rosse,  (Observations  on  the  Bequest  of  Henry  Flood,)  Dr.  O'Connor,  (Rerum  Hihernicarum  Scriplorea 
Veteres.)  and  Mr.  D'Alton,  the  able  and  well-infonned  author  of  the  Essay  on  Ancient  Ireland,  are  among  the 
distinguished  writers  here  alluded  to  as  having  graced,  if  not  invigorated,  this  view  of  the  question  by  their 
advocacy.  To  these  has  lately  been  added  Sir  William  Betham,  who,  in  his  ingenious  worlt,  entitled  "The 
Gael  and  the  Cymbri,"  has  shaped  hia  hypothesis  to  the  same  popular  belief 

**  A  fabricator  of  fictitious  origins  for  the  Prisons,  as  Hunibald  was  an  inventor  in  the  same  line  for  the 
Franks;  the  latter  founding  his  fictions  professedly  upon  Druidical  remains.  According  to  SuflVidus,  the 
Prisons  were  in  possession  of  an  uninterrupted  series  of  annals  from  the  year  313  before  Christ.  "  Itaque 
cum  ab  anno  313  ante  natum  Christum  exordium  sumant." — Di  Oriff.  Fris.  See  the  Essay  of  M.  du  Ron- 
deau, Mem.  de  VAcad.  de  Bruxelles,  art.  2d,  1773. 

There  is  scarcely  a  nation,  indeed,  in  Europe  which  has  not  been  provided  thus  with  some  false  scheme  of 
antiquity;  and  it  is  a  fact,  mournfully  significant,  that  the  Irish  are  now  the  only  people  among  whom  such 
visionary  pretensions  are  still  clung  to  with  any  trust. 


iftSTORY  OF  IRELAND.  63 

original  of  the  Irish  people  at  the  commencement  instead  of  at  the  end  of  the  series,  we 
should  have  been  spared,  at  least,  those  difficulties  of  chronology  which  at  present  beset 
the  whole  scheme.  By  making  the  Milesian  settlement  posterior  in  time  to  tlie  Fir-Bolgs 
and  the  Tuatha-de-Danaans,  both  the  poetry  and  the  reality  of  our  early  annals  are  alike 
disturbed  from  their  true  stations.  The  ideal  colony,  which  ought  to  have  been  placed 
beyond  the  bounds  of  authentic  record,  where  its  inventors  would  have  had  free  scope 
for  their  flights,  has,  on  the  contrary,  been  introduced  among  known  personages  and 
events,  and  compelled  to  adjust  itself  to  the  unpliant  neighbourhood  of  facts;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  authentic  Belgae  and  Damnii,  accredited  beings  of  history,  have,  by 
the  interposition  of  this  shadowy  intruder,  been  separated,  as  it  were,  from  the  real  world, 
and  removed  into  distant  regions  of  time,  where  sober  chronology  would  in  vain  attempt 
to  reach  them.* 

It  is  true,  the  more  moderate  of  the  Milesian  believers,  on  being  made  aware  of  these 
chronological  difficulties,  have  surrendered  the  remote  date  at  first  assigned  to  the  event, 
and,  in  general,  content  themselves  with  fixing  it  near  1000  years  later.  But  this  remove, 
besides  that  it  exposes  the  shifting  foundation  on  which  the  whole  history  rests,  serves 
but  to  render  its  gross  anachronisms  and  improbabilities  still  more  glaring.  A  scheme  of 
descent  which  traces  the  ancestors  of  the  Irish,  through  a  direct  series  of  generations, 
not  merely  to  the  first  founders  of  PhoBnician  arts  and  enterprise,  but  even  to  chieftains 
connected  by  friendship  with  the  prophet  Moses  himself,!  had  need  of  a  remote  station  in 
time  to  lend  even  a  colouring  of  probability  to  such  pretensions.  When  brought  near 
the  daylight  of  modern  history,  and  at  the  distance  of  nearly  a  thousand  years  from  their 
pretended  progenitors,  it  is  plain  these  Milesian  heroes  at  once  shrink  into  mere  shadows 
of  fable;  and,  allowing  them  their  fullest  scope  of  antiquity,  there  appear  no  grounds  for 
believing  that  the  Scotic  colony  settled  in  Ireland  at  a  remoter  period  than  about  two 
centuries  before  our  era.  That  they  succeeded  the  Fir-Bolgs  and  Danaans  in  their 
occupation  of  the  country,  all  its  records  and  traditions  agree;  and  the  first  arrival  of  the 
Belgic  tribes  in  Ireland  from  the  coasts  of  Britain,  or  even  direct  from  Gaul,  could  hardly 
have  been  earlier  than  about  the  third  or  fourth  century  before  Christ. 

Another  strong  proof  of  the  comparatively  recent  date  of  the  Scotic  colony,  is  the  want 
of  all  trace  of  its  existence  in  Ptolemy's  map  of  Ireland,:}:  where  the  entire  omission  of 
even  the  name  of  the  Scoti  among  the  tribes  of  that  island,  shows  that,  not  merely  to  the 
Tyrian  geographers,  who  chiefly  drew  up  that  map,  was  this  designation  of  her  people 
wholly  unknown  ;  but  that  so  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  it  had  not  yet 
reached  the  knowledge  of  Ptolemy  himself.  For  this  latter  fact  the  state  of  seclusion  in 
which  Ireland  had  so  long  remained, — shut  out,  as  she  was,  entirely  from  the  circle  of 
the  Roman  Empire, — may  be  thought  sufficiently,  perhaps,  to  account;  as  well  as  for  the 
equally  certain  fact,  that  not  till  towards  the  end  of  the  third  century  docs  there  occur  a 
single  instance,  in  any  writer,  of  the  use  of  the  term  Scotia  for  Ireland,  or  Scoti  for  any 
of  her  people. 

But  the  most  remarkable  and,  as  it  appears  to  me,  decisive  proof  of  the  recent  date  of 
the  Scotic  settlement,  still  remains  to  be  mentioned.  We  learn  from  the  Confession  of 
St.  Patrick,  a  writing  of  acknowledged  genuineness,  that,  so  late  as  the  life-time  of  that 
Saint,  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  the  name  of  Scots  had  not  yet  extended  to 
the  whole  of  the  Irish  nation,  but  was  still  the  distinctive  appellation  of  only  a  particular 
portion  of  it.^     It  is,  indeed,  evident  that  those  persons  to  whom  St.  Patrick  applies  the 

*  According  to  the  calculation  of  the  Bards,  the  arrival  of  the  Belga3  must  have  been  at  least  1500  years 
before  the  Christian  era. 

t  Among  the  memorable  things  related  of  Moses  during  his  intercourse  with  the  ancestors  of  the  Irish,  we 
are  told  of  a  prediction  uttered  Ijy  him  to  their  chief  Gadelius,  that  "  wheresoever  his  posterity  should  remain 
or  inhabit,  serpents  should  have  no  power  in  that  land  to  hurt  either  man  or  beast.  And  this  prophecy  is 
verified  by  Candia  and  Ireland;  for  in  neither  of  those  islands,  as  being  inhabited  by  the  Gadelians,  it  is 
manifest  that  serpents  had  any  power  as  they  have  in  any  oilier  countries." — M'Curtin's  Vindication  of  the 
JJntiquity  of  Ireland,  copied  chiefly  from  Keating. 

t  This  fact  is  noticed  by  the  geographer  Cellarius,  and  the  same  conclusion  deduced  from  it.  After  review- 
ing the  other  tribes  of  Ireland,  he  says:  "  Hos  populos  Ptojemaus  in  Hibernia  prodidit :  nullos  autem  in  illis 
recensuit  Scotos  quod  ideo  posteriores,  saltern  nomen  illorum,  oportet  in  hac  insula  fuisse." — L.  ii.  c.  4. 

§  Unde  autem  Hiberione,  qui  nunquam  notiliam  Dei  habuerunt,  nisi  idola  et  inimunda  usque  nunc  semper 
coiuerunt,  quomodo  nuper  facta  est  piebs  Domini  et  filii  Dei  nuncupantur?  Filii  Scoltorum  et  filiie  Kegu- 
lorum  monachi  et  virgines  Christi  esse  vidcntur.  Et  etiam  una  benedicla  Scotta,  genitiva  nobilis,  pulcher- 
rima,  adulta  erat,  quam  ego  baptizavi.— S.  Patricii  Confessio. 

This  strong  proof  of  the  comparatively  modern  date  of  the  Scotic  settlement  has  not  escappd  the  notice  of 
unprejudiced  inquirers  into  our  antiquities.  The  Bollandists.Tillemonl,  Father  Innes,  and,  lately, the  learmd 
historian  of  the  lush  church.  Dr.  Lanigan,  have  all  perceived  and  remarked  upon  the  passage;  the  two  latter 
showing  how  fatal  to  the  dreams  of  Milesian  antiquity  must  be  considered  the  state  of  things  disclosed  in 
this  authentic  document.  The  nature  and  object  of  the  valuable  work  of  Dr.  Lanigan  were  such  as  to  lead 
him  only  to  the  consideration  of  our  ecclesiastical  antiquities;  but  the  few  remarks  made  by  him  upon  the 
passage  of  St.  Patrick's  Confession,  just  cited,  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  view  taken  by  his  clear  and  manly 
intellect  of  that  whole  apparatus  of  pompous  fable,  to  which  so  many  of  the  antiquaries  of  this  country  still 


64  HISTORY  OF  IRELAnS. 

name  of  Scots,  were  all  of  the  high  and  dominant  class ;  whereas,  in  speaking  of  the 
great  bulk  of  the  people,  he  calls  them  Hiberionaces, — from  the  name  Hiberione,  which 
is  always  applied  by  him  to  the  Island  itself.  Such  a  state  of  things, — resembling  that 
of  the  Franks  in  Gaul,  when,  although  masters  of  the  country,  they  had  not  yet  imposed 
upon  it  their  name, — shows  clearly  that  the  Scotic  dynasty  could  not  then  have  numbered 
many  ages  of  duration  ;  and  that  to  date  its  commencement  from  about  a  century  or  two 
before  the  Christian  era  is  to  allow  the  fullest  range  of  antiquity  to  which,  with  any 
semblance  of  probability,  it  can  pretend. 

Even  when  lightened  thus  of  the  machinery  of  fable,  and  of  all  its  unfounded  preten- 
sions to  antiquity,  the  Scotic  settlement  must  still  continue  a  subject  of  mystery  and 
discussion  from  the  state  of  darkness  in  which  we  are  left  as  to  its  real  race  and  origin; 
and  in  this  the  Scoti  and  the  Picts  have  shared  a  common  destiny.  In  considering  the 
Scots  to  have  been  of  Scythian  extraction,  all  parties  are  agreed, — as  well  those  who 
contend  for  a  northern  colonization  as  they  who,  following  the  Bardic  history,  derive 
their  settlement,  through  Spain,  from  the  East.  For  this  latter  view  of  the  subject,  there 
are  some  grounds,  it  must  be  admitted,  not  unplausible :  the  Celto-Scytha?,  who  formed 
a  part  of  the  mixed  people  of  Spain,  having  come  originally  from  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Euxine  Sea,*  and  therefore  combming  in  themselves  all  the  peculiarities  attributed 
to  the  Milesian  colony  of  being  at  once  Scythic,  Oriental,  and  direct  from  Spain.  Of 
the  actual  settlement  of  several  Spanish  tribes  in  Ireland,  and  in  those  very  districts  of 
the  Irish  coast  facing  Gallicia,  we  have  seen  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt;  and  there 
would  be,  in  so  far,  grounds  for  connecting  them  with  the  Scotic  colonization,  as  in  that 
very  region,  it  appears,  was  situated  the  principal  city  of  the  Scoti,  in  whose  name, 
Hybernis,  may  be  found  the  mark  of  its  Iberian  origin.  But  however  strongly  these 
various  facts  and  coincidences  tend  to  accredit  the  old  and  constant  tradition  of  a  coloni- 
zation from  Spain,  at  some  very  remote  period,  and  however  adroitly  they  have  been 
turned  to  account  by  some  of  the  favourers  of  the  Milesian  romance,  it  is  evident  that,  to 
the  comparatively  modern  settlement  of  the  Scots,  they  are,  in  no  respect,  applicable ; 
the  race  to  whom  the  southern  region  of  Ireland  owed  its  Iberi  and  Hybernis,  the  names 
of  its  river  lerne  and  of  its  Sacred  Promontory,  having  existed  ages  before  the  time 
when  the  Scoti — a  comparatively  recent  people,  unknown  to  Maximus  of  Tyre,  or  even 
to  Ptolemy  himself, — found  their  way  to  these  shores. 

We  have,  therefore,  to  seek  in  some  other  direction  the  true  origin  of  this  people: 
and  the  first  clue  to  our  object  is  afforded  by  the  Bardic  historians  themselves,  who  re- 
present the  Scoti  to  have  been  of  Scythic  descent,  and  to  have  from  thence  derived  their 
distinctive  appellation.  By  the  term  Scythia,  as  applied  in  the  first  centuries  of  Chris- 
tianity, was  understood  Germany  and  the  more  northern  regions  of  Europe  ;t  and  to 
confirm  still  farther  the  origin  of  the  Scots  from  that  quarter,f  it  is  added  by  the  Bards 
that  they  were  of  the  same  race  with  three  colonies  that  had  preceded  them  ;  namely, 
the  Nemedians,  the  Tuatha-de-Danaans,  and  the  Fir-Bolgs  or  Belgse.  Now,  that  these 
tribes,  whether  coming  through  the  medium  of  Britain,  or,  as  some  think,  direct  from 
their  own  original  countries,  were  all  of  German  extraction,  appears  to  be  the  prevailing 
opinion.  One  of  the  most  enthusiastic,  indeed  of  the  Milesian  believers  is  of  opinion 
that  the  Nemedians,  or  Nemetha;,  belonged  to  that  German  people,  the  Nemetes,  who 

lend  Uieir  sanction.  The  result  of  his  observations  on  the  subject  is,  that  "  following  the  analogy  usual  in 
such  cases,  we  may  conclude  that  the  invasion  of  Ireland  by  the  Scots  ought  not  to  be  referred  to  as  high  an 
antiquity  as  some  of  our  historians  have  pretended  ;  otherwise  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  explain  how  they 
could  have  been  in  our  Saint's  time  considered  as  a  nation  distinct  from  the  greater  part  of  the  people  of 
Ireland." — Eccles.  Hist,  of  Ireland,  vol.  i.  ch.  5.  He  adds  afterwards,  that  "  the  Scots  might  have  been  400  or 
500  years  in  Ireland  before  the  distinction  of  names  between  them  and  the  other  inhabitants  totally  ceased;" 
thus  assigning  even  a  later  date  for  their  arrival  in  the  country  than,  it  will  be  seen,  I  have  allowed  in 
the  text. 

*  That  the  ScythER  of  Europe  came  from  the  northern  parts  of  Persia  seems  to  be  the  opinion  of  most 
inquirers  on  the  subject.  Hence  the  near  affinity  which  is  found  between  the  German  and  the  Persian  lan- 
guages. 

Among  those  authorities  which  have  run  the  round  of  all  the  writers  in  favour  of  the  Milesian  story  is 
that  of  Orosius,  tlie  historian,  who  is  represented  as  stating,  that  "  Scythians,  expulsed  from  Gallicia  in 
Spain  by  Constantino  the  Great,  took  shelter  in  Ireland  "—See  Dr.  Campbell.  (Strictures  on  the  Ecclesiastical 
and  Literary  History  of  Ireland,  sect.  5.)  This  apthority,  which  Dr.  Campbell  has,  in  his  turn,  taken  im- 
plicitly for  granted,  would,  if  genuine,  be  doubtless  highly  important.  But  there  is,  in  reality,  no  such  state- 
ment in  Orosius,  who  merely  mentions,  in  describing  the  position  of  Ireland,  that  a  part  of  her  coasts  ranges 
opposite  to  the  site  of  the  Gallician  city,  Brigantia,  in  Spain. 

t  Thus  Anastasius,  the  Sinaite,  a  monkish  writer  whom  Pinkerton  cites  as  of  the  ninth  age,  but  who  lived 
as  early  as  the  sixth :— "  SkuSwv  tTs  e/aflac-/  nxxuv  ct  ttclkmoi  to  KhtfAO.  ttTraa  to  Bogiioy,  evflst  Uftv  ot  TotSoi 

t  The  genealogy  of  the  Milesians,  or  Scoti,  as  given  by  Keating,  lies  all  in  the  Sarmatian  line ;  and  no 
less  personages  than  Petorbes,  King  of  the  Huns,  and  the  great  Attila  himself,  are  mentioned  as  belonging  to 
one  of  the  collateral  branches  of  their  race. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  65 

inhabited  the  districts  at  present  occupied  by  Worms,  Spire,  and  Mentz.*  By  some  the 
Danaaiis  are  conjectured  to  liave  been  Danes;  or,  at  least,  from  the  country  of  the  people 
afterwards  known  by  that  name  ;f  and  the  Bardic  historians,  who  describe  this  colony  as 
speaking  the  German^  Iann[ua<re,  mention  Denmark  and  Norway  as  the  last  places  from 
whence  they  migrated  to  the  British  Isles.  Of  the  claims  of  the  Belgse  to  be  considered 
a  Teutonic  people,^  I  have  already  sufficiently  spoken;  and  to  them  also,  as  well  as  to 
the  other  two  colonies,  the  Scoti  are  alleged  to  have  been  akin  both  in  origin  and  lan- 
guage. 

Independently  of  all  this  testimony  of  the  Bards,  we  have  also  the  authentic  evidence 
of  Ptolemy's  map, — showing  how  early,  from  liie  north  of  Belgium  and  the  shores  of  the 
German  Ocean,  adventurous  tribes  had  found  their  way  to  the  Eastern  Irish  coasts.  It 
has  been  asserted,  rather  dogmatically,  by  some  Irish  writers,  that  no  descent  from  Den- 
mark or  Norway  upon  Ireland,  no  importation  of  Scandian  blood  into  that  island,  can  be 
admitted  to  have  taken  place  before  the  end  of  the  eighth  century. |1  How  far  this 
assertion  is  founded,  a  more  fitting  opportunity  will  occur  for  considering,  when  I  come 
to  treat  of  the  later  Danish  invasions.  It  may  at  present  suffice  to  remark,  that  traces  of 
intercourse  with  the  nations  of  the  Baltic,  as  well  friendlylT  as  hostile,**  are  to  be  found, 
not  only  in  the  Irish  annals  for  some  centuries  before  St.  Patrick,  but  also  in  the  poems, 
chronicles,  and  histories  of  those  northern  nations  themselves.  Combining  these  circum- 
stances with  all  that  is  known  concerning  the  migratory  incursions  to  which,  a  few 
centuries  before  our  era,  so  many  of  the  countries  of  Europe  were  subject  from  the  tribes 
inhabiting  the  coasts  of  the  Baltic  and  Germanic  seas,  it  appears  highly  probable  that  the 
Scoti  were  a  branch  of  the  same  Scythic  swarm;  and  that,  having  gained  a  settlement 
in  Ireland,  they  succeeded  in  bringing  under  their  dominion  both  the  old  Hiberionaces — 
as  St.  Patrick  styles  the  original  population — and  those  other  foreign  colonies,  by  whom, 
in  succession,  the  primitive  inhabitants  had  been  conquered. 

Among  the  various  other  hypotheses  devised  by  different  writers  to  account  for  the 
origin  of  the  Scots,  and  the  very  important  part  played  by  them  in  Ireland,  there  is  not 
one  that  explains,  even  plausibly,  the  peculiar  cn-cumstances  that  mark  the  course  of 
their  history.  According  to  Richard,  the  Monk  of  Westminster,  and  his  ready  copyist, 
Whitaker,  the  Irish  Scots  were  no  other  than  those  ancient  Britons,  who,  taking  flight 
on  the  first  invasion  of  their  country  by  the  Bclgae,  about  350  years  before  the  Christian 
era,  passed  over  into  the  neighbouring  island  of  Ireland,  and  there,  being  joined,  after  an 


*  Dissertations  on  the  History  of  Ireland,  sect.  13. 

t  Slillingfleet,  Origin.  Brilann.  Preface.— l..edwich,  Antiquities,  Colonization  of  /reZaHrf.— O'Brien,  Preface 
to  Irish  Dictionary.— O'Flaherty  remarks,  "  I  shall  not  aver  that  Danaan  has  been  borrowed  from  the  name 
of  Danes,  as  the  Danes  have  not  been  knovi-n  to  the  Latins  by  that  name  until  the  establishment  of  Chris- 
tianity, though  they  might  have  gone  under  the  appellation  earlier;  in  the  same  manner  as  the  namea  of 
Scots  and  Picts  were  in  use  before  they  came  to  the  kuowledije  of  the  Romans." — Ogijg.  part  J.  The  name  of 
Danes  was  not  known  till  the  sixth  century,  when  it  is  first  mentioned  by  the  historians  Jornandes  and 
Procopius. 

X  "  Our  historians  have  described,  in  an  eloquent  and  pompous  style,  the  difTerent  and  various  peregrina- 
tions of  the  Danaans,  informing  us  that  they  resided,  as  has  already  been  mentioned,  in  the  northern  parts 
of  Germany,  to  wit,  in  the  cities  of  Falia,  Goria,  Finnia,  and  Muria,  and  spoke  the  German  language." — 
Ogygia. 

With  that  spirit  of  unfairness  which  but  too  much  pervades  his  writings,  Dr.  Led  wich  refers  to  this  passage 
as  containing  O'Flaherty's  own  opinions  upon  the  subject :— "  O'Flaherty  allows,"  he  says,  "  that  they  spoke 
the  German  or  Teutonic,  and  inhabited  the  cities  Falia,  Goria,  &c.  in  the  north  of  Germany." 

§  The  same  division  of  opinion  which  prevails  in  England  on  this  question  exists  also  among  the  modern 
Belgians  themselves,  as  maybe  seen  by  reference  to  diffirent  articles  in  the  Memoires  de  I'Acad^mie  de 
Bruxelles  See,  for  instance,  Memoire  sur  la  Religion  des  Peuples  de  I'ancieiine  Belgique.  par  M.  des  Roches, 
(de  lannfe  1773.)  throughout  the  whole  of  which  the  learned  author  takes  for  granted  the  Teutonic  lineage 
of  the  Belgse,  treats  of  them  as  a  wholly  distinct  race  from  the  Gauls,  and  applies  to  the  ancestors  of  his 
countrymen  all  that  Tacitus  has  said  of  the  Germans.  In  speaking  of  the  days  of  the  week,  as  having  been 
named  after  some  of  the  northern  gods,  M.  des  Roches  says:—"  Ces  jours  sont  ais6s  a  rectmnoitre  par  les  nom, 
qui  les  dfisignent  en  Flamand;  sur. tout  si  on  les  compare  a  la  langue  Anglo-Saxone,  soeur  de  la  notre,  et 
aux  autres  langues  septentrionales."  On  the  other  hand,  in  a  prize  essay  of  M  du  Jardin,  1773,  we  find  the 
following  passage  :— "  Priusquam  in  Gallias  ftoniani  transissent,  Belgffi  omnes,  ut  qui  origine  Celte,  Celtice 
loquebantur." 

U  Dr.  O'Connor,  Wood,  &c. 

IT  Seethe  Annals  of  Tigernach,  a  d.  79,  where  he  notices  the  grief  of  the  monarch  Lugad  for  the  death  of 
his  queen,  who  was  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  Lochiand,  or  Denmark.  Alliances  of  the  same  nature  recur 
in  the  second  century,  when  we  find  the  monarch  Tuathal  and  hisson  Feidlim  both  married  to  the  daughters 
of  Finland  kings.  "By  these  marriages,"  says  the  author  of  the  Dissertations  on  Irish  History,  "  vve  see 
what  close  intercourse  the  Scots  held,  in  the  second  century,  with  the  nations  bordering  on  the  Baltic"— 
Sect  5. 

In  translating  the  above  record  of  Tigernach,  the  Rev.  Dr.  O'Connor  has  rather  suspiciously  subatituted 
King  of  the  Saxons  for  King  of  the  Danes. 

••*  It  appears  from  Saxo  Grammaticus  (Hist.  Dan.  lib  8.)  that  already,  in  the  fourth  century,  some  Danish 
chieftains,  whom  he  names,  had  been  engaged  in  piratical  incursions  upon  the  Irish  coasts.  Here  again 
Doctor  O'Connor  has  substituted  Saxons  for  Danes ;  and  it  is  difficult  not  to  agree  with  Mr.  D'Alton,  who 
has  pointed  out  these  rather  unworthy  misquotations,  (Essay,  Period  1.  sect.  1.)  that  they  were  designea 
to  ■'  favour  the  reverend  doctor's  system  of  there  beinjj  no  Danes  in  Ireland  previous  to  the  ninth  century. 


66  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

interval  of  250  years,  by  a  second  body  of  fugitive  Britons,*  took  the  name  of  Scuites,  or 
Scots,  meaning  the  Wanderers,  or  Refugees.  This  crude  and  vague  conjecture,  enlisted 
by  Whitaker  in  aid  of  his  favourite  object  of  proving  Ireland  to  have  drawn  its  population 
exclusively  from  Britain,  has  no  one  feature  either  of  autiiority  or  probability  to  recom- 
mend it.  By  Pinkerton,  Wood,  and  others,  it  is  held  that  the  Belgce  were  the  warlike 
race  denominated  Scots  by  the  Irish;  but  the  whole  course  of  our  early  history  runs 
couHter  to  this  conjecture, — the  Belgae  and  Scoti,  though  joining  occasionally  as  allies  in 
the  field,  being  represented,  throughout,  as  distinct  races.  Even  down  to  modern  times, 
there  are  mentioned  instances  of  families,  in  Galway  and  Siigo,  claiming  descent  from 
the  Belgic  race,  as  wholly  distinct  from  the  Milesian  or  Scotic.t 

It  cannot  but  be  regarded  as  a  remarkable  result,  that  while,  as  the  evidence  adduced 
strongly  testifies,  so  many  of  the  foreign  tribes  that  in  turn  possessed  this  island  were 
Gothic,  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  itself,  its  language,  character,  and  institutions, 
should  have  remained  so  free  from  charge,|  that  even  the  conquering  tribes  themselves 
should,  one  after  another,  liave  become  mingled  with  the  general  mass,  leaving  only 
in  those  few  Teutonic  words,  which  are  found  mixed  up  with  the  native  Celtic,  any 
vestige  of  their  once  separate  existence. 

The  fact  evidently  is,  that  long  before  the  period  when  these  Scythic  invaders  first 
began  to  arrive,  there  had  already  poured  from  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  into  the 
country,  an  abundant  Celtic  population,  which,  though  not  too  ready,  from  the  want  of 
concert  and  coalition,  which  has  ever  characterized  that  race,  to  fall  a  weak  and  easy 
prey  to  successive  bands  of  adventurers,  was  yet  too  numerous,  as  well  as  too  deeply 
imbued  with  another  str.jug  Celtic  characteristic,  attachment  to  old  habits  and  preju- 
dices, to  allow  even  conquerors  to  innovate  materially  either  on  their  own  language  or 
their  usages.  From  this  unchangeableness  of  the  national  character  it  has  arisen,  that  in 
the  history  of  no  other  country  in  Europe  do  periods  far  apart,  and  separated  even  by  ages,^ 
act  as  mirrors  to  each  other  so  vividly  and  faithfully.  At  a  comparatively  recent  era  of 
her  annals,  when  brought  unresistingly  under  the  dominion  of  the  English,  her  rela- 
tions to  her  handful  of  foreign  rulers  were  again  nearly  the  same,  and  again  the  result 
alike  to  victors  and  to  vanquisiied  was  for  a  long  period  such  as  I  have  above  described. 

It  has  been  already  observed  that,  in  the  obscurity  which  envelops  their  name  and 
origin,  the  destiny  of  the  Scots  resembles  closely  that  of  another  people  not  less  remarka- 
ble in  the  history  of  the  British  Isles,  known  by  the  name  of  the  Picts ;  and  as,  accord- 
ing to  the  Irish  traditions,  the  Scots  and  Picts  made  their  appearance  in  these  western 
regions  about  the  same  period,  the  history  of  the  latter  of  the  two  colonies  may  help 
to  throw  some  light  on  that  of  its  Scotic  neighbours.  With  the  account  given  by  the 
Bardic  historians  of  the  Picts  sailing  in  quest  of  a  settlement  in  these  seas,  and  resting 
for  a  time  in  the  south  of  Ireland  on  their  way,  the  statement  of  Bede  on  the  subject 
substantially  agrees ;5  and  while  the  Bards  represent  this  people  as  coming  originally 
from  Thrace,  the  venerable  historian  expressly  denominates  them  a  Sythic  people. 
It  would,  therefore,  appear,  that  the  Scots  and  the  Picts  were  both  of  northern  race, 

*  "It  was  then,"  Whitaker  says,  "they  first  incorporated  Ihemsolves  into  one  society."  The  details  of 
this  notable  scheme,  which  siqiposes  so  large  and  important  a  body  of  people  to  have  waited  250  years  to  be 
incorporated  and  named,  are  to  be  found  in  the  [iistory  of  Manchester,  book  i.  chap.  12.  sec.  4. 

t  "Lastly,  they  (the  Belgians)  settled  in  ftloy-Sachnoly,  at  this  day  Hymania,  in  the  county  of  Galway, 
after  the  arrival  of  St.  I'alrick,  and  there  O'Layu,  and,  in  the  connty  Sligo,  OBeunachan,  to  our  times  the 
proprietor  of  a  very  handsome  estate,  look  on  themselves  as  their  teal  descendants." — Ogrjgia,  part  iii. 
chap.  12.  ,      ,   t 

t  "  In  the  Iri?h  tongue."  savs  O'Eri^-n,  "  the  Celtic  predominates  over  all  olher  mixtures,  not  only  of  the 
old  Sjianish.  but  also  of  the  Scandinavian  and  olher  Scylho  German  dialects,  though  Ireland  anciently  re- 
ceived three  or  four  different  colon  es,  or  rather  swarms  of  adventurers,  from  those  quarters."  (Preface  to 
Dici.ioniirij)  One  nf  the  causes  he  assigns  for  the  slight  effect  produced  upon  llie  language  by  such  infu- 
sions is,  that  "  these  foreiin  adventurers  and  sea-rovers  were  under  the  necessity  of  begging  wives  from  the 
natives,  and  the  necessary  consequence  of  this  mixture  and  alliance  was  that  they,  or  at  least  their  children, 
Irst  their  own  miginal  lancuage,  and  spoke  no  other  than  that  of  the  nation  they  mixed  with;— which  was 
exactly  the  case  with  the  first  Knglisii  settlers  in  Ireland,  who  soon  became  mere  Irishmen  both  in  their 
language  and  manners" 

§  '■  It  happened  that  the  nation  of  the  Picts  coming  into  the  ocean  from  Scythia,  as  is  reported,  in  a  few 
long  ships,  the  winds  driving  them  about  l)eyond  all  the  borders  of  Britain,  arrived  in  Ireland,  and  put  into 
the  northern  coasts  thereof,  and  finding  the  nation  of  the  Scots  there,  requested  to  be  allowed  to  settle 
among  them,  hut  could  not  obtain  \f—Eccl£siast.  Hist,  bonk  i.  chap.  I.  In  Bede's  account  of  the  region 
from  whence  they  came,  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  Geoffrey  Monmouth,  and  all  the  ancient  English  historians 
concur.  The  following  passage  also  of  Tacitus  tells  strongly  in  favour  of  the  same  opinion  :  "  Rutilae  Ca- 
ledoniam  habitantiu  mcomfe,  magni  artus,  Germanicum  originem  asseverant." — jj^nc.  cap.  11.  Attempts 
iiave  been  made  to  get  rid  of  the  weight  of  this  authority  by  a  most  unfair  interpretation  of  a  [lassage 
which  follows  in  the  same  chapter,  and  which  applies  evideittly  only  to  those  inhabitants  of  Britain,  who 
lived  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Gauls—'  proximi  Gallis."  In  speaking  of  this  portion  of  the  British 
population,  the  historian  says,  "  In  universum  tamen  iestimanti,  Gallos  viciniim  solum  cccupasse  credibile." 
To  suppose  that  by  the  expletive  phrase  "  in  universum,"  so  deliberate  a  writer  as  Tacitus  could  have  meant 
to  retract  or  overturn  an  opinion  expressed  so  decidedly  but  a  few  lines  before,  is  a  s,trttch  of  interpretation, 
upon  which  only  the  sturdy  spirit  of  system  could  have  ventured. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  67 

and,  most  probably,  both  from  tlie  same  hive  of  hardy  adventurers  who  were  then  pour- 
ing forth  their  predatory  swarms  over  Europe. 

That  the  Picts  were  the  original  iniiabitants  of  North  Britain,  and  the  same  people 
with  the  Caledonians,  seems  now  universally  admitted;  and  among  the  various  opi- 
nions held  as  to  their  origin,  the  conjecture  of  Camden  that  they  were  but  Britons 
under  another  name, — some  indigenous  to  that  region,  others  driven  thither  by  the 
terror  of  the  Roman  arms, — has  been  hitherto  the  opinion  most  generally  received. 
It  is  to  be  recollected,  however,  that  Camden,  in  pronouncing  the  Picts  to  have  been 
Britons,  took  for  granted  that  the  ancient  Britons  were  the  same  people  with  the 
VVelsli, — thereby  confounding  two  races  which,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  were 
wholly  distinct.  The  extraction  claimed  by  the  Welsh  themselves,  and,  as  it  appears, 
on  no  insufficient  grounds,  from  those  ancient  Cimbri,  whose  martial  virtue  the  pen  of 
Tacitus  has  immortalized,  at  once  distinguishes  their  race  from  that  of  the  first  inhabi- 
tants of  Britain,  who  were,  it  is  generally  allowed,  pure  Celts  or  Gael;  while  the  Cim- 
bri, who  lent  their  name  to  that  northern  Chersonesus,  from  whence  the  Teutonic 
tribes  inundated  Europe,  were  themselves  no  less  decidedly  Teutons.* 

With  respect  to  the  languages  of  the  two  races,  the  radical  diflerencesf  between  the 
Gaelic  and  the  Cumraig  have  been,  by  more  than  one  intelligent  Welshman,  admitted 
and  demonstrated;  while  no  less  eninent  Irish  philologers  have  arrived  at  exactly  the 
same  conclusion.  The  words  common  to  the  two  languages  appear  to  be  sufficiently 
accounted  for  by  the  close  intercourse  with  each  other,  which,  in  different  countries  of 
Europe,  the  Celtic  and  Cimbric  races  are  known  to  have  maintained. 

For  another  fact  illustrative  of  the  true  history  of  the  Cymry,  we  are  indebted  also 
to  a  learned  Welsh  antiquary,  who  has  shown  by  the  evidence  of  those  undying  memo- 
rials, the  names  of  rivers,  headlands,  and  mountains,  that  another  race  had  preceded 
the  Welsh  in  the  possession  of  that  country, — the  words  wedded,  from  time  immemo- 
rial, to  her  hills  and  waters,  being  all  Gaelic  or  Irish. |  The  original  seat,  therefore,  of 
the  Cymry  in  Britain,  must  be  sought  for,  it  is  clear,  elsewhere;  and  if  there  be  any 
region  where  similar  traces  of  ancient  inhabitancy  are  found,  where  the  rivers  and 
hills,  the  harbours  and  promontories,  are  all  invested  with  Welsh  names,  we  may  there 
fix,  without  hesitation,  the  site  of  their  primitive  abode.  This  region,  the  mountain 
territory  of  the  ancient  Picts  supplies.^  In  the  parts  of  North  Britain  once  inhabited 
by  that  mysterious  people,  the  language  of  the  Cymry  is  still  alive  in  the  names  of 
those  permanent  features  of  nature  which  alone  defy  oblivion,  and  tell  the  story  of  the 
first  dwellers  to  all  the  races  that  succeed  them. 

Taking  these  and  some  other  circumstances  that  shall  presently  be  mentioned,  into 
consideration,  it  is  hardly  possible,  I  think,  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  people 
called  Picts  were  the  progenitors  of  the  present  Welsh,— being  themselves  a  branch  of 
that  Cimbric  stock  from  whence  all  the  traditions  of  the  latter  people  represent  them 

*  See  Dissertation  prefixed  by  Wharton  to  his  History  of  Poetry,  where  he  pronounces  the  Cimbri  to 
have  been  a  Scandinavian  tribe. 

t  The  first  person  who  ventured  to  question  the  supposed  affinity  between  the  Gaelic  and  Cambrian  lan- 
guages was  Dr.  Percy,  the  Bishop  of  Dromore,  in  his  Preface  to  Mallet's  Northern  Antiquities.  "  To  con- 
fess my  own  opinion,"  he  says,  "  I  cannot  think  they  are  eaually  derived  from  one  common  Celtic  stock." 
The  same  writer  ventured  also  to  intimate  the  true  reason  of  Ihf'  wide  difference  between  these  languages. 
"  'J  hat  the  Cimbri  of  Marius  was  not  a  Celtic  but  German  or  Gothic  people,  is  an  opinion  that  may  be 
supported  with  no  slight  argument."  A  learned  Welshman,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Roberts,  thus  decisively  follows 
up  and  confirms  the  bishop's  views.  "  Since  the  languages  of  the  Cymry  and  Gael  are  perfectly  distinct, 
they  must  be  distinct  nations;  and  if  the  distinction  had  been  cautiously  attended  to,  much  confusion, 
both  in  history  and  etymology,  would  have  been  avoided."  The  same  writer  adds,"  Had  Mr.  Whilaker 
known  either  the  Welsh  or  Gaelic  language  well,  I  am  persuaded  he  would  have  been  very  far  from  sup- 
posing that  the  Cymry  and  Gael  were  the  same  people,  for  he  would  have  found  that  either  of  their  lan- 
guages is  of  no  more' use  to  tire  understanding  of  the  other,  than  the  mere  knowledge  of  the  Latin  to  the 
understanding  of  the  Greek."  While  such  is  the  view  taken  hy  a  learned  Welshman  respecting  the  rela- 
tionship between  the  two  languages,  a  no  less  learned  Irish  scholar  thus  expresses  himself  on  the  subject  : 
— "  The  Gomeraeg  spoken  at  this  day  in  North  Wales,  and  the  Gaelic  spoken  in  Ireland,  are  as  different  in 
their  syntactic  constructions  as  any  two  tongues  can  be."  {O'Connor,  Dissert,  on  Hist,  of  Scotland.)  Sir  W. 
Betham  asserts  still  more  decidedly  the  radical  difference  between  the  two  languages,  adopting  the  same  views 
respecting  the  origin  of  the  Welsh  people,  which  I  have  above  endeavoured  to  enforce.  See  liis  Oaei  and 
the  Cimbri  for  some  curious  illustrations  of  this  point. 

t  Lhuyd,  Preface  to  Geography  :  already  referred  to,  chap  1.,  for  the  same  fact. 

§  See,  for  a  long  list  of  these  Welsh  deiiominalions  of  places,  Chalmers's  Coledonia,  vol.  i.  chap.  1.—"  In 
the  laborious  work  of  Mr.  Chalmers,"  says  Dr.  Pritchard,  "  there  is  a  collection  of  such  terms,  which  seems 
amply  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  most  incredulous,  that  the  dialect  of  the  Cambro  Britons  was,  at  one  period, 
the  prevailing  idiom  on  the  northeastern  parts  of  Scotland." 

A  few  instances  are  mentioned  by  Chalmers,  in  which  the  names  given  by  the  Picts  or  Welsh  were  super- 
seded by  their  Scoto. Irish  successors.  Thus  it  appears  from  charters  of  the  twelfth  century,  that  Inver  was 
substituted  hy  the  Scots  for  the  Mer  of  the  previous  inhabitants;  David  I.  having  granted  to  the  monastery 
of  May  "  Invct-m  qui  fuit  Abcrin  :"  and  the  influx  of  the  Nethy  into  the  Em,  wiiose  fannliar  name  had 
been  ^icr-nethy,  was  changed  by  the  later  people  into  /«ye/-.nei.hy,  and  both  these  names  it  is  added,  still 
remain. 


68  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

to  have  been  derived ;— and  that,  instead  of  the  Welsh  having  become  the  Picts,  as  was 
supposed  by  Camden  and  others,  the  result  of  the  evidence  shows,  on  the  contrary,  that 
the  Picts  became  the  Welsh. 

Obscure  and  involved  as  are  tlie  records  of  British  history  for  some  ages  after  the 
departure  of  the  Romans,  there  can  yet  enough  be  discerned,  throush  the  darkness,  to 
enable  us  to  track  the  course  of  this  warlike  people,  in  their  resistless  career  towards 
the  south,  as  well  as  in  that  gradual  change  of  name  which  they  underwent  during 
their  progress.  The  entire  abdication  of  the  island  by  the  Romans  was  evidently  the 
crisis  of  which  the  restless  Picts  availed  themselves  to  carry  their  arms,  with  a  view 
to  permanent  conquest,  into  regions  they  had  before  but  temporarily  devastated.  Break- 
ing through  the  long  guarded  frontier,  they  took  possession,  without  any  struggle,  of  all 
the  midland  provinces,  reaching  from  tlie  wall  of  Northumberland  to  the  friths  of  Forth 
and  Clyde,  and  there  established  the  Rcgnum  Cumbrense,  or  Kingdom  of  Strat-Clyde,* 
in  whose  mixed  population — composed,  as  it  was,  of  all  the  tribes  of  North  Britain, — 
their  old  distinctive  name  of  Picts  began  first  to  be  unsettled  and  disused.  Here,  how- 
ever, they  continued  to  maintain  themselves,  against  all  the  efforts  of  the  Saxons  to  dis- 
possess them;  and  under  the  German  name  of  the  Walli  or  Welsh,  bestowed  upon  them 
by  the  invadersf  may  be  traced  as  acting  a  distinguished  part  in  the  affairs  of  Britain 
for  many  centuries  after. 

To  this  epoch  of  their  northern  kingdom,  all  the  traditions  of  the  modern  Welsh  refer 
for  their  most  boasted  antiquities,  and  favourite  themes  of  romance.^  The  name  of  their 
chivalrous  hero,  Arthur,  still  lends  a  charm  to  much  of  the  topograpliy  of  North  Britain; 
and  among  the  many  romantic  traditions  connected  with  Sterling  Castle,  is  that  of  its 
having  once  been  the  scene  of  the  festivities  of  the  Round  Table.  The  poets  Aneurin 
and  Taliessen,  the  former  born  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  banks  of  the  Clyde, §  graced 
the  court,  we  are  told,  of  Urien,  the  King  of  Reged,  or  Cumbria ;  and  the  title  Caledo- 
nius  bestowed  on  the  enchanter  Merlin,  who  was  also  a  native  of  Strat-Clyde,  suffi- 
ciently attests  his  northern  and  Pictish  race.  It  may  be  added,  as  another  strong  con- 
firmation of  the  identity  between  the  Strat-Clyde  Welsh  and  the  Picts,  that  from  the 
time  of  the  total  defeat  of  the  latter  by  Keneth  Macalpine,  King  of  the  Scots,  no  farther 
mention  occurs  of  the  kingdom  of  Strat-Clyde.  The  traditional  story  of  the  utter  ex- 
tinction of  the  Pictish  people  at  this  period,  so  far  as  to  have  left,  we  are  told,  not  even 
a  vestige  of  their  language,  bears  upon  the  face  of  it  the  marks  of  legendary  fiction; 
while  the  fact  of  their  ancient  title  of  Picts  having  been,  about  this  time,  eclipsed  by 
their  new  designation  of  Walli,  accounts  satisfactorily  for  the  origin  and  general  belief 
of  such  a  fable. 

With  respect  to  the  period  at  which  this  people  may  be  supposed  to  have  fixed  them- 
selves in  Wales,  a  series  of  migrations  thither  from  Cumbria,  at  different  intervals,  have 
been  recorded  by  the  Chroniclers;  and,  among  others,  it  is  said  that,  in  the  year  890,  a 
body  of  emigrants,  under  the  command  of  a  chief  named  Constantino,  fought  their  way 
through  the  ranks  of  the  Saxons  to  that  conntry.  But  their  main  movement  towards 
the  south,  whether  voluntarily,  or  under  pressure  from  the  invader,  must  have  occurred 

»  Pinkerton  vainly  endeavours  to  make  adistinction  bntween  the  Reemim  Cumbrense  and  the  Kingdom 
on  the  Clyde.  {Inquiry  into  the  History  of  Scot la7u],  part  ii.  chap  5.)  Tlieir  identity  has  been  clearly  proved 
both  by  Innes  (vol.  i.  chap.  2.  art.  2  )  and  Chalmers,  book  ii.  chap.  2. 

The  author  of  a  late  popular  history,  Thierry,  (Hist,  de  la  Contjur.le  de  VAvglcterre,)  has  so  far  confounded 
the  localities  of  the  ancient  Welsh  history  as  to  mistake  Cumbria,  the  present  county  of  Cumberland,  for 
Wales.  Speaking  of  the  Northern  Britons  he  says,  "  Les  fugitifs  de  ces  contrees  avoient  gaene  le  grand  asile 
du  paysde  Galles,  ou  bien  Tangle  de  terre  hftrissi;  de  montagnes  que  baigne  la  mer  au  Golfe  de  Solway  " 

That  the  Picts,  towards  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  formed  the  main  part  of  the  population  of  this  king- 
dom, appears  from  a  statement  in  the  Life  of  t?t.  Kentigern.  by  Joceiin,  which  shows  that  Galloway  was,  at 
this  period,  in  the  possession  of  the  Picts;  and  it  was  probably  about  this  time  they  began  to  be  known  by 
thai  name  of  Gelwcjenses,  which  continued  to  be  applied  to  them  lor  many  centuries  after.  (See  Inites,  vol. 
i.  book  1.  chap.  2.)  While  thus  the  Picts  were  called  Galwejenses,  we  find  Matthew  of  Westminster,  at  a 
later  period,  giving  the  same  name  to  the  Welsh  ;  thereby  identifying,  in  so  far,  the  latter  people  with  the 
Picts. 

t  "  The  name,"  says  Camden,  "  by  which  the  Saxon  conqueror  called  foreigners,  and  every  thing  that  was 
strange  " 

X  Most  of  the  great  Welsh  pedigrees,  too,  commence  their  line  from  princes  of  tlie  Cumbrian  Kingdom, 
and  the  archaiologist  Lhiiyd  hiinseif  boasts  of  his  descent  from  ancestors  in  the  "  province  of  Reged  in  Scot- 
land, in  the  fourth  century,  before  the  Sa.\ons  ca/ine  into  Britain  " — Ptef.  to  Arr.hccotogia. 

There  is,  however,  visibly  and  from  motives  by  no  means  uninit  llif;ible,  an  unwillingness,  on  the  part  of 
modern  Welsh  historians,  to  bring  miicli  into  notice  this  northern  seat  of  i.'ymbric  eiuerprize  and  renown. 
For  the  name  of  Cumbria  that  of  Reged  is  usually  substituted,  and  the  founders  of  their  kingdom  in 
Wales  are  alleged  to  have  been  the  sons  of  a  northern  prince,  named  Cynetha,  or  Cenelha.  (evidently  their 
Scottish  King  Kenneth,)  who,  "  leaving  Cumberland  and  some  neichbouring  countries,  where  they  ruled,  to 
the  government  of  one  nf  their  family,  retired  into  North  Wales,  their  grandmother's  country,  and  seated 
themselves  in  the  several  divisions  of  it,  as  their  names  left  on  those  places  do,  to  this  day,  testify."— iJozo- 
land's  Mona  ^ntiqua,  sect.  ii.     Se(!  also  H'arrington's  Hist,  of  Hales,  book  i. 

§  The  river  Clyde,  in  North  Wales,  was,  it  is  clear,  named  by  the  new  possessors  of  that  country,  after  the 
Clyde  of  thuir  old  kingdom  in  Scotland. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  69 

at  a  much  earlier  period, — not  more  than  a  century,  probably,  from  the  time  of  their  first 
outbreak  from  their  own  hills;  as,  before  the  end  of  the  sixth  age,  they  had  already  pos- 
sessed themselves  both  of  Wales  and  of  Cornwall,  and  established  a  colony,  apparently 
by  conquest,  in  the  province  of  Armoric  Gaul. 

Much  more  micfht  be  added  in  corroboration  of  this  view  of  the  origin  of  the  Welsh, 
but  that  already,  perhaps,  I  have  dwelt  somewhat  more  profusely  upon  it  than  may  seem 
to  be  justified  by  the  immediate  object  I  had  in  view,  which  was,  by  inquiring  into  the 
most  probable  history  of  the  Pictish  people  of  Britain,  to  gain  some  clue  to  that  of  their 
fellow  Scythians,  the  Scoti  of  Ireland;  as  well  as  some  insight  into  the  race  and  origin 
of  those  Cruithene,  or  Painted  Men,  who,  about  the  same  period,  took  up  their  abode  in 
a  part  of  the  province  of  Ulster.  With  respect  to  the  Scoti,  the  probability  of  their 
having  been  a  Scandinavian  people*  is  considerably  strengthened  by  the  weight  of 
evidence  and  authority  which  pronounces  the  Picts  to  have  been  a  colony  from  the  same 
quarter,  as  their  joint  history  is  thus  rendered  concurrent  and  consistent;  and  it  seems 
naturally  to  have  followed  from  the  success  of  the  former  in  gaining  possession  of  Ireland, 
that  others  of  the  adventurous  rovers  of  the  North  should  try  their  furtunes  in  the  same 
reo-ion.  Of  that  detachment  of  Pictish  adventurers  which  fixed  their  quarters,  as  we 
have  said,  in  the  North  of  Ireland,  there  will  occur  occasions  to  take  some  notice,  in  the 
course  of  the  following  pages.  I  shall  here  only  remark  that,  by  their  intermixture  with 
the  primitive  inhabitants  of  the  country,  they  were  doubtless  the  means  of  engrafting  on 
the  native  tongue  those  words  of  Cimbric  origin  which,  notwithstanding  the  radical 
difference  between  the  two  languages,  has  given  to  the  Irish  and  the  Welsh  so  imposing 
an  appearance  of  affinity.f 


CHAPTER  VII. 

HISTORY  OF  IRELAND  FROM  THE  LANDING    OF  THE   SCOTI  COLONY  TO  THE  ARRIVAL 

OF   ST.  PATRICK. 

In  commencing  his  history  of  the  Milesian  or  Scotic  monarchs,  by  far  the  most  trust- 
worthy of  the  Irish  annalists  informs  us,  "that  all  the  records  of  the  Scots,  before  the 
time  of  King  Kimbaoth,  are  uncertian."]:  This  monarch,  who,  according  to  the  seiiachies, 
was  the  seventy-fifth  King  of  Ireland,  and  the  fifty-seventh  of  the  Milesian  dynasty, 
flourished,  as  we  learn  from  the  same  authorities,  about  300  years  before  Christ :  but  the 
learned  Dr.  O'Connor,  by  whom  the  lists  of  the  ancient  kings  have  been  examined  with 
a  degree  of  zeal  and  patience  worthy  of  a  far  better  task,  has  shown  that,  according  to 
the  regal  lists  of  the  senachies  themselves,  the  rei^n  of  Kimbaoth  cannot  be  carried  back 
to  a  remoter  date  than  200  years  before  our  era.  The  reader  who  has  attended,  however, 
to  the  facts  adduced  in  the  foregoing  pages,  proving  how  groundless  are  the  claims  to  a 
remote  antiquity  which  have  been  advanced  for  the  Scotic  or  Milesian  colony,  will,  I 
doubt  not,  be  of  opinion  that  a  scheme  of  chronology  which  supposes  the  fifty-sixth 
monarch  of  the  Scotic  dynasty  to  have  existed  200  or  300  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ, 

*  Bishop  Sfillingfleet  declares  strongly  in  favour  of  the  opinion  that  the  Picts  "  were  from  the  same  parts" 
as  the  Scots;  but  interprets  Bede's  words  rather  too  favourably  for  bis  purpose,  when  he  represents  him  as 
saying  that  "on  being  carried  by  a  tempest  to  Ireland,  they  found  their  Gentem  Scotorum,  i.  e.  (adds  the 
bishop)  their  countrymen,  the  Scythians."  Among  the  most  convincing  indications  of  their  having  been 
kindred  tribes,  are  those  deduced  by  Buchanan,  from  their  facility  of  intercourse  on  first  meetinif,  their 
mutual  confidence  and  intermarriages,  and  the  amicable  neighbourhood  of  their  settlement  afterwards  in 
North  Britain.  "Facile  majores  Pictorum  Scotis  fuisse  conciliatos  puto,  aique  ab  eisdeni,  ut  traditur, 
adjutos,  ut  homines  cognatos,  ejusdem  fere  lingua;  nee  dissimilium  rituura." — Hist.  Stut.  lib.  ii.  27. 

f-  The  amount  of  this  resemblance  between  the  two  languages  appears  to  be,  after  all,  but  trifling.  "There 
is,"  says  Mr.  Roberts,  the  intelligent  Welsh  scholar,  already  quoted,  "about  one  word  in  filteen  similar,  but 
rarely  the  same,  in  sound  and  signification,  in  both  languages.  In  the  first  nine  columns  of  the  Irish  Dic- 
tionary, printed  by  Lhuyd  in  his  Archsologia.  there  are  400  words,  of  which  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover 
more  than  twenty,  in  common  to  both  languages,  nor  have  I  succeeded  belter  in  several  trials.  Moreover, 
the  grammatical  structure,  as  to  the  declension  and  construction,  are  radically  different:'— Chriniicle  of  the 
Kings  of  Britain. 

A  learned  German  glossologist,  Adelung,  is  also  to  be  numbered  among  those  who  consider  the  Welsh 
tongue  to  be  a  descendant  from  that  of  the  Belgfe,  and  not  from  that  of  the  Celta;.  .  . 

I  Tigernach.— "  Omnia  monumenta  Scotorum  usque  Cimbaoth  incerta  erant."  For  some  account  ol  tnis 
annalist,  who  died  a.  d.  1088,  see  Ware's  Writers.— /Jer.  Hibern.  Scrip,  torn  ii.  &c.  &c. 


70  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

may  bo  got  rid  of  with  a  much  less  expenditure  of  learning'  and  labour  than  it  has  cost 
Dr.  O'Connor,  and  other  such  zealots  in  the  cause  of  antiquity,  to  establish  and  sup- 
port it. 

Without  entering  at  present,  however,  into  any  farther  examination  of  the  chrono- 
logical reckonings  and  regal  lists  of  the  antiquaries,  or  pointing  out  how  far,  in  spite  of 
the  extravagant  dates  assigned  to  them,  the  reality  of  the  events  themselves  may  be 
relied  upon,  I  shall  proceed  to  lay  before  the  reader  a  sketch  of  the  history  of  Pagan 
Ireland,  from  the  time  of  the  landing  of  the  Scotic  colony,  to  the  great  epoch  of  the  con- 
version of  the  Irish  to  Christianity  by  St.  Patrick.  Into  any  of  those  details  of  war  and 
bloodshed  which  form  so  large  a  portion  of  our  annals.  Pagan  as  well  as  Christian,  I  shall 
not  think  it  necessary  to  enter;  while,  of  the  civil  transactions,  my  object  will  be  to 
select  principally  those  which  appear  to  be  most  sanctioned  by  the  general  consent  of 
tradition,  and  afford,  at  least,  pictures  of  manners,  even  where  they  may  be  thought 
questionable  as  records  of  fact. 

A  decisive  victory  over  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan,  the  former  possessors  of  the  country, 
having  transferred  the  sovereignty  to  Heber  and  Heremon,  the  sons  of  the  Spanish  king, 
Mijcsius,  these  two  brothers  divided  the  kingdom  between  them;  and  while  Leinster 
and  Munster  were,  it  is  said,  the  portion  assigned  to  Heber,  the  younger  brother,  Here- 
mon, had  for  his  share  the  provinces  of  Ulster  and  Connaught.  There  was  also  a  third 
brother,  Amergin,  whom  they  appointed  Arch-Bard,  or  presiding  minister  over  the  re- 
spective departments  of  Law,*  Poetry,  Philosophy,  and  Religion.  In  the  divided  sove- 
reignty tlius  exercised  by  the  family,  may  be  observed  the  rudiments  of  that  system  of 
government  which  prevailed  so  long  among  their  successors;  while,  in  the  office  of  the 
Arch-Bard  we  trace  the  origin  of  those  metrical  legislators  and  chroniclers  who  took  so 
prominent  a  part  in  public  affairs  under  all  the  Scotic  princes. 

In  another  respect,  it  must  be  owned,  the  commencement  of  the  Milesian  monarchy 
was  marked  strongly  by  the  features  which  but  too  much  characterized  its  whole  course. 
A  beautiful  valley,  which  lay  in  the  territories  of  Heremon,  had  been,  for  some  time,  a 
subject  of  dispute  between  the  two  brothers  ;t  and  their  differences  at  length  kindling  into 
animosity,  led  to  a  battle  between  them  on  the  plains  of  Geisiol,  where  Heber  lost  his 
life,  leaving  Heremon  sole  possessor  of  the  kingdom.  Even  the  peaceful  profession  of 
the  Arch-Poet  Amergin  did  not  exempt  him  from  the  effects  of  the  discord  thus  early  at 
work ;  as,  in  a  subsequent  battle,  this  third  son  of  Milesius  fell  also  a  victim  to  his  brother 
Heremon's  sword-l 

To  the  reign  of  Heremon,  the  Bardic  historians  refer  the  first  coming  of  the  people 
called  Picts  into  these  regions.  Landing  upon  the  eastern  coast  of  Ireland,  they  pro- 
posed to  establish  themselves  on  the  island;  but  the  natives,  not  deeming  such  a  settle- 
ment expedient,  informed  them  of  other  islands,  on  the  north-east,  which  were  uninhabited, 
and  where  they  might  fix  their  abode.  To  this  suggestion  the  Picts  readily  assented, 
but  first  desired  tliat  some  of  the  Milesian  women  might  be  permitted  to  accompany 
them ;  pledging  themselves  solemnly  that,  should  they  become  masters  of  that  country 
they  were  about  to  invade,  the  sovereignty  should  be  ever  after  vested  in  the  descendants 
of  the  female  line.^     This  request  having  been  granted,  the  Pictish  chiefs,  accompanied 

*  "  Amergin  was  the  Biehon  of  the  colony,  and  was  also  a  poet  and  philosopher."^— O'/fei//?/  on  the  Brehon 
Laws. 

t  The  particulars  of  this  quarrel  are  thus  stated  by  Keating: — "The  occasion  of  the  dispute  was  the 
possession  of  three  of  the  most  delightful  valleys  in  the  whole  island.  Two  of  these  lay  in  the  division  of 
Heber  Fionn,  and  he  received  the  profits  of  them;  but  his  wife,  being  a  woman  of  great  pride  and  ambition, 
envied  the  wife  of  Heremon  the  enjoyment  of  one  of  those  delightful  valleys,  and,  therefore,  persuaded  lier 
husband  to  demand  the  valley  of  Heremon  ;  and,  upon  a  refusal,  to  gain  possession  of  it  by  the  sword  ;  for 
she  passionately  vowed  she  never  would  be  satisfied  till  she  was  called  the  Queen  of  the  three  most  fruitful 
Valleys  in  the  Island." 

]  There  are  still  extant  three  poems  attributed  to  this  bard,  one  of  them  said  to  have  been  written  by  him 
while  he  was  coasting  on  the  shores  of  Ireland.  This  latter  poem  the  reader  will  find,  together  with  a  brief 
outline  of  its  meaning,  in  Havdiman"s  Irish  Minstrelsy,  vol.  ii.  notes.  "There  still  remain,"  says  the  enthu- 
siastic editor,  "  after  a  lapse  of  nearly  three  thousand  years,  fragments  of  these  ancient  bards  (.'\mcrgin  and 
Lugad,  the  son  of  Ith.)  some  of  which  will  be  found  included  in  the  following  pages,  with  proofs  of  their 
aulhenticity." — Preface. 

The  following  is  the  account  given  of  the  supposed  poems  of  Amergin  by  the  learned  editor  of  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  IhernoUeltic  Society. — "  These  compositions  are  written  in  the  Uearia  Feini,  and  accompanied 
with  an  interlined  gloss,  without  which  they  would  be  unintelligible  to  modern  Irish  scholars.  The  gloss 
itself  requires  much  study  to  understand  it  perfectly,  as  the  language  is  obsolete,  and  must  in  many  places  be 
read  from  bottom  to  top." 

§  This  matrimonial  compact  of  the  Picts  is  thus,  in  a  spirit  far  worse  than  absurd,  misrepresented  by 
O'llalloran:— "They,  at  the  same  time,  requested  wives  from  Heremon,  engaging,  in  the  most  solemn 
manner,  that  not  only  then,  but  for  ever  after,  if  they  or  their  successors  should  have  issue  by  a  British,  and 
again  by  an  Irish  woman,  that  the  issue  of  this  last  otdIij  should  be  capable  of  succeeding  to  the  inheritance! 
and  which  law  continued  in  force  to  the  days  of  Venerable  Bede,  i.  e.  about  2000  years!  a  mark  of  such 
striking  distinction  that  it  cannot  be  paralleled  in  the  history  of  any  other  nation  under  the  sun!"— Vol.  ii. 
chap.  4. 

This  policy  of  deducing  the  royal  succession  through  the  female  line,  not  through  the  male,  was  always 
retained  by  the  Fids. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  71 

by  their  Milesian  wives,  set  sail  for  tlie  islands  bordering  on  Scotland,  and  there  esta- 
blished their  settlement. 

Passing  over  the  immediate  successors  of  Heremon,  we  meet  with  but  little  that  is 
remarkable  till  we  arrive  at  the  reign  of  the  idolater  Tighernmas,  who,  while  offerino- 
sacrifice,  at  a  great  popular  convention,  to  the  monstrous  idol,  Crom-Cruach,  was,  together 
with  the  vast  multitude  around  him,  miraculously  destroyed.  During  the  reign  of  this 
king,  gold  is  said  to  have  been,  for  the  first  time,  worked  in  Ireland ;  a  mine  of  that 
metal  having  been  discovered  in  the  woods  to  the  east  of  the  river  Liffey.* 

In  the  reign  of  Achy,  who  was  the  immediate  successor  of  Tigliernmas,  a  singular 
law  was  enacted,  regulating  the  exact  number  of  colours  by  which  the  garments  of  the 
different  classes  of  society  were  to  be  distinguished.!  Plebeians  and  soldiers  were,  by 
this  ordinance,  to  wear  but  a  single  colour;  military  officers  of  any  inferior  rank,  two  ; 
commanders  of  battalions,  three;  the  keepers  of  houses  of  hospitnjity,];  four;  the  nobility 
and  military  knights,  five;  and  the  Bards  and  Ollamhs,  who  were  distinguished  for  learn- 
ing, si.\',  bjing  but  one  colour  less  than  the  number  worn  by  the  reignmg  princes  them- 
selves. These  regulations  are  curious;  not  only  as  showing  the  high  station  allotted  to 
learning  and  talent,  among  the  qualifications  for  distinction,  but  as  presenting  a  coinci- 
dence rather  remarkable  with  tliat  custom  of  patriarchal  times,  which  made  a  garment 
of  many  colours  the  appropriate  dress  of  kings'  daughters  and  princes.^ 

For  a  long  period,  indeed,  most  of  the  Eastern  nations  retained  both  the  practice  of 
dividing  the  people  into  different  castes  and  professions,  and  also,  as  appears  from  the 
regulations  of  Giamschid,  King  of  Persia, ||  this  custom  distinguishing  the  different  classes 
by  appropriate  dresses.  From  the  party-coloured  garments  worn  by  the  ancient  Scots,  or 
Irish,  is  derived  the  national  fashion  of  the  plaid,  still  prevailing  among  their  descendants 
in  Scotland. 

Among  the  numerous  kings  that,  in  this  dim  period  of  Irish  history,  pass  like  shadows 
before  our  eyes,  the  Royal  Sage,  Ollamh  Fodhla,*!!  is  almost  the  only  one  who,  from  the 
strong  light  of  tradition  thrown  round  him,  stands  out  as  a  being  of  historical  substance 
and  truth.  It  would  serve  to  illustrate  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  evidence  with  which 
the  world  is  sometimes  satisfied,  to  collect  together  the  various  celebrated  names  which 
are  received  as  authentic  on  the  strength  of  tradition  alone;**  and  few,  perhaps,  could 
claim  a  more  virtual  title  to  this  privilege  than  the  great  legislator  of  the  ancient  Irish, 
Ollamh  Fodhla.  In  considering  the  credit,  however,  that  may  safely  be  attached  to  the 
accoun's  of  this  celebrated  personage,  we  must  dismiss  wholly  from  our  minds  the  ex- 
travagant antiquity  assigned  to  himff  by  the  seanachies;  and  as  it  has  been  shown  that 
the  date  of  the  dynasty  itself,  of  which  he  was  so  distinguished  an  ornament,  cannot,  at 
the  utmost,  be  removed  farther  back  than  the  second  century  before  our  era,  whatever 
his  fame  may  thus  lose  in  antiquity  it  will  be  found  to  gain  in  probability;  since,  as  we 
shall  see  when  I  come  to  treat  of  the  credibility  of  the  Irish  annals,  the  epoch  of  this 
monarch,  if  not  within  the  lino  to  which  authentic  history  extends,  is,  at  least,  not  very 
far  beyond  it. 

Some  of  the  most  useful  institutions  of  Ollamh  Fodhla  are  said  to  have  but  a  short  time 
survived  himself.     But  the  act  which  rendered  his  reign  an  important  era  in  legislation 

*  "  At  Fothart,"  says  Simon,  "  near  the  river  Liftey,  in  tlie  county  of  Wicklow,  wliere  gold,  silver,  copper, 
lead,  and  iron,  have  of  late  years  been  found  out." — Simon  on  Irish  Coins. 

t  A  similar  fancy  for  party-coloured  dresses  existed  among  the  Celts  of  Gaul;  and  Diodorus  describes  that 
people  as  wearing  garments  flowered  with  all  varieties  of  colour — ■^pcefjiA(Tt  TrctfToi'u.Troti  i'tiiv&t^/uivouc. — 
Lib.  5.  The  part  of  their  dress  which  they  called  braccre,  or  breeches,  was  so  named  from  its  being  plaided  ; 
the  word  brae  signifying  in  Celtic  any  thing  speckled  or  party-coloured.  The  historian  Tacitus,  in  describing 
Cscina  as  dressed  in  the  Gaulish  fashion,  represents  him  with  breeches,  or  trowsers,  and  plaid  mantle: — 
"Versicolore  sago,  braccas,  tegmen  barbarum  indutus." — Hist.  lib.  ii.  cap.  20. 

t  An  order  of  men  appointed  by  the  state,  and  endowed  with  lands,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  constantly 
open  house,  and  giving  entertainment  to  all  travellers  in  proportion  to  their  rank.  These  officers  are  fre- 
quently mentioned  in  the  Brehon  laws;  and,  among  other  enactments  respecting  them,  it  is  specified  that 
each  Bruigh  shall  keep  in  his  house,  for  the  amusement  of  travellers,  Taibhle  Fioch-thoille,  or  chess- 
hoards. 

§  Thus,  Jacob  made  Joseph  a  coat  of  many  colours,  (Gen.  xxxvii.  3.;)  and  Tamar  (2  Sam.  xiii.  18.)  "had  a 
garment  of  divers  colours,  for  with  such  robes  were  the  king's  daughters  that  were  virgins  apparelled." 

II  Saadi  veut  aussi,  que  ce  prince  ait  non  soulement  divisii  les  hommes  en  plusieures  6tatset  professions, 
mais  qu'il  les  ait  encore  dislingu6s  par  des  habits  et  par  des  coiffures  difftirentes."—D'Herbelot. 

IT  Pronounced  OUav  Folia.  This  quiescence  of  many  of  the  consonants  in  our  Irish  names,  render  them 
far  more  agreeable  to  the  ear  than  to  the  eye.  Thus,  the  formidable  name  of  Tigernach,  our  great  annalist, 
is  softened,  in  pronunciation,  into  Tierna. 

**  Among  the  most  signal  instances,  perhaps,  is  that  of  the  poet  Orpheus,  who,  notwithstanding  the 
decidedly-expressed  opinion  both  of  Aristotle  and  Cicero,  that  no  such  poet  ever  existed,  still  continues,  and 
will  of  course  for  ever  continue,  to  be  regarded  as  a  real  historical  personage. 

tt  In  fixing  the  period  of  this  monarch's  reign,  chronologers  have  been  widely  at  variance.  While  some 
place  it  no  less  than  ]:U6  years  before  the  Christian  era,  (Thady  Uoddy,  MSS.)  Plowden  makes  it  950  years, 
(Hist.  Review,  prelim,  chap  )  O'Flahcrty  between  700  and  600,  and  the  author  of  the  Dissertations,  &c.  about 
mo.    (Sect.  4  ) 


72  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

was  the  establishment  of  the  Great  Fes,  or  Triennial  Convention  at  Tara,  an  approach 
Bo/ar  to  representative  government  that,  in  these  periodical  assemblies,  the  leading  per- 
sons of  the  three  orders  of  whom  the  political  community  consisted, — that  is  to  say,  the 
Monarch,  the  Druids  or  Ollamhs,  and  the  Plebeians, — were  convened  for  the  purpose  of 
passing  such  laws  and  regulations  as  the  public  good  seemed  to  require.*  In  the  pre- 
sence of  these  assemblies,  too,  the  different  records  of  the  kingdom  were  examined; 
whatever  materials  for  national  history  the  provincial  annals  supplied,  were  here  sifted 
and  epitomized,  and  the  result  entered  in  the  great  national  Register  called  the  Psalter 
ofTara.f 

In  a  like  manner,  according  to  the  historian  Ctesias,  who  drew  his  own  materials 
professedly  from  such  sources,  it  was  enjoined  to  the  Persians,  by  an  express  law,  that 
they  should  write  down  the  annals  of  their  country  in  the  roj'al  archives.  In  Ireland 
this  practice  of  chronicling  events  continued  to  be  observed  to  a  late  period;  and  not 
only  at  the  courts  of  the  different  Kings,  but  even  in  the  family  of  every  inferior  chief- 
tain, a  Seanachie,  or  historian,  formed  always  a  regular  part  of  the  domestic  establish- 
ment. To  this  recording  spirit,  kept  alive,  as  it  was,  in  Christian  times,  by  a  succession 
of  monastic  chroniclers,  we  owe  all  those  various  volumes  of  Psalters  and  Annals  with 
which  the  ancient  literature  of  Ireland  abounds. 

The  policy  which  Herodotus  tells  us  was  adopted  among  the  Egyptians  and  the  Lace- 
demonians, of  rendering  employments  and  offices  hereditary  in  families,  was  also,  from 
the  time  of  Ollamh  Fodhla  down  to  a  very  recent  period,  the  established  usage  in  Ire- 
land. This  strange  custom  formed  one  of  the  contrivances  of  that  ancient  stationary 
system,  which  has  been  the  means  of  keeping  the  people  of  the  East  and  their  institu- 
tions so  little  changed  through  all  time.  The  same  principle  which  led  the  Egyptians 
to  prohibit  their  sculptors  and  painters  from  innovating,  even  with  a  view  to  improve- 
ment, on  the  ancient  models  transmitted  to  them,  prompted  them  also  to  ordain,  as  the 
Irish  did  after  them,  that  the  descendants  of  a  physician, |  for  instance,  or  an  artificer, 
should  continue  physicians  and  artificers  through  all  succeeding  generations.  Not  only 
in  their  early  adoption  of  this  truly  Eastern  rule,  but  in  the  constancy  with  which,  to 
this  day,  they  have  continued,  through  all  changes  of  time,  to  adhere  to  most  of  their 
ancient  characteristics  and  usages,  the  Irish  have  proved  themselves  in  so  far  worthy  of 
their  oriental  descent,  and  but  too  faithful  inheritors  of  the  same  stationary  principle. 

Among  the  important  offices  transmitted  hereditarily  in  Ireland,  were  those  of  heralds, 
practitioners  in  physic,  bards,  and  musicians.  To  the  professors  of  these  arts  Ollamh 
Fodhla  assigned  lands  for  their  use;  and  also  instituted  a  school  of  general  instruction 
at  Tara,  which  became  afterwards  celebrated  under  the  name  of  the  Mur-ollam-ham,  or 
College  of  the  Learned. 

A  long  series  of  Kings,  with  scarcely  a  single  event  worthy  of  commemoration,  fills 
up  the  interval  between  the  reign  of  this  monarch  and  the  building  of  the  palace  of 
Emanie  by  King  Kimboath:  an  event  forming,  as  we  have  seen,  a  prominent  era  in  the 
Irish  annals,  and  from  which  Tigernach  dates  the  dawn  of  authentic  history.  This 
splendid  palace  of  the  princes  of  Ulster,  who  were  from  thenceforward  called  Kings  of 
Emania,  had  in  its  neighbourhood  the  mansion  appropriated  to  celebrated  Knights  of 
the  Red  Branch,  so  triumphantly  sung  by  the  bards,  and  commemorated  by  the  eea- 
nachies. 

If  the  Bardic  historians,  in  describing  tlie  glory  and  magnificence  of  some  of  these 

*  So  ropresenteil  by  those  zealous  antiquaries  O'Flaherty,  O'Connor,  &c.;  but  it  will  be  shown  presently 
that,  like  the  Coloni  of  the  Franks  and  the  Ceorls  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  the  plebeians,  under  the  ancient  Irisii 
government,  were  wholly  excluded  from  political  power. 

t  Keating  speaks  of  this  authentic  Register  of  the  Nation  as  extant  in  his  time  ;  but  O'Connor  says,  "  there 
is  good  reason  to  believe  that  no  considerable  part  of  it  escaped  the  devastations  of  the  Norman  war."  The 
following  is  all  that  the  industrious  Bishop  Nicholson  could  learn  of  it:  "What  is  now  become  of  this  Royal 
Monument  is  hard  to  tell ;  for  some  of  our  moderns  atlirm  that  they  have  lately  seen  it,  while  others  as  con- 
lidenlly  niainlaiu  that  it  has  not  appeared  for  some  centuries  last  past." — {Historic  Library,  chap,  ii.)  Parts 
of  that  collection  of  Irish  Records,  called  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,  which  was  compiled  in  the  tenth  century,  are 
supposed  to  have  been  transcribed  from  the  ancient  Psalter  of  Tara. 

I  "  What  is  remarkable,"  says  Smith  in  his  History  of  Cork,  "of  this  last  family  of  the  O'Cullinans,  is, 
that  it  was  never  known  without  one  or  more  physicians  in  it;  which  is  remarked  by  Camden;  insomuch, 
that  when  a  person  is  given  over,  they  have  a  saying  in  Irish,  'Even  an  O'Cullinan  cannot  cure  him.' 
Which  profession  still  continues  in  the  family."  (Book  i.  chap.  1.)  An  attempt  has  been  made  by  Rollin, 
and  not  unplausibly,  to  justify  this  hereditary  system. — "  By  this  means,"  he  says,  "  men  became  more  able 
and  expert  in  employments  which  they  had  always  been  trained  up  to  from  their  infancy;  and  every  man 
adding  his  own  experience  to  that  of  his  ancestors,  was  more  capable  of  rising  to  perfection  in  his  particular 
art.  Besides,  this  wholesome  institution,  established  anciently  through  the  Egyptian  nation,  extinguished 
all  irregular  ambition,"  &.c.  [Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Egyptians.)  Herodotus,  however,  in  the  con- 
cluding sentence  of  the  following  passage,  has  laidopenquietly  the  inherent  absurdity  of  such  a  system.  "  In 
one  instance,  the  Lacediemonians  observe  the  usage  of  Egypt:  their  heralds,  musicians,  and  cooks,  follow 
•  he  profession  of  their  fathers.  The  son  of  a  herald  is,  of  course,  a  herald,  and  the  same  of  the  other  two 
professions.     If  any  man  lias  a  louder  voice  than  the  son  of  a  herald,  it  signifies  nothing."— Lil).  G. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  73 

reigns,  have  shown  no  ordinary  powers  of  flourish  and  exaggeration,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
for  the  credit  of  human  nature,  that  they  have  also  far  outstripped  the  truth  in  their 
accounts  of  the  discord,  treachery,  and  bloodslied  by  which  almost  every  one  of  these 
brief  paroxysms  of  sovereignty  was  disgraced.  Out  of  some  two-and-thirty  kings  who 
are  said  to  have  reigned  during  the  interval  between  OUamh  Fodhia  and  the  royal 
builder  of  Emania,  not  more  than  three  are  represented  as  having  died  a  natural  death, 
and  the  great  majority  of  tiie  remainder  fell  by  tiie  hands  of  their  successors.'*' 

Though  the  building  of  the  royal  palace  of  Emania  was  assumed  as  a  technical  epoch 
by  the  chronologers,  the  accession  of  Hugony  the  Great,  as  he  was  called,  proved,  in  a 
political  point  of  view,  an  era  still  more  remarkable;  as,  by  his  influence  with  the  as- 
sembled States  at  Tara,  he  succeeded  in  annulling  the  Pentarchy;  and  moreover  pre- 
vailed on  the  four  provincial  kings  to  surrender  their  right  of  succession  in  favour  of 
his  family,  exacting  from  them  a  solemn  oath,  "by  all  things  visible  and  invisible,"f 
not  to  accept  of  a  supreme  monarch  from  any  other  line.  For  the  Pentarchal  govern- 
ment this  monarch  substituted  a  division  of  the  kingdom  into  twenty-five  districts,  or 
dynasties;  thus  ridding  himself  of  the  rivalry  of  provincial  royalty,  and  at  the  same 
time,  widening  the  basis  of  the  monarchical  or  rather  aristocratical  powcr.J  The  abju- 
ration of  their  right  of  succession,  which  had  been  extorted  from  the  minor  kings,  was, 
as  might  be  expected,  revoked  on  the  first  opportunity  that  offered  ;  but  the  system  of 
government  established  in  place  of  the  Pentarchy,  was  continued  down  nearly  to  the 
commencement  of  our  era,  when,  under  the  monarch  Achy  Fcdloch,  it  was  rescinded, 
and  the  ancient  form  restored. 

After  the  reign  of  Ilugony,  there  succeeds  another  long  sterile  interval,  extending, 
according  to  the  Bardic  chronology,  through  a  space  of  more  than  three  hundred  years, 
during  which,  with  tiie  exception  of  King  Labhra's,^  return  from  Gaul  at  the  head  of 
a  Gaulish  colony — an  event  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made — not  a  single 
public  transaction  is  recorded  worthy  of  notice;  the  names  of  the  kings,  as  usual,  suc- 
ceeding each  other  at  fearfully  short  intervals;  and,  in  general,  their  accession  and  mur- 
der being  the  only  events  of  their  brief  career  recorded. 

In  the  reign  of  Conary  the  Great,  which  coincides  with  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era,  the  name  dwelt  upon,  with  most  interest,  by  the  chroniclers,  is     a.  d. 
that  of  the  young  hero  Cuchullin,  whose  death,  in  the  full  flush  and  glory  of  his      2. 
career,  took  place,  according   to  these  authorities,  in  the  second  year  of  Christ. 
With  the  fame  of  this  Irish  warrior  modern  readers  have  been  made  acquainted  by  that 
splendid  tissue  of  fiction  and  forgery  imposed   upon   the  world  as  the  Poems  of  Ossian,^ 
where,  in  one  of  those  flights  of  anachronism   not  unfrequent  in  that  work,  he  is  con- 
fronted with  the  bard  and  hero,  Oisin,  who  did   not  flourish  till  the   middle  of  the  third 
century.     The  exploits  of  Cuchullin,   Conal   Cearnach,  and  other   Heroes  of  the  Pted 
Branch,   in  the  memorable   Seven   Years'  War   between   Connaught  and  Ulster,||  are 
among  those  themes  on  which  the  old   chroniclers  and  bardic  historians  most  delight  to 
dwell.     The  circumstance   recorded   of  the  young  Cuchullin   by  these  annalists,  that, 
when  only  seven  years  old,  he  was  invested  with  knighthood,  might  have  been  regarded 
as  one  of  the  marvels  of  traditionary  story,  had  we  not  direct  evidence,  in  a  fact  men- 
tioned by  Froissart,  that,  so  late  as  the  time  of  that  chronicler,  the  practice  of  knighting 


*  The  language  in  which  OFIaherty  and  O'Halloran  relate  some  of  these  events  is  but  too  well  suited  to 
their  subject.  "  Liif^ad  Luagny,  tlie  son  of  the  King  Inatniar,"  says  OFIaherty,  "cut  Bresal's  throat,  and 
got  llie  crown."— (Part  iii.  chap.  41.)  "  His  reign,"  says  O'HaHoran,  of  another  monarch,  ;'  lasted  but  five 
years,  when  the  sword  of  liis  successor  cut  his  way  through  him  to  the  Irish  throne."— (Vol.  ii.  cliap.  7.) 

t  Annal.  IV.  Magist.— In  these  annals,  Ugony  tlic  Great,  is  styled  "  King  of  Hibernia  and  all  Western 
Europe,  as  far  as  the  Tuscan  sea." 

X  According  to  the  view  taken  by  some  writers  of  this  change,  the  principle  of  the  Pentarchal  government 
was  therein  preserved,  as  Ugony  retained  the  division  of  the  country  into  five  provinces,  and  in  each  esta- 
blished a  Pentarchy. 

§  In  the  accounts  of  the  reign  of  this  monarch,  as  given  by  Keating  and  others,  are  introduced  two  ro- 
mantic stories,  resembling  (one  of  them)  the  fabulous  adventure  of  Richard  Cteur  de  Lion  and  Blondel;  and 
the  other,  the  story  of  Mirias's  ears,  and  the  miraculous  revealment  of  his  secret.  In  the  weak  and  verbose 
work  of  Dr.  Warner,  (Hist,  of  Ireland,  vol  i.  book  3.)  the  reader  will  find  these  stories  diluted  through  some 
half  dozen  pages. 

II  This  celebrated  septennial  war  bears,  in  Irish  history,  the  name  of  the  Tainbo-Cuailgne,  or  the  Spoils 
of  the  Cattle  atCuailgne;  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  its  origin  having  been  the  seizure  of  an  immense  quan- 
tity of  cattle  by  the  troops  of  Maud,  the  Uueen  of  Connaught,  at  Cuailgne,  in  the  county  of  Louth.  The 
march  of  her  army  on  this  expedition,  commanded  by  Fergus,  the  dethroned  King  of  Ulster— the  .splendour  of 
the  queen  her.self,  seated  in  an  open  chariot,  with  lu'r  Asiun,  or  crown  of  gold,  on  her  head— the  names  ot 
the  Champions  of  the  Red  Branch,  who  bravely  encountered  her  mighty  force— all  these  circumstances  are 
found  detailed  in  the  stories  and  romances  respecting  this  memorable  invasion;  and  from  some  of  these  fic- 
tions, it  appears,  Macpherson  derived  the  ground-work  of  his  poems  of  Fingal  and  Temora.  See  Mr.  O'Con- 
nor's Dissertation  on  the  History  of  Scotland,  where  (in  speaking  of  these  poems)  it  is  said,  "  They  are  evi- 
dently founded  on  the  romances  and  vulgar  stories  of  the  TanboCualgney  war,  and  those  of  tlieriana 
Ereann." 

9 


74  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

boys  at  the  very  same  age, — more  especially  those  of  royal  parentage, — was  still  retained 
in  Ireland.* 

From  what  has  been  said  of  the  high  station  and  dignities  assigned  to  their  Bards  and 
Antiquaries,  it  will  have  been  seen  that  the  political  system  of  the  ancient  Irish,  the 
Literary  or  Bardic  order,  which  appears  to  have  been  distinct  from  the  Druidical,  formed 
one  of  the  most  active  and  powerful  springs.  Supported  by  lands  set  aside  for  their  use, 
and  surrounded  by  .privileges  and  immunities  which,  even  in  the  midst  of  civil  commo- 
tion, rendered  their  persons  and  property  sacred,  they  were  looked  up  to  not  only  as 
guardians  of  their  country's  history  and  literature,  but  as  interpreters  and  dispensers  of 
its  laws.  Thus  endowed  and  privileged,  this  class  of  the  community  came  at  length  to 
possess  such  inordinate  power,  and,  by  a  natural  consequence,  so  much  to  abuse  it, 
that  a  popular  reaction  against  their  encroachments  was  the  result,  and  their  whole 
order  was  about  to  be  expelled  from  the  kingdom.  In  this  crisis  of  their  fate,  the  he- 
roic Conquovar,  King  of  Ulster,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Bards;  and,  protesting  strongly 
against  the  policy  of  suppressing  them  altogether,  succeeded  in  effecting  such  reforma- 
tions in  the  constitution  of  their  order,  more  especially  in  all  that  related  to  their  judi- 
cial proceedings,  as  at  length  restored  them  to  public  favour.  The  better  to  regulate 
their  decisions  for  the  future,  he  caused  a  digest  of  the  ancient  laws  to  be  formed,  under 
the  auspices  of  Forchern,  and  two  other  distinguished  poets;  and  the  code  thus  com- 
piled was  called  by  their  admiring  contemporaries.  Breathe  Neimidh,  or  the  Celestial 
Judgments.!  In  having  poets  thus  for  their  lawgivers,  the  Irish  but  followed  the  exam- 
ple of  most  of  the  ancient  nations;  among  whom,  in  the  infancy  of  legislation,  the  laws 
were  promulgated  always  in  verse,  and  often  publicly  sung;  and  even  so  late  as  the  time 
of  Strabo,  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  people  of  Mazaca,  in  Cappadocia,  (who  was  to 
them  what  jurisconsuls  were  to  the  Romans,)  bore  the  title,  as  we  are  informed  by  Strabo, 
of  the  Law-singer.J 

As  we  advance  into  the  Christian  era,  a  somewhat  clearer  and  more  extended  range 
of  horizon  opens  upon  us;  as  well  from  our  approaching  that  period  to  which  the  authen- 
tic annals  of  the  country  extend,  as  from  the  light  which  thenceforward  the  Roman  ac- 
counts of  Britain  throw  incidentally  on  the  affairs  of  the  sister  island.     It  was  during 
the  reign  of  the  Irish  monarch  Crimthan,  or,  according  toothers,  that  of  his  successor 
A.  D.     Fiachad,  that  Agricola  was  engaged  in  pursuing  his  victorous  enterprises  in  Bri- 
75      tain;  and  the  few  facts  relating  to  Ireland,  which  his  philosophic  biographer  discloses, 
to       are,  in  themselves,  worth  whole  volumes  of  vague,  ordinary  history :  as,  though 
82.      but  glimpses,  the  insight  which  they  afford  is  vivid  and  searching.     The  simple 
statement,  for  instance,  of  Tacitus,  that,  at  the  period  when  he  wrote,  the  waters 
and  harbours  of  Ireland  were,  through  the  means  of  commerce  and  of  navigators,  better 
known  than  those  of  Britain, 5  opens  such  a  retrospect  at  once  into  her  foregone  history, 
as,  combined   with  similar  glimpses  in  other  writings  of  antiquity,  renders  credible 
her  claims  to  early  civilization,  and  goes  far  to  justify  some  of  the  proud  boasts  of  ber 
annals. 

In  a  far  other  sense,  the  view  opened  by  the  historian  into  the  interior  of  Ireland's 
politics  at  that  moment, — the  divided  and  factious  slate  of  her  people,  and  the  line  of 
policy  which,  in  consequence,  the  shrewd  Agricola,  as  ruler  of  Britain,  was  preparing  to 
pursue  towards  them, —  is  all  of  melancholy  importance,  as  showing  at  how  early  a  period 
Irishmen  had  become  memorable  for  disunion  among  themselves,  and  how  early  those 
who  were  interested  in  weakening  them,  had  learned  to  profit  by  their  dissensions. 


♦  In  Froissart's  curious  account  of  the  knighting  of  the  four  Irish  kings  by  Richard  II.,  it  is  related,  th^t, 
on  being  asked  whether  they  would  not  gladly  receive  the  order  of  knighthood  from  the  King  of  England, 
"  they  answered  how  they  were  knights  already,  and  that  snfhced  for  them.  I  asked  where  they  were  made 
knights,  and  how,  and  when.  Tliey  answered,  at  the  age  of  seven  years  they  were  made  knights  in  Ireland, 
and  that  a  king  maketh  his  son  a  knight.  .  .  And  then  this  young  knight  shall  begin  to  just  with  small 
spears  against  a  shield,  set  on  a  stake,  in  the  field;  and  the  more  spears  that  he  breaketh,  tiie  more  he  shall 
be  honoured." — Froissart,  vol.  ii.  chap.  202. 

'•  We  ate  told,"  says  Sir  James  Ware,  in  a  MS.  Life  of  St.  Carthag,  Bishop  of  Lismore,  who  flourished  in 
the  seventh  century,  that  "  Moelfulius,  one  of  the  petty  princes  of  Kerry,  intending  to  knight  St.  Carthag, 
while  he  was  a  hoy,  would  have  put  into  his  hand  a  sword  and  target,  being  the  badge  or  cognizance  of 
knighthood." — Antiquities,  chap.  2(5. 

t  This  translation  of  the  term,  which  has  been  adopted  by  all  other  authorities  on  the  subject,  is,  I  find, 
questioned  by  the  learned  Irish  scholar,  Mr.  O'Keilly,  (Trans,  of  Iberno-Celtic  Society,)  who  contends,  in  op- 
position to  O'Flahorty,  the  O'Connors,  O'Halloran,  &c.,  that  the  meaning  of  the  words  Breathe  Neimidh  is 
the  Laws  of  the  Nobles.  This  is  but  one  of  numerous  instances  tliat  might  be  adduced,  in  wliicli  important 
Irish  words  are  shown  to  be  capable  of  entirely  dilferent  meanings  in  the  hands  of  dirterent  interpreters,— 
seeming  in  so  far  to  justify  those  charges  of  vagueness  and  confusion  which  Pinkcrton,  in  his  hatred  of 
every  thing  Celtic,  brings  so  constantly  against  the  Irish  language.    See  Inquiry,  &,c.,  part  lii.  chap.  2. 

\  Al^ouf^ivoi  K-xt  )iof/.a!Sov,  oc  la-'riv  awrot;  lixynvTi  Tiev  vojucev,  lib.  12. 

^  Melius  aditus  porlusquc  iHjr  commereia  el  ncgocialorcs  cogniti.— .(/^/-k.  cap.  24. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  75 

"One  of  llioir  petty  kings,"  snys  Tacitus,  "  who  had  been  forced  to  fly  by  some  do- 
mestic faction,  was  received  by  the  Roman  general,  and  under  a  show  of  friendship 
detained  for  ulterior  purposes."*  The  plan  successfully  pursued  by  CjEsar  towards  Gaul, 
of  playing  off  her  various  factions  against  each  other,t  and  making  her  own  sons  the 
ready  instruments  of  her  subjugation,  would  have  been  the  policy  doubtless  of  Agricola 
towards  Ireland,  had  these  ulterior  purposes  been  put  in  execution.  The  object°of  the 
Irishman  was  to  induce  the  Romans  to  invade  his  native  country;  and  by  bis  representa- 
tions, it  appears,  Agricola  was  persuaded  into  the  belief  that,  with  a  single  legion,  and  a 
small  body  of  auxiliaries,  he  could  conquer  and  retain  possession  of  Ireland.| 

It  would  hardly  be  possible,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  compass  of  history,  to  find  a  picture 
more  pregnant  with  the  future,  more  prospectively  characteristic,  than  tiiis  of  a  recreant 
Irish  prince  in  the  camp  of  the  Romans,  proffering  his  traitorous  services  to  the  stranger, 
and  depreciating  his  country  as  an  excuse  for  betraying  her.  It  is,  indeed,  mournful  to 
reflect,  that,  at  the  end  of  nearly  eighteen  centuries,  the  features  of  this  national  portrait 
should  remain  so  very  little  altered;  and  that  with  a  change  only  of  scone  from  the  tent 
of  the  Roman  general  to  the  closet  of  the  English  minister  or  viceroy,  the  spectacle  of 
an  Irishman  playing  the  game  of  his  country's  enemies  has  been,  even  in  modern  history, 
an  occurrence  by  no  means  rare. 

Offence  has  been  taken  by  some  Irish  historians  at  the  slur  thrown,  as  they  think,  on 
the  courage  of  their  countrymen,  by  the  hope  attributed  to  the  Roman  general  of  being 
able  to  effect  an  easy  conquest  of  Ireland. ^  But  they  ought  to  have  recollected  that, 
more  than  a  thousand  years  after,  from  the  same  fatal  cause,  internal  disunion,  a  far 
smaller  force  than  Agricola  thought  requisite  for  his  purpose,  laid  the  ancient  Milesian 
monarchy  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  Britain.  At  the  same  time,  it  cannot  but  be  acknow- 
ledged that  the  conduct  of  the  Romans  respecting  Ireland,  by  no  means  warrants  the 
supposition  that  they  held  its  conquest  to  be  at  all  an  easy  task.  The  immense  advan- 
tages that  must  attend  the  acquisition  of  a  country  placed  so  immediately  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  their  British  possessions,  were,  we  know,  fully  appreciated  by  them;  nor 
could  any  views  bo  more  keen  and  far-sighted  than  those  of  Agricola,  as  unfolded  by 
Tacitus,  both  as  regarded  the  commercial  strength  that  must  accrue  to  Britainjl  from  the 
occupation  of  Ireland,  and  the  strong  moral  and  political  influence  which  the  example  of 
this  latter  country  must  ever  exercise,  whether  for  good  or  for  evil,  over  the  fortunes  of 
her  more  powerful  neighbour.  He  saw  that  the  Britons,  says  the  historian,  could  never 
be  effectively  curbed  as  long  as  there  was  a  people  yet  unmastered  in  their  neighbour- 
hood; and  that,  to  efl^ect  this  object,  the  example  of  liberty  must  be  removed  wholly  from 
their  sight.lT  Could  the  sagacious  Agricola  again  visit  this  earth,  he  would  find  his  views, 
as  to  the  moral  influence  of  the  two  countries  upon  each  other,  fully  confirmed ; — would 
see  that  the  oppression  of  the  weaker  people  by  the  stronger,  has  produced  a  reaction, 
which  may  be,  in  time,  salutary  to  both;  and  that  already,  in  all  the  modes,  at  least,  of 
struggling  for  liberty,  Ireland  has  become  the  practised  instructor  of  England. 

With  so  deep  a  sense  of  the  great  value  of  the  possession,  there  can  hardly  be  a  more 
convincing  proof  that  the  Romans  considered  its  conquest  not  easy,  than  the  simple  fact 
that  they  never  attempted  it ;  and  that,  though  Britain  continued  to  be  harassed  by  the 
Irish  for  near  three  centuries  after,  not  a  single  Roman  soldier  ever  set  foot  on  their 
shores.  Even  when  the  flight  of  their  eagles  had  extended  as  far  as  the  Orcades,  Ireland 
still  remained  free.** 

How  little  the  Irish  themselves  were  in  fear  of  invasion  at  this  very  period,  when,  as 


♦  Agricola  exp:ilsiini  seditione  domeslica  uniim  ex  Regulis  gcntis  excepeiat,  ac  specie  amicitiae  in  occa 
sioneiii  retinebat. — igric.  cap.  SM. 

t  De  Bell.  Gal.  lib.  vi.  c.  13. 

X  SfEpe  ex  eo  audivi  legione  una  et  niodicis  au.viliis  debellaii  obtinerique  Ileberniam  posse.— ./?gric.  ib. 

§  The  estimate  of  Strabo  respecting  Britain  is,  considering  all  things,  still  less  flattering.  To  keep  her 
tributary,  he  says,  at  least  a  legion  and  a  few  horse  would  be  requisite.  Tii\a.^i(ov  /uiv  ya^  iVO(  rtfyfAetTOC 
X^»^<^'  *v,  K^i  tTTTTticis  Tivo;. — Liv.  iv.  To  the  courage  of  the  Caledonians,  according  to  this  standard,  the 
highest  testimony  seems  to  have  been  paid;  as,  about  the  year  230,  while  one  legion  was  found  sufficient  to 
keep  all  the  rest  of  Britain  in  subjection,  two  were  employed  upon  the  borders,  against  this  people.— Dio.  55. 

II  Si  quidem  Hibernia,  medio  inter  Britanniam  atque  Hispaniam  sita,  et  Gallico  quoque  marl  opportuna, 
valentissimam  imperii  partem  magnis  invicem  usibus  miscuerit.— .4^n'c.  ib 

IT  "  Idque  etiam  adversus  Britanniam  profuturum,  si  Romana  ubique  arma,  et  velut  e  conspcctu  libertas 
toUeretur."— j9o-ric.  ib.  The  remarks  of  La  Elelterie,  the  French  translator,  upon  this  chapter,  prove  how 
pregnant  with  the  seeds  of  the  future  it  appeared  to  him.  "  Ireland  has  more  harbours  and  more  convenient 
than  any  other  country  in  Europe.  England  has  but  a  small  number.  Ireland,  if  she  could  shake  otT  the 
British  yoke,  and  form  an  independent  state,  would  ruin  the  British  commerce ;  but,  to  her  misfortune,  Eng- 
land is  too  well  convinced  of  this  truth. 

**  "Hibernia  Romanis  etiam  Orcadum  insularum  dominium  tenentibus  inaccessa,  raro  et  tepide  ab  ullo 
unquam  e.vpugnata  et  subacta  esV—Oulielmvs  Parv.  JVebriss.  Hist.  Rer.  Angl. 


76  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Tacitus  informs  us,  the  coast  opposite  to  their  shores  was  lined  with  Roman  troops,  may 
be  judged  from  the  expedition  to  Britain  undertaken  by  the  monarch  Crimthan,  for  the 
purpose  of  aiding  iiis  ancient  allies,  the  Picts,  in  their  heroic  stand  against  the  legions  of 
Rome.  In  the  course  of  this  visit,  the  Irish  monarch  is  said  to  have  first  set  the  daring 
example  of  those  predatory  incursions  into  the  Roman  province  by  which  the  Britons 
continued  to  be  harassed  for  so  long  a  period  after;  and  having  been  eminently  success- 
ful, as  it  appears,  on  this  occasion,  he  returned  to  his  dominions  laden  with  a  variety  of 
rich  and  even  luxurious  booty,  the  particulars  of  which  have  been  triumphantly  enume- 
rated by  tho  annalists.* 

On  the  death  of  this  monarch,  whose  name  enjoys,  as  we  have  seen,  the  peculiar  dis- 
tinction of  being  associated  in  the  page  of  history  with  those  of  Tacitus  and  Agricola,  a 
more  than  usually  troubled  period  succeeded;  during  which,  even  that  frail  and  nominal 
pledge  for  the  security  of  the  public  peace,  which  the  descent  of  the  monarchy  by  inhe- 
ritance afforded,  was  set  at  defiance  by  a  plebeian  usurper  and  his  followers,  and  the 
whole  island  made  one  scene  of  promiscuous  strife  and  bloodshed.  A  spirit  of  revolt 
among  the  descendants  of  the  Belgic  tribes,  whose  chief  seat  was  Connaught,  but  of 
whom  numbers  were  also  dispersed  throughout  the  other  provinces,  was  the  primary 
cause  of  all  this  commotion.  The  state  of  Ireland,  indeed,  at  this  crisis,  shows  at  how 
early  a  period  was  naturalized  on  her  shores  that  principle  of  exclusion  and  proscription 
which,  in  after  ages,  flourished  there  so  rankly.  Under  the  Milesian  or  Scotic  rule,  not 
merely  were  the  great  mass  of  the  old  Celtic  population  held  in  subjection  by  the  sword, 
but  also  the  descendants  of  the  foreign  settlers,  the  remains  of  the  conquered  Belgic 
tribes,  were  wholly  excluded  from  every  share  in  the  administration  of  public  affairs,  and 
treated  in  every  respect,  as  a  servile  and  iielot  class.  Confederated  among  themselves 
by  a  common  sense  of  humiliation  and  wrong,  these  people,  having  concerted  their  mea- 
sures, took  the  opportunity  of  a  great  public  assembly,  held  at  Magh-Cru,  in  Connaught, 
to  strike  the  first  blow  of  their  conspiracy.  An  indiscriminate  massacre  of  all  the  princes 
and  chiefs  collected  on  that  occasion  was  the  signal  of  general  revolt  among  their  confe- 
derates throughout  the  kingdom;  and  being  joined  also  by  the  larger  portion  of 
A.  D.  the  Celtic  population,  to  whom  the  dominant  caste  was  odious,  they  succeeded, 
90.  with  but  little  opposition,  in  overturning  their  legitimate  monarchy,  and  placing 
one  of  their  own  race  and  rank,  Carbre  Cat-can,  upon  tlje  throne. 

The  five  years  during  which  the  reign  of  this  usurper  lasted  are  described  by  the 
annalists  as  a  period  of  general  gloom  and  sterility, — "  no  grain  on  the  stalk,  no  fruitful- 
ness  in  the  waters,  the  herds  all  barren,  and  but  one  acorn  on  the  oak."  Abandoned 
wholly  to  the  rule  of  the  rabble,  there  appeared  no  hope  for  the  nation  of  better  days; 
when,  unexpectedly,  on  the  death  of  Carbre,  the  magnanimity  of  one  individual  changed 
the  whole  face  of  affairs.  The  usurper's  son  and  intended  successor,  Moran,  instead  of 
accepting  the  bequeathed  crown  for  himself,  employed  all  his  influence  to  have  it  replaced 
upon  a  legitimate  brow,  and  succeeded  in  restoring  the  royal  race  in  the  person  of  Fere- 
dach,  son  of  Crimthan.  The  post  of  Chief  .ludge  of  the  kingdom,  bestowed  upon  him  by 
the  monaroli,  afibrdcd  to  Moran  the  means  of  completing  his  generous  work,  and  of  ren- 
dering popular,  by  a  course  of  unexampled  clemency  and  justice,  that  restoration  of  which 
lie  liad  been  so  disinterestedly  the  autlior.  To  the  fame  acquired  by  this  judge  for  his 
upright  decisions,  is  owing  the  fublo  of  the  lodliam  Moran,t  or  Moran's  Collar,  which  is 
said  to  have  given  warning,  by  increased  pressure  around  the  neck  of  the  wearer,  when- 
ever he  was  about  to  pronounce  an  unjust  sentence. 

The  administration  of  this  honest  counsellor  succeeded  in  earning  for  his  king  the 
honour  of  the  title  of  the  Just;  and,  under  their  joint  sway,  the  whole  country  enjoyed  a 
lull  of  tranquillity  as  precious  as  it  was  rare.  This  calm,  however,  was  but  of  brief 
duration:  in  the  reign  of  the  son  of  this  monarch,  Fiach,  there  broke  out  a  second  revolt 
of  the  plebeians,  or  Attacots,J  which  raged  even  more  fiercely  than  the  former,  and  in 

*  fn  the  long  list  of  articles  specified  by  the  Four  Masters,  as  composing  this  massof  phinder,  are  mentioned, 
a  suit  of  armour  ornamented  with  embossed  gold  and  gems,  a  military  cloak  with  golden  fringe,  a  sword 
with  figures  of  seri)ents  upon  it  in  chased  gold,  and  a  brace  of  greyhounds,  joined  together  by  a  silver  chain, 
wliose  price  is  estimated,  according  to  the  primitive  usage  of  barter,  at  the  value  of  300  cows. 

t  A  golden  collar  or  breastplate,  supposed  by  Vallancey  to  be  the  lodhain  Morain,  was  found,  some  years 
since,  in  the  county  of  Limerick,  twelve  feet  deep,  in  a  turf  bog.  "  It  is  made  of  thin  plated  gold,  and  chased 
in  a  very  neat  and  workmanlike  manner;  the  breast  plate  is  single,  but  the  hemispherical  ornaments  at  the 
top  are  lined  throughout  with  another  thin  plate  of  pure  gold."— ~Co//cc/a?i.  Hibern.  No.  13. 

The  traditional  memory  of  this  chain  or  collar  (says  O'Flanigan)  is  so  well  preserved  to  this  day,  that  it  is 
a  common  e.\pressinn  for  a  person  asseverating  absolute  truth  to  say,  "  I  would  swear  by  Moran's  chain  for 
it." — Trans,  of  Oaelic  Hocicly,  vol.  i. 

J  The  Plebeians  enyaged  in  this  rclxillion,  are,  in  general,  called  Atlacots,  a  name  corrupted  from  the  com- 
pound Irish  term  Altachtuatha,  which  signifies,  according  to  Dr.  O'Connor,  (he  Giant  Knee,  (Prol.  i.  74  :) 
but,  according  to  Mr  O'lleilly's  version,  simply  the  I'li'bcians. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  77 

which  the  provincial  kings  took  part  witli  the  insurgents  against  the  momrcliial 
cause.    At  the  head  of  this  royal  insurrection  was  Elim,  the  King  of  Ulster ;  and  so     a.  d. 
successful  for  a  time,  with  the  aid  of  the  populace,  was  his  rebellion,  that  tiie  young     120. 
monarch,  Tuathal,  found  himself  compelled  to  fly  to  North  Britain,  where,  taking 
refuge  at  the  court  of  his  maternal  grandfather,  the  King  of  the  Picts,  he  determined  to 
await  a  turn  of  fortune  in  his  favour.     Nor  was  it  long  before  a  great  majority  of  the 
people  tiiemselves,  wearied  with  their  own  excesses,  and  moreover  chastened  into  a  little 
reflection  by  that  usual  result  of  such  seasons  of  outbreak,  a  famine,  began  to  bethink 
themselves  of  the  claims  of  their  rightful  sovereign,  the  grandson  of  their  favourite  king, 
Feredach  the  Just.     Full  of  compunction  for  their  ingratitude,  they  despatched  messen- 
gers to  solicit  his  return;  in  prompt  obedience  to  which  summons,  the  monarch  landed 
at  the  head  of  a  body  of  Pictish  troops,  and  marching  directly  to  Tara,  was  elected  sove- 
reign amidst  the  acclamations  of  his  subjects.     From  thence,  taking  the  field  instantly 
against  the  rebels,  he  pursued  his  course,  from  victory  to  victory,  throughout  the 
kingdom,  till  the  usurpation  was  wholly  extinguished,  the  former   relations  of     A.  d. 
society  every  where  restored,  and  the  monarch  himself  hailed  with  general  accla-     130. 
mation  under  the  title  of  Tuathal,  the  Acceptable. 

This  second  Plebeian  War — to  use  the  term  applied  to  it  by  Irish  historians — having 
been  thus  happily  terminated,  Tuathal  convoked,  according  to  custom,  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  States  at  Tara,  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  with  them  respecting  the 
general  affairs  and  interests  of  the  kingdom,  but  more  especially  with  a  view  to  the 
arrangement  of  the  important  question  of  the  succession.  In  a  country  where  kings 
were  so  very  numerous,  and  all  of  them  elective,  every  new  demise  of  royalty  was,  of 
course,  but  a  new  signal  for  discord;  and  the  sovereign  crown  being  more  than  the  rest 
an  object  of  rivalry  and  ambition,  was  in  proportion  the  greatest  source  of  strife.  Efforts 
had  more  than  once  been  made  to  confine  the  right  of  succession  to  one  family,  and 
thereby  limit  at  least  the  range  of  the  mischief;  but  the  temptation  to  violate  all  such 
restrictions  had  been  found  stronger  than  the  oath  pledged  to  observe  them.  The  fatal 
consequence,  however,  of  the  late  interruptions  of  the  old  Heremonian  line  of  descent 
seemed  to  call  imperatively  for  some  protection  against  the  recurrence  of  such  disorders; 
and  accordingly  Tuathal  found  no  difficulty  in  inducing  the  States  of  the  kingdom  to 
proffer  their  ancient  and  solemn  oath,  "  by  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,"  that,  as  long  as 
Ireland  should  be  encircled  by  the  sea,  they  would  acknowledge  him  alone  as  their  lawful 
monarch.  The  same  pledges  had  been  given  to  his  predecessors,  Heremon  and  Hugony ; 
and,  in  all  three  instances,  had  been  alike  violated  as  soon  as  the  breath  iiad  left  the 
royal  frame. 

Under  this  monarch,  the  county  of  Meatli,  which  occupied  the  centre  of  the  island, 
was  enlarged  by  a  grant  of  land  from  each  of  the  other  provinces;  and,  under  the  name 
of  "  The  Mensal  Lands  of  the  Monarch  of  Ireland,"  was  appropriated  thenceforth  as  an 
appanage  of  the  royal  domain.  To  gratify  the  taste  of  his  people  for  conventions  and 
festivals,  he  ordained  that,  in  addition  to  the  Triennial  Council  of  Tara,  there  should  be 
held  annually  three  assemblies  of  the  kingdom  ;  one  at  Tlactha,  on  the  night  of  Samhin, 
where  fires  were  lighted  and  sacrifices  offered  to  that  divinity:  another,  on  the  day  of 
the  Baal-fire,  at  the  sacred  hill  of  Usneach  ;  and  a  third,  on  the  plains  of  Taltin,  in  the 
LTltonian  district,*  where  those  annual  sports,  introduced  in  the  time  of  the  Damnonian 
kings,  were  revived. 

A  far  less  creditable  sample  of  his  policy  was  the  enormous  mulct  imposed  by  him  on 
the  province  of  Leinster,  in  revenge  for  the  conduct  of  its  ruler.  Achy  ;  thus  dooming  an 
unoffending  people  and  their  posterity  to  atone  for  the  crimes  of  one  worthless  prince. 
This  oppressive  fine,  known  by  the  name  of  the  Boarian  or  Boromean  tribute,  was  exacted 
every  second  year,  and  continued  to  be  the  cause  of  much  confusion  and  bloodshed  till 
the  year  693;  when,  in  the  reign  of  King  Finnacta,  through  the  intercession  of  St. 
Moling,  it  was  remitted. 

The  offence  by  which  Achy,  King  of  Leinster,  drew  down  on  that  province  so  many 
centuries  of  taxation,  though  expanded  by  Keating  and  Warner  into  a  romance  of  some 
pages,  may  thus,  in  a  few  brief  sentences,  be  narrated.  Having  espoused  one  of  the 
daughters  of  the  monarch  Fuathal,  and  carried  her  home  to  his  own  kingdom,  the  Lein- 
ster prince,  in  little  more  than  a  year  after  their  union,  made  his  appearance  again  at 
Tara;  and  informing  the  monarch,  with  every  demonstration  of  sorrow,  that  his  young 
queen  was  dead,  obtained  permission  to  pay  his  addresses  to  her  sister,  and  succeeded  in 
making  her  also  his  bride.  On  arriving  with  her  royal  husband  in  his  own  province,  the 
young  princess  found  his  queen  still  living;  so  great  was  her  surprise  and  shame  at  this 

*  Tcrtia  apud  Tallen,  in  TTltonicr  poitione  —Rer.  Uib.  Script.  Piol.  ii.  79. 


78.  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

discovery,  tliat  she  but  for  a  few  minutes,  we  are  told,  survived  the  shock.  The  deceived 
queen  also,  wiio,  in  her  ignorance  of  the  real  circumstances,  had  flown  with  delight  to 
receive  her  sister,  as  a  visiter,  on  being  informed  of  tlie  sad  truth  of  the  story,  took  it 
no  less  deeply  to  heart;  and,  wounded  alike  by  the  perfidy  of  her  lord,  and  the  melan- 
choly fate  of  his  young  victim,  pined  away  and  died.  For  this  base  act,  which  ought  to 
have  been  avenged  only  upon  the  unmanly  offender,  not  merely  were  his  subjects,  but 
all  their  posterity  for  more  than  five  hundred  years,  compelled  to  pay  every  second  year 
to  the  reigning  monarch  that  memorable  tribute,*  which,  contested  as  it  was  in  most 
instances,  superadded  to  the  numerous  occasions  of  collision  for  ever  arising,  throughout 
the  country,  an  almost  regularly  recurring  crisis  of  confusion  and  bloodshed. 

During  the  reign  of  Tuatiial,  there  were  appointed  courts  of  municipal  jurisdiction 
for  the  better  regulation  of  the  concerns  of  tradesmen  and  artificers;  an  institution 
which,  could  we  place  reliance  on  the  details  relating  to  it,  would  imply  rather  an  ad- 
vanced state  of  interior  traffic  and  merchandise.  One  fact  which  appears  pretty  certain 
from  these  accounts  is,  that  previously  to  the  system  now  introduced,  none  of  the  Milesian 
or  dominant  caste  had  condescended  to  occupy  themselves  in  trade; — all  mechanical 
employments  and  handicrafts  being  left  to  the  descendants  of  the  old  conquered  tribes; 
while  for  the  issue  of  the  minor  branches  of  the  Milesians  were  reserved  the  appoint- 
ments in  the  militia  of  Erin,  and  the  old  hereditary  offices  of  antiquaries,  bards,  physi- 
cians, and  judges. 

Whatever,  in  other  respects,  may  have  been  the  civilization  of  the  Irish  before  tlie 
reign  of  King  Feidlim,  (a.  d.  164,)  their  notions  of  criminal  jurisprudence  were 
A.  D.  as  yet  but  rude  and  barbarous;  since  we  learn,  that  the  old  law  of  retaliation  was 
164.  then,  for  the  first  time,  exchanged  for  the  more  lenient  as  well  as  less  demora- 
lizing mode  of  punishment  by  a  mulct  or  Eric.  Some  writers,  it  is  true,  have 
assertedt  that  the  very  reverse  of  what  has  been  just  stated  was  the  fact;  and  that 
Feidlim,  finding  the  Law  of  Compensation  already  established,  introduced  tiie  Lex  Ta- 
lionis  in  its  stead.  But  this  assuredly  would  have  been  to  retrograde  rather  than  to 
advance  in  civilization; — one  of  the  first  steps  towards  civility,  in  the  infancy  of  all 
nations,  having  been  the  substitution,  in  criminal  justice,  of  fines  proportionate  to  the 
offences,!  foi*  ^^^^  savage  law  of  retaliation  and  the  right  of  private  revenge.  Should 
even  this  improved  stage  of  jurisprudence,  under  which  murders  of  the  darkest  kind 
might  be  compounded  for,  appear  sufficiently  barbarous,  it  should  be  recollected  that 
neither  the  Greeks^  at  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  nor  the  English  under  their  great 
ruler  Alfred,  had  yet  advanced  a  step  farther. 

To  Feidlim  the  Legislator  succeeded,  after  a  short  period,  his  son  Con  of  the  Hun- 
dred Battles;  a  prince  whose  long  reign  was  devoted,  as  his  distinctive  title  imports,  to 
a  series  of  conflicts  which  seem  to  have  been  as  various  in  their  success,  as  they  were 
murderous  and  devastating  in  their  consequences.  From  the  family  of  this  hero  de- 
scended that  race  of  chieftains  who,  under  the  title  of  the  Dalriadic  kings,  supplied 
Albany,  the  modern  Scotland,  with  her  first  Scotish  rulers;  Carbry  Riada, — the 
A.  D.  son  of  Conary  the  Second  by  the  daughter  of  the  monarch  Con, — having  been  the 
•  358.  chief  who,  about  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  established  that  Irish  settlement 
in  Argyleshire,||  which,  taking  the  name  of  its  princely  founder,  grew  up,  in  the 

*  Afcniiling  fo  the  old  liistory,  cited  l>y  Keating,  called  the  Fine  of  Leins'er,  tliis  tribute,  whicli  was  paid 
through  the  reigns  of  forty  kings,  consisted  of  3000  cows,  as  many  liogs  and  sheep,  3000  copper  caldrons,  as 
many  ounces  of  silver,  and  the  same  number  of  mantles.  The  number  of  each  kind  of  cattle  demanded  is 
stated  variously  by  ditferent  authorities;  some  making  it  so  few  as  300  (MacCurtin's  Brief  Discourse,)  and 
others  as  high  as  I.')  000.— MS.  quoted  by  Dr.  O'Connor. 

t  Sec  Warner  (History  of  Ireland,  vol.  i.  book  4.,)  whose  confu.sed  notions  respecting  this  law  are  adopted, 
and  rendered  still  "  worse  confounded,"  by  the  author  of  the  Dissertations  on  the  Hist,  of  Ireland,  sect.  11. 

I  The  following  is  Spenser's  account  of  the  Law  of  the  Eric,  as  existing  among  the  Irish.  Having 
remarked  that,  in  the  Brehon  Law,  there  were  "  many  things  repugning  both  to  God's  law  and  man's,"  he 
adds,  "  as  for  example,  in  the  case  of  murder,  the  Brehon,  tliat  is,  their  Judge,  will  compound  between  the 
murderer  and  the  friends  of  the  party  murdered,  which  prosecute  the  action,  that  the  malefactor  shall  give 
iitito  them,  or  to  the  child  or  wife  of  him  that  is  slain,  a  recompense  which  they  call  an  Eriach;  by  which 
wild  law  of  theirs  many  murders  amongst  them  are  made  up  and  smothered." — View  of  the  state  of  Ireland. 

Both  by  Spencer  and  Sir  John  Davis  this  custom  of  compounding  the  crime  of  homicide  by  a  fine  is  spoken 
of  as  peculiar  to  the  Irish;  and  the  latter  writer  even  grounds  upon  it  a  most  heavy  charge  against  that  peo- 
ple ;  either  forgetting  that  this  mode  of  composition  for  manslaughter  formed  a  part  of  tlie  AngloSa.ton 
code,  or  else  wilfully  suppressing  that  fact  for  the  purpose  of  aggravating  his  list  of  charges  against  the  old 
Brehon  law.  As  there  will  occur  other  opiiortunities  for  considering  this  question,  I  shall  here  only  remark 
that,  however  it  may  have  been  customary  among  the  ancient  Pagan  Irish  to  punish  homicide  by  a  mulct, 
or  Eric,  alone,  there  are  proofs  that,  in  later  times,  and  before  the  coming  of  the  English,  not  only  was  wil- 
ful murder,  but  also  the  crimes  of  rape  and  robbery,  made  legally  punishable  by  death.— See  Dissertations  on 
the  Laws  of  the  ancient  Irish,  Collcctan.  vol.  i.—O'/ieilly,  on  the  Brehon  Laws,  sect.  8.—Ledwich,  Antiquities.— 
Hume,  vol.  i.  Appendi.v. 

§  Iliad,  I.  i.x.  V.  030.,  where,  by  Homer,  the  blood-flne  is  called  a  penalty  or  mulct,  and  the  relatives  of  the 
murdered  person  arc  represented  as  satisfied  with  the  imposition. 

II  "In  these  Scoto-Irish  chiefs  of  Argyleshire,"  says  Sir  Waller  Scott,  "  historians  must  trace  the  original 
roots  of  the  royal  line."— History  of  Scotland,  vol.  i.  chap  2. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  79 

course  of  time,  into  the  kingdom   of  Dalriada;  and  finally,  on  the  destruction  of  llic 
Picts  by  Kenetii  Mac-Alpine,  became  the  kingdom  of  all  Scotland. 

The  incursions  of  the  Irish  into  those  northern  parts  of  Britain  had  commenced  at  a 
very  remote  period;  and  in  the  reigns  of  Olmucad,  Tigerniimas,  Reatch,  and  other  mo- 
narchs,  such  expeditions  to  the  coast  of  Albany  are  recorded  to  have  taken  place.* 
Without  depending,  however,  solely  on  Irish  authorities,  the  language  of  the  Roman 
panagyrist,  Eumenius,  in  extolling  the  victory  gained  in  Britain  by  Constantius  Chlorus, 
would  fully  suffice  to  prove  that,  previously  to  the  coming  of  Caesar,  the  neighbourhood 
of  Ireland  had  been  found  troublesome  to  the  Britons,  and  that  they  had  been  "  ac- 
customed"— for  such  is  the  phrase  used  by  the  orator — to  invasions  from  that  quar- 
ter.f  But  the  first  permanent  settlement  of  the  Irish  in  North  Britain  was  the  small 
colony,  just  mentioned,  under  Carbry  Riada;  which,  fixing  its  abode  in  a  part  of  those 
rc'ions  inhabited  previously  only  by  the  Picts,  or  Caledonians,  acquired,  as  Bede  tells 
us,  partly  by  friendship  and  partly  by  the  sword,  a  settled  home  in  the  country;];  while 
tlieir  founder,  already  possessing,  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  a  seigniorial  territory  named, 
after  himself,  Dalriada,§  transmitted  the  same  name  to  the  infant  kingdom  he  was  thus 
the  means  of  establishing  in  Albany. || 

As  at  this  period,  and  for  a  long  course  of  centuries  after,  the  name  of  Scoti,  or  Scots, 
was  applied  exclusively  to  the  Irish,  I  shall,  to  avoid  confusion  in  speaking  of  the  country 
now  known  as  Scotland,  call  it  either  North  Britain,  or  else  by  the  name  which  it  bore 
in  those  early  days,  Alba,  or  Albany. 

The  most  tedious,  as  well  as  most  sanguinary  of  the  many  wars  in  which  the  mo- 
narch of  the  Hundred  Battles  was  engaged,  was  that  maintained  by  him  against  the 
heroic  Mogh-Nuad,  king  of  the  province  of  Lcinster,  during  which,  the  latter  carried 
away  the  palm  of  victory  in  no  less  than  ten  successive  pitched  battles.  In  consequence 
of  these  numerous  defeats,  to  so  low  an  ebb  was  the  power  of  the  monarch  reduced  that 
liis  antagonist  became  at  length  possessor  of  one  half  of  the  kingdom.  A  new  division 
of  the  country  accordingly  took  place,^  which  continued,  nominally  at  least,  to  be  recog- 
nised to  a  late  period,  assigning  the  northern  part,  under  the  name  of  Leath-Cuinn,  or 
Con's  half,  to  the  monarch ;  while  the  southern,  under  the  designation  of  Leath-Mogh, 
or  Mogh's  half,  fell  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  crown  of  Munster. 

The  most  accomplished  of  all  the  Milesian  princes,  whether  as  legislator,  soldier,  or 
scholar,  was,  according  to  the  general  report  of  all  his  historians,  the  monarch  Cor- 
mac  Ulfadha,   who  flourished  about  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  and   was     a.  d. 
the  only  one  of  the  few  sensible  princes  whom  the  line  of  Milesius  produced     254. 
that  was  able  to  inspire  enough  of  respect  for  his  institutions  to  secure  their  ex- 

*  These  early  incuysions  are  thus  acknowledged  by  Buclianan  ;— "Nee  semel  Scotorum  ex  Hibcrnia  tran- 
situm  in  Albium  factum  nostri  annales  referunt." — Hist.  Scot.  1.  2. 

t  '■  Adhuc  natio  (Britannica)  eliani  tunc  rudis  et  solis  Britanni  Pictis  modo  et  Hibernis  adsueti  hostibus, 
adliuc  seminudi,  facile  Rornanis  arniis  signisque  cesserunt." — Panegyric.  Vet. 

i  "Procedente  autem  tempore  Britannia  post  Britoneset  Pictos,  tertiam  Scotorum  nalionem  in  Pictoruin 
parte  recepit,  qui,  duce  Reuda,  de  Hibernia  egressi,  vel  amicitia  vel  ferro,  sibimet  inter  eos  sedes  quas  hecte- 
nus  habent  vindicarunt,  a  quo  videlicet  duce  usque  hodie  Dalreudini  vocantur." — L.  i.  e.  1. 

§  This  territory,  which  comprehended  the  north,  north-west,  and  part  of  the  south  of  the  coivnty  of  An- 
trim, is  sometimes  confounded  with  Dalaradia,  which,  as  described  by  Harris,  comprehended  the  southeast 
parts  of  the  same  county,  and  the  greatest  part,  if  not  all,  of  the  county  of  Down. 

II  For  the  truth  of  this  important  and  now  undoubted  historical  fact,  we  need  but  refer  to  the  admissions 
of  Scotch  writers  themselves.  After  mentioning  the  notice,  Amniianus,  of  Scots  in  Britain,  a.  d.  3G0,  the 
judicious  Innes  adds,  "This  may  very  well  agree  with  the  placing  the  coming  in  of  Eocha  Riada  (the  same 
as  Bede's  Reuda.)  the  first  leader  of  the  colony  of  the  Scots  into  Britain,  about  the  beginning  of  the  third  age. 
It  is  like  he  brought  over  at  tirsl  but  a  small  number,  not  to  give  jealousy  to  the  ancient  inhabitants  of 
these  parts,  the  Caledonians;  but  in  the  space  of  one  hundred,  or  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  that 
passed  betwixt  the  time  of  iheir  first  coming  in,  and  their  being  mentioned  by  Aramian,  a.  d.  30O,  they 
might  have  so  increased  both  within  themselves,  and  by  accession  of  new  auxiliaries  fronr  Ireland,  that  the 
Caledonians  or  Picts,  finding  them  serviceable  in  their  wars  against  the  Romans  and  provincial  Britons, 
were  easily  disposed  to  enlarge  their  possessions." — Crit.  Essay,  vol.  ii.  Dissert,  li.  chap.  2. 

Thus  Pinkerton,  also,  whose  observations  prove  hini  to  have  been  thoroughly  well  informed  upon  the  sub- 
ject:—"  Concerning  the  origin  of  the  Dalreudini  of  Ireland,  all  the  Irish  writers,  Keating,  Usher,  O'Flaherty, 
&c.  &c.  are  concordant,  and  say  the  name  sprung  from  Carbry  Riada.  Beda,  a  superior  authority  to  all  the 
Irish  annalists  put  together,  informs  us  that  this  very  Riada  led  also  the  first  colony  of  Scots  to  North  Bri- 
tain. So  that  the  point  stands  clear,  independently  of  the  lights  wliich  Kennedy  and  O'Connor  throw  upon 
It."— Inquiry,  part  iv.  chap.  2.  Chalmers,  also,  concurs  in  the  same  view.  "  The  new  settlers."  he  adds,  "conti- 
nued, to  the  age  of  Bede,  to  be  commonly  called  from  the  original  district  (in  Ireland)  the  Dalreudini,  though 
they  will  be  herein 'denominated  the  Scoto-Irish."— C(i/crfon!«,  vol  i.  book  ii.  chap.  6. 

But  the  most  ancient  testimony  of  the  Scots  of  North  Britain  to  the  descent  of  their  kings  from  the  royai 
Irish  raceior  Conary,  is  tobe  found  in  a  Gaelic  Duan,or  Poem,  written  by  the  court  bard  of  Malcolm  HI.  about 
A.  D.  1057,)  which  has  been  pronounced  the  most  ancient  monument  of  Dalriadic  history  remaining.  For 
this  very  curious  genealogical  poem,  see  Ogvg.  Vind.  chap.  x.  Rer.  Hibern.  Script,  prol.  i.  Pinkcrlon's  In- 
quiry, part  iv.  chap.  5. 

ir  According  to  O'Flaherty,  this  division  of  the  kingdom  continued  in  reality  but  a  year;—"  in  reputation, 
however,"  says  Hams,  "it  subiibts  among  the  Irish  to  this  dav." 


80  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

istence  beyond  his  own  life-time.  To  Fiis  munificence  and  love  of  learningthe  country 
was  indebted,  it  is  said,  for  tlie  foundation  of  three  Academies  at  Tara:  in  the  first  of 
which  the  science  of  war  was  taught;  in  the  second,  historical  literature;  while  the  third 
academy  was  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  jurisprudence.  It  was  a  remarkable  tribute 
to  the  powerful  influences  of  literature  (if  the  learning  of  the  Fileas  and  Seanachies 
may  be  dignified  with  that  name,)  that  the  various  schemes  of  state  reform  brought  for- 
ward by  these  legislators  all  commenced  with  the  reformation  of  the  Literary  Order. 
Among  the  rest,  the  monarch  Cormac,  who  was  himself  a  distinguished  ornament  of 
that  class,  applied  his  earliest  care  to  the  correcting  of  those  abuses  which  had,  in  the 
course  of  time,  deteriorated  its  spirit.  Under  his  auspices,  too,  a  general  revision  of  the 
annals  of  the  kingdom  was  entered  upon;  and  the  national  records  which,  since  the  days 
of  the  illustrious  Ollamh,  had  been  kept  regularly,  it  is  said,  in  the  Psalter  of  Tara, 
received  such  corrections  and  improvements  as  the  growtli  of  knowledge  since  that 
remote  period  must  have  suggested.  It  is  even  alleged  that,  in  the  course  of  this  reign, 
which  introduced  that  mode  of  ascertaining  the  dates  of  regal  successions,  called  Syn- 
chronism, which  consists  in  collating  the  times  of  the  respective  reigns  with  those  of  con- 
temporary Princes  in  other  countries.  This  form  of  chronology  was  adopted  also  by 
an  Irish  historian  of  the  eleventh  century,  named  Flann,  whose  annals,  formed  upon  this 
principle,  are  said  to  be  still  extant  in  the  valuable  library  at  Stovve.  It  is,  however, 
not  easy  to  conceive,  that  so  general  a  knowledge  of  foreign  history  as  this  task  of  syn- 
chronizing seems  necessary  to  imply,  and  which,  even  in  writers  so  late  as  Tigernach 
and  Flann,"  is  sufficiently  remarkable,  could  have  been  found  among  a  people  so  entirely 
secluded  from  most  of  the  other  European  nations,  as  were  the  Irish  in  the  time  of  their 
King  Cormac. 

The  abdication  of  the  supreme  power  by  this  monarch,  in  the  full  vigour  of  his  age 
and  faculties,  was  the  consequence,  it  appears,  of  an  ancient  law  or  custom  of  the  coun- 
try, which  forbade  that  any  one  who  was  affected  with  a  personal  blemish  should  hold 
possession  of  the  throne;  and  as,  in  resisting  a  rebellious  attack  on  his  palace,  he  in- 
curred the  loss  of  an  eye,f-  this  accomplished  monarch  was  thereby  disqualified  from 
longer  retaining  the  sovereignty.  In  the  law  thus  enforced  may  be  observed  another 
instance,  rather  remarkable,  of  coincidence  with  the  rules  and  customs  of  the  East.  In 
a  like  manner,  we  read  in  the  Persian  history,  that  the  son  of  the  monarch  Kobad, 
having  by  a  singular  accident  lost  the  use  of  an  eye,  was  in  consequence  precluded,  by  an 
old  law  of  the  country,  from  all  right  of  succession  to  the  throne. 

The  nature  of  the  religious  opinions  held  by  this  monarch  have  been  made  a  subject  of 
some  discussion;  and  the  reverend  librarian  of  Stowe  has  thought  it  no  waste  of  his 
learned  leisure  to  devote  a  distinct  chapter  to  the  consideration  of"  the  Religion  of  King 
Cormac."  By  some  writers  it  is  alleged,  that  he  was  converted  to  Christianity  seven 
years  before  his  death;  being,  it  is  added,  the  third  person  in  Ireland  who  professed  that 
faith  before  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick.  That  this  prince  was  enlightened  enough  to 
roject  the  superstitions  of  the  Druids,  and  that,  in  consequence  of  his  free  thinking  on 
such  subjects,  he  had  that  powerful  body  opposed  to  him  throughout  the  whole  of  his 
reign,  there  appears  little  reason  to  doubt;  but  whether  he  substituted  any  purer  form  of 
faith  for  that  which  he  had  repudiated,  is  a  point  not  so  easily  ascertained.  A  circum- 
stance recorded  of  him,  however,  shows  how  vigorously  he  could  repress  intolerance  and 
cruelty,  even  when  directed  against  a  body  of  religionists  to  v/hom  he  was  himself  op- 
posed. Among  the  ancient  institutions  of  Tara  was  a  sort  of  College  of  Sacred  Virgins, 
whose  vocation  it  appears  to  have  been,  like  the  Dryads  or  fortune-tellers  among  the 
Gauls,  to  divine  the  future  for  the  indulgence  of  the  superstitious  or  the  credulous.  In 
one  of  those  incursions,  or  forays,  of  which  the  territory  of  the  monarch  was  so  often  the 

*  Planus  Junior,  Plann.  Mainislreach  cognominatus,  cuius  Synchrona  pariler  extant  in  vetusto  codice 
membraneo  ejusdem  Bibliotheca;,  No.  i.  quique  ohiil  anno  1056,  plura  ilideui  subaiinistravit,  quibus  traditio 
historica  aur.loritate  coslanea  fulcitur.— flcr.  Ilibern.  Script.  Ep.  J^unc. 

A  list  of  no  less  than  fourteen  poems  attributed  to  this  synchronist,  who  is  known  also  by  the  title  of 
Flann  of  Bute,  is  given,  in  Mr.  O'Reilly's  chronological  list  of  Irish  writers,  as  being  still  preserved  in  the 
Book  of  Leacan,  in  the  O'Cleary's  Book  of  Invasions,  and  other  such  collections. 

t  VVe  find  this  accident  otherwise  accounted  for,  in  a  curious  narrative,  containing  some  picturesque  eir- 
cnmstances,  which  General  Vallancoy  gives  as  a  translation  from  an  old  Irish  law  book.  Ceallach  MacCor- 
mac,  a  kinsman,  as  it  appears,  of  the  monarch,  having  carried  away  by  force,  the  niece  of  another  Irish 
chieftain,  the  latter,  determined  to  take  revenge  for  the  insult,  hurried  to  Tara,  the  royal  residence,  where  the 
offender  was  then  a  guest.  "  lie  made  directly  towards  Tara,"  says  the  MS.,  "  where  he  arrived  after  sun- 
set. Now,  there  was  a  law  prohibiting  any  person  from  coming  armed  into  Tara  after  sunset,  so  he  went  un- 
armed, and,  taking  down  Cormacs  spear  from  the  place  where  it  huni  in  the  hall  of  Tara,  he  killed  Ceallach 
IVlacCormac  on  the  spot,  and  drawing  hack  the  spear  with  great  force,  the  forrol  stuck  out  Cormac's  eye, 
and  wounded  tlie  Rcuctaire,  or  Judge  of  Tura,  in  the  back,  of  wliich  ho  died."— Fragment  of  the  Brc/ioii 
Laics. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  81 

object,  the  place  where  these  holy  Druidesses  resided,*  and  which  bore  tlie  name  of"  The 
Retreat  until  Death,"  was  attacked  by  the  troops  of  the  King  of  Leinster,  and  the  whole 
of  its  sacred  inmates,  together  with  their  handmaids,  most  inhumanly  massacred.f  This 
brutal  sacrilege  the  monarch  punished  by  putting  twelve  of  the  Lagenian  chieftains  most 
concerned  in  it  to  death,  and  exacting  rigorously  the  Boarian  tribute  from  the  province 
to  which  they  belonged. 

In  the  course  of  this  reign  considerable  additions  are  said  to  have  been  made  to  that 
body  of  laws,  or  legal  axioms,  which  had  been,  from  time  to  time,  compiled,  under  the 
name  of  Celestial  Judgments;  and,  among  other  contributors  to  this  great  legislative 
work,  is  mentioned  Finn  Mac-Cumhal — or,  as  known  to  modern  ears,  Fingal — the  son- 
in-law  to  the  monarch  Cormac,  and  general  of  the  famed  Fianna  Eirinn,  or  ancient  Irish 
militia.  It  has  been  the  fate  of  this  popular  Irish  hero,  after  a  long  course  of  traditional 
renown  in  his  own  country,  where  his  name  still  lives,  not  only  in  legends  and  songs, 
but  in  the  yet  more  indelible  record  of  scenery  connected  with  his  memory,]:  to  have 
been,  at  once,  transferred  by  adoption  to  another  country,  and  start,  under  a  new  but 
false  shape,  in  a  fresh  career  of  fame.  Besides  being  himself  an  illustrious  warrior  and 
bard,  this  chief  transmitted  also  to  his  descendants,  Oisin  and  Osgar,  the  gifts  of  heroism 
and  song;  and  died,  by  the  lance,  as  we  are  told,  of  an  assassin,  in  the  year  273. 

In  the  humble  abode  where  King  Cormac  passed  his  latter  days, — a  thatched  cabin,  as 
it  is  said,  at  Aicill,  or  Kells,^ — he  produced  those  works  which  entitle  his  name  to  a 
place  in  the  list  of  Royal  Authors.  "  The  Advice  to  a  King,"  which  he  wrote  for  the 
instruction  of  his  son,  Carbre,  on  resigning  to  him  the  throne,  is  said  to  have  been  extant 
so  late  as  the  seventeenth  century  ;||  as  well  as  a  poem  likewise  attributed  to  him,  on  the 
virtues  of  the  number  Three, — somewhat  resembling,  most  probably,  the  Gryphus  of  the 
poet  Ausonius  on  the  same  mysterious  subject. 

Among  the  remarkable  events  that  passed  during  the  reign  of  this  monarch,  it  is 
worthy  of  mention  that,  after  having  defeated  the  Ultonians,  in  a  great  battle  at  Granard, 
he  banished  numbers  of  the  people  of  that  province  to  the  Isle  of  Man  and  the  Hebrides. 
That  the  island  of  Eubonia,  as  Man  was  then  called,  belonged  in  early  times  to  Ireland, 
appears  from  Ptolemy,  by  whom  it  is  marked  as  a  dependency  of  that  country;  and,  in  a 
work  attributed  to  the  cosmographer  ^Ethicus,  we  are  told,  "  The  Isle  of  Man,  as  well  as 
Hibernia,  is  inhabited  by  tribes  of  the  Scots."!!  In  the  time  of  St.  Patrick  it  was  still  an 
Irish  island,  and  the  favourite  resort  of  such  holy  persons  as  wished  to  devote  themselves 
to  a  life  of  seclusion  and  prayer. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  Carbre,  the  son  and  successor  of  Cormac,  that  the  famous  Fianna 
Eirinn,  or  Militia  of  Erin,  whose  achievements  formed  so  often  the  theme  of  our  ancient 
romances  and  songs,  was,  in  consequence  of  the  dissensions  within  its  own  body,  as  well 
as  of  the  formidable  degree  of  power  which  it  had  attained,  put  down  summarily  by  force. 
This  national  army  had  been  for  some  time  divided  into  two  rival  septs,  the  Clanna 
Boisgne,  commanded  by  Oisin,  the  son  of  Finn,  and  the  Clanna  Morna,  which  was  at 

*  "  Dryades  erant  Gallicanee  mutieres  fatidicae."— Siztoos.  in  Lamprid.  "  Dicebat  quodem  tempore  Aurelia- 
nura  Gallicanas  consuluisse  Dryadas." — Vopisc.  in  Atirel.  We  have  Toland's  authority  for  their  having 
been  of  Druidesses  in  Ireland;  and  Gealcossa's  Mount,  as  he  tells  us,  situated  in  Inisowen,  in  the  county 
of  Donegal,  was  so  called  from  a  female  Druid  of  that  name.  "  Her  name,"  he  adds,  "  is  of  the  Honierical 
strain,  signifying  The  White-li'gged.  On  this  hill  is  her  grave,  and  hard  by  is  her  temple,  being  a  sort  of 
diminutive  Stonehenge,  which  many  of  the  old  Irish  dare  not,  even  at  this  day,  any  way  profane." — Letters 
to  Lord  Molesworth. 

t  Annal.  IV.  Magist.  ad  ann.  241. 

i  "  I  must  not  omit  that,  in  the  centre  of  this  cotinty  (the  county  of  Donegal,)  the  cloudcapt  mountain  of 
Alt  Ossein  presides,  and  around  him  is  the  whole  scenery  of  Ossian  and  Fingal,  which  has  been  so  beauti- 
fully described  by  Mr.  Macpherson,  and  to  the  northward  of  Lough  Dearg  are  the  mountains,  caverns,  and 
lakes  of  Finn,  or  Fingal." — Collectan  de  Reb.  Hibeni.  No.  .\ii. 

A  writer  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy  (vol.  xv.,)  mentions  a  great  rock  in  the  county 
of  Meath,  under  shelter  of  which  Finn  and  his  faithful  wolf-dog,  Brann,  once  rested  from  the  chase;  and  it 
is  added  that  on  the  top  of  the  hill  of  Shanthamon,  in  the  county  of  Cavan,  may  be  seen  his  "  Fingers,"  in 
the  shape  of  five  enormous  stones,  each  about  five  feet  high,  and  of  four  tons  weight.  A  similar  tribute  has 
been  paid  to  our  Irish  heroes  by  that  country  of  poesy  and  song  which  has  adopted  them  as  her  own.  "  All 
over  the  Highlands,"  says  Sir  John  Sinclair  (Dis.sert.  on  the  Authenticity,  &c.,)  the  names  of  Ossian,  Fingal,- 
Comhal,  Trenmor,  Cuchullin,  are  still  familiar,  and  held  in  the  greatest  respect.  Straths  or  valleys,  moun- 
tains, rocks,  rivers,  are  named  after  thorn.  There  are  a  hundred  places  in  the  Highlands  and  Isles  which 
derive  their  name  from  the  Feinne,  and  from  circumstances  connected  witli  their  history." 

§  In  his  first  version,  from  an  Irish  M3.,  of  the  details  of  the  accident  by  which  Cormac  lost  his  eye.  Gene- 
ral Vallancey  printed  and  published  the  following  sentence  ;  "  But  the  famous  Aicill  performed  a  cure  for  his 
eye."  Finding,  subsequently,  however,  that  Aicill  was  not  a  physician,  but  a  small  town  in  the  county  of 
Meath,  lie  thus  corrected  the  passage ;  "  Cormac  was  sent  to  Aicill  to  be  cured."  This  mistake  of  the  great 
Irish  scholar  has  been  made  the  subject  of  some  dull  facetiousness  in  Doctor  Campbell's  Strictures,  Sect.  3. 

II  Bishop  Nicholson  has,  by  an  oversight,  transferred  both  this  work  and  the  son  for  whom  it  was  written, 
to  Cormac  Mac-Cuillenan,  the  Royal  Compiler  of  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,  who  died  in  the  beginning  of  the 
tenth  century.  The  confusion  is  carried  still  farther  by  representing  the  latter  also  as  having  died  in  "a 
thatched  house  at  Anachiul,  in  Ceananus  near  Tara."— fiist.  Lib.  Appendix. 

U  "  Hibernia  a  Scotorum  gentibus  colitur.— Menavia  insula  apque  ac  Hibernia  a  Scotorum  eentibus  habi- 
tatur."— Co^wo^. 

10 


82  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

this  time  protected  by  the  King  of  Munster;  and  the  rights  claimed  by  the  former  sept, 
to  take  precedence  of  all  other  military  tribes,  had  been  long  a  source  of  violent  feuds 
between  their  respective  chieftains.  A  celebrated  contention  of  this  nature  between 
Goll  and  Finn  Mac-Cumhal,  near  the  palace  of  the  latter  at  Almhain,*  had  risen  to  such 
a  height  that  it  could  only  be  appeased,  we  are  told,  by  the  intervention  of  the  bards, 
who,  shaking  the  Chain  of  Silence  between  the  chiefs,  succeeded  in  calming  their  strife.f 
To  such  a  pitch,  however,  had  the  presumption  of  the  Clanna  Boisgne  at  length  arrived, 
that  in  the  reign  of  Carbre,  having  had  the  audacity  to  defy  the  throne  itself,  they  were 
attacked  by  the  united  force  of  almost  all  the  royal  troops  of  the  kingdom  (the  King  of 
Munster  alone  taking  part  with  the  rebellious  Fians,)  and  a  battle,  memorable  for  its 
extent  of  carnage,  ensued,  in  which  Osgar,  the  son  of  Oisin,  or  Ossian,  was  slain  by  the 
monarch's  own  hand,  and  scarcely  a  man  of  the  Glanna  Boisgne  escaped  the  slaughter  of 
that  day.  The  victorious  monarch,  too,  surviving  but  a  short  time  his  dreadful  combat 
with  Osgar,  was  himself  numbered  among  the  slain. 

The  fame  of  this  fatal  battle  of  Gabhra,  and  the  brave  warriors  who  fell  in  it,  continued 
long  to  be  a  favourite  theme  of  the  Irish  bards  and  romancers;  and  upon  no  other  foun- 
dation than  the  old  songs  respecting  the  heroes  of  this  combat,  mixed  up  with  others 
relating  to  chieftains  of  a  still  more  ancient  date,  has  been  raised  that  splendid  fabric  of 
imposture  which,  under  the  assumed  name  of  Ossian,  has  for  so  long  a  period  dazzled 
and  deceived  the  world  ;|  being  not  more  remarkable  for  the  skill  and  fancy  displayed  in 
its  execution  than  for  the  intrepidity  with  which  its  author  presumed  on  the  general 
ignorance  and  credulity  of  his  readers. 

The  close  connexion  of  this  work  of  Macpherson  with  the  History  of  Ireland,  as  well 
as  of  North  Britain,  at  this  period,  and  the  false  views  which  it  is  meant  to  convey  of  the 
early  relations  between  the  two  countries,  demand  for  it  a  degree  of  notice  in  these  pages 
to  which,  as  a  mere  work  of  fiction,  however  brilliant,  it  could  not  have  any  claim. 
Such  notice,  too,  appears  the  more  called  for,  from  the  circumstance  of  this  fabrication 
forming  but  one  of  a  long  series  of  attempts,  on  the  part  of  Scottish  writers,  to  confound 
and  even  reverse  the  historical  affinities  between  the  two  countries,  for  the  purpose  of 
claiming,  as  the  property  of  Scotland,  not  only  those  high  heroic  names  and  romantic 
traditions  which  belong  to  the  twilight  period  of  Irish  history  we  are  now  considering, 
but  also  the  most  distinguished  of  those  numerous  saints  and  scholars,  who  are  known,  at 
a  later  and  more  authentic  period,  to  have  illustrated  our  annals.  This  notable  scheme, 
to  which  the  community  of  the  name  of  Scotia  between  the  two  countries  afforded  pecu- 
liar facilities,  commenced  so  early  as  the  thirteenth  century,  when,  on  the  claim  ad- 
vanced by  Edward  I.  to  a  feudal  superiority  over  Scotland,  it  became  an  object  with  the 
people  of  that  country  to  assert  the  independency  of  the  Scotish  crown,  and  when  for  the 
first  time  pretensions  were  set  up  by  them  to  a  scheme  of  antiquities  of  their  own,  partly 
borrowed  from  that  of  the  parent  country,  but  chiefly  intended  to  supersede  and  eclipse  it. 

The  pretensions  but  faintly  sketched  out  at  that  crisis,  assumed,  in  the  hands  of  suc- 
ceeding chroniclers,  a  more  decided  shape;  till  at  length,  with  the  aid  of  the  forged 
authorities  brought  forward  by  Hector  Boece,^  an  addition  of  from  forty  to  five-and-forty 
Scotish  kings  were  at  once  interpolated  in  the  authentic  Irish  list  of  the  Dalriadic  rulers; 
by  which  means  the  commencement  of  the  Scotish  kingdom  in  Britain  was  removed 
from  its  true  iiistorical  date, — about  the  beginning,  as  we  shall  see,  of  the  sixth  century, — 
to  as  far  back  as  three  hundred  and  thirty  years  before  the  Incarnation. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  too,  that  far  more  in  political  objects  and  designs  than  in  any  ro- 
mantic or  vain-glorious  ambition,  is  to  be  found  the  source  of  most  of  these  efforts  on  the 
part  of  the  Scotch  to  construct  for  themselves  this  sort  of  spurious  antiquity.  We  have 
seen  tiiat  the  first  notions  of  such  a  scheme  arose  out  of  the  claims  set  up  by  Edward  I.  to  a 
rigiit  of  superiority  over  Scotland;  and  as  the  English  monarch  had  backed  his  preten- 
sions by  reference  to  a  long  line  of  kings,  through  which  he  professed  to  have  descended 

*  "Situatert  in  Lninster.  on  tlie  summit  of  Allen,  or  rather,  as  the  natives  of  that  country  pronounce  it, 
Allovvin.  The  village  and  bog  of  Allen  have  thence  derived  their  name.  There  are  still  the  remains  of  some 
trenches  on  the  top  of  the  hill  where  Fin  Mac  Cumhal  and  Jiis  Fians  were  wont  to  celebrate  their  feasts."— 
Dr.  Young,  Trarts.  Irish  Acad. 

t  "  'I'he  Hook  of  llowth  affirms  that,  in  the  battle  between  the  Fenii  and  Carbre,  the  Fenii  were  all  de- 
stroyed, Oisin  excepted ;  and  that  he  lived  till  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  to  whom  he  related  the  exploits  of  the 
Fenii."— flcWci  of  Irish  Poetry.  See  also  Walker's  Irish  Bards.  "  It  would  be  tedious,"  adds  Miss  Brooke, 
"to  relate  the  various  causes  assigned  by  difiijrent  writers  for  this  battle.  Historians,  in  general,  lay  the 
chief  blame  upon  the  Fenii ;  and  the  poets,  taking  part  with  their  favourite  heroes,  cast  the  odium  upon 
Carbre,  then  monarch  of  Ireland.    The  fault,  most  likely,  was  mutual." 

t  "  There  arc  at  least  three  Poems,  of  considerable  antiquity,  in  Irish,  written  on  the  battle  of  Gabhra, 
upon  which  Mr.  Macpherson  founded  his  poem  of  '  Temoru.'  "—Essay  to  investigate  the  Authenticity,  &c.,  by 
Edward  O'Reilly,  Esq,  J  e 

§  Innes  acquits  his  countryman  Boece  of  having  been  himself  the  author  of  this  forgery.— Ch.  ii.  ail.  ii.  §8. 


Hl.STORY  OF  IRELAND.  83 

from  Brutus,  Locrine,  Albanact,  &c.,  the  Scotch,  in  their  counter-memorials,*  deemed  it 
politic  to  have  recourse  to  a  similar  parade  of  antiquity,  and  brought  forward,  for  the  first 
time,  their  additional  supply  of  ancient  kings,  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion.  In 
like  manner,  when,  at  a  later  period,  their  eloquent  Buchanan  lent  all  the  attractions  of 
his  style  to  adorn  and  pass  into  currency  the  absurd  legends  of  Hector  Boece  respecting 
the  forty  kings,  it  was  not  that  he  conceived  any  glory  or  credit  could  redound  to  his 
country  from  such  forgeries,!  but  because  the  examples  he  found  in  these  pretended 
records  of  the  deposition  and  punishment  of  kings  by  their  subjects,  fell  in  with  the  prin- 
ciples at  that  time  afloat  respecting  the  king-deposing  power,  and  afforded  precedents 
for  that  right  of  revolt  against  tyranny  which  he  had  himself  so  strenuously  and  spirit- 
edly advocated.l 

From  this  period  the  boasted  antiquities  of  the  British  Scots  were  suffered  to  slumber 
undisturbed,  till,  on  the  appearance  of  the  work  of  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  entitled,  an 
Historical  Account  of  Ancient  Church  Government  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  when 
that  learned  prelate,  having  occasion  to  notice  the  fabricated  succession  of  Scotish  kings 
from  an  imaginary  Fergus  I.,  exposed  the  falsehood  and  utter  absurdity  of  the  whole 
fable.  This  simple  historical  statement  called  forth  a  champion  of  the  forty  phantom 
kings,  in  the  person  of  Sir  George  Mackenzie,  the  King's  Advocate  for  Scotland,  who, 
resenting  warmly,  as  "  a  degree  of  leze-majeste,"  this  curtailment  of  the  royal  line,  went 
so  far  as  to  identify  the  honour  and  safety  of  the  British  monarchy  with  the  credit  of  the 
fabulous  kings  of  Boece.^.  It  is,  indeed,  not  a  little  curious  to  observe,  that  while  politi- 
cal views  and  objects  continued  to  be  the  motive  of  most  of  this  zeal  for  the  antiquities 
of  their  country,  the  ground  taken  by  the  Scotish  champions  was  now  completely  changed  ; 
and  whereas,  Boece,  and,  far  more  knowingly,  Buchanan,  had  supported  the  forgery  of 
the  forty  kings  for  the  sake  of  the  weapons  which  it  had  furnished  them  against  the 
eacredncss  of  hereditary  monarchy.  Sir  George  Mackenzie,  on  the  contrary,  overlooking, 
or  rather,  perhaps,  not  acknowledging  this  alleged  tendency  of  the  Scotish  fictions,  upheld 
them  as  so  essentially  connected  with  the  very  foundations  of  the  British  monarchy,  that 
to  endeavour  to  bring  them  into  any  disrepute  was,  in  his  eyes,  a  species  of  high  treason. 

The  masterly  hand  of  Bishop  Stillingfleet  gave  the  last  blow  to  that  shadowy  fabric  of 
which  Sir  George  Mackenzie  had  proved  himself  but  a  feeble  defender ;  and  the  preten- 
sions of  the  Scots  to  a  high  line  of  antiquity,  independent  of  that  of  their  ancestors,  the 
Irish,  fell,  never  again  to  rise  in  the  same  ostensible  shape.  But  there  remained  another 
mode  of  undermining  the  Scotic  history  of  Ireland,  or  rather  of  confounding  it  with  that 
of  the  Scotia  derived  from  her,  so  as  to  transfer  to  the  offspring  much  of  the  parent's 
fame;  and  of  this  Macpherson,  with  much  ingenuity,  and  a  degree  of  hardihood  almost 
without  parallel,  availed  himself.  Counting  upon  the  obscurity  of  Irish  history  at  the 
commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  he  saw  that  a  supposed  migration  of  Caledonians 
into  that  country  in  the  first  century,  would  not  only  open  to  hm  a  wide  and  safe  field 
for  the  fanciful  creations  he  meditated,  but  would  also  be  the  means  of  appropriating  to 
his  own  country  the  romantic  fame  of  those  early  heroes  and  bards,  those  traditional  sub- 
jects of  story  and  song,  which  are,  after  all,  more  fondly  clung  to  by  every  ancient  people, 
than  even  their  most  authentic  and  most  honourable  history. 

It  is  true  this  adoption  and  appropriation  by  the  British  Scots,  of  the  songs  and  tradi- 
tions of  the  Irish,  had  been  carried  on  for  ages  before  the  period  when  it  was  so  expertly 
turned  to  account  by  Macpherson;  being  the  natural  result  of  the  intimate  intercourse 
so  long  subsisting  between  the  two  countries.  The  original  fragments,  indeed,  of  Erse 
poetry,  which  formed  the  foundation  of  most  of  his  Epics,  were,  in  fact,  but  versions  of 

*  These  memorials,  which  were  addressed  to  the  Popp,  are  to  be  found  in  Hearne's  edition  of  Fordun, 
"  Those  productions  of  the  Scots  (says  Innes,)  I  mean  as  to  their  remote  antiouities,  ought  to  be  considered 
such  as  they  truly  were,  as  the  pleadings  of  advocates,  who  commonly  make  no  great  ditficulty  to  advance 
with  great  assurance  all  that  makes  for  the  adva-ntage  of  therr  cause  or  clients,  though  they  have  but  proba- 
ble grounds,  and  sometimes  bare  conjectures  to  go  upon." — Critical  Essay. 

t  It  is  but  fair  to  observe,  that  by  none  of  tliese  writers  was  so  bold  a  detiance  of  the  voice  of  history  ven- 
tured upon  as  to  deny  that  the  Scots  of  Albany  had  originally  passed  over  from  Ireland.  Even  Sir  George 
Mackenzie,  who  endeavours  to  set  aside  the  relationship  as  much  as  possible,  says, — "  We  acknowledge  our- 
selves to  have  come  last  from  Ireland;"  while  of  all  those  Scotish  writers  who  preceded  him  in  the  same  track, 
John  Major,  Hector  Boece,  Leslie,  Buchanan,  not  a  single  one  has  thought  of  denying  that  the  Scots  were 
originally  of  Irish  extraction.    See  Ogygia  Vindicated,  chap.  3. 

X  In  his  work  De  Jure  regni  apud  Scotos. 

§  See  his  letter  to  the  lord  chancellor,  wherein  Sir  George  "  admires  that  any  of  the  subjects  of  Great  Bri- 
tain did  not  think  it  a  degrees  of  lese-majesty  to  injure  and  shorten  the  royal  line  of  their  kings." 

In  speaking  of  the  Scoto  Irish  chiefs  of  Argyleshire,  Sir  Walter  Scott  says,  (Hist,  of  Scotland,  vol.  i.  ch.  2.) 
"Not  to  incur  the  charge  of  lezn-inajestii,  brought  by  Sir  G.  Mackenzie  against  Dr.  Stillinglleet,  for  abridging 
the  royal  pedigree  by  some  links,  we  will  briefly  record  that,  by  the  best  authorities,  twenty-eight  of  these 
Dalriadic  kings  or  chiefs  reigned  successively  in  Argyleshire."  It  was,  however,  iK>t  in  reference  to  the 
Dalriadic  kings  that  Sir  George's  remark  was  made,  nor  was  it  directed  against  Stillingfleet,  but  against 
Lloyd,  the  learned  Bishop  of  St.  Asajdi. 


84  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

old  Irish  songs  relating  to  the  Fenian  heroes,*  which,  though  attributed  to  the  poet  Oisin, 
were  the  productions  of  bards  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  and,  finding  their 
way  among  the  highlanders  of  Britain,  from  the  close  connexion  between  the  two  coun- 
tries, came,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  be  adopted  by  them,  both  heroes  and  songs,  as  their 
own.| 

The  various  adaptations  and  corruptions  of  the  original  ballads  by  which  this  process 
of  naturalization  was  effected,  and  the  chieftains  Finn,  Oisin,  Osgar,  Cuchullin,  GoU  Mac- 
Morn  were  all  in  the  Erse  songs  converted  into  Highland  heroes,  have  been  pointed  out 
by  critics  familiar  with  the  dialects  of  both  countries;  and  though  some  of  the  variations 
from  the  original  ballads  arose,  doubtless,  from  the  want  of  a  written  standard,  there 
occur  others — such  as  the  omission  frequently  of  the  name  of  Ireland,  and  of  St.  Patrick 
— which  could  iiave  arisen  from  no  other  cause  than  a  deliberate  intention  to  deceive.]: 

In  all  such  prepense  modes  of  falsification,  Macpherson  improved  boldly  on  his  rude 
originals -,5  thougl)  still  with  so  little  regard  to  consistency,  as  often  to  justify  the  suspi- 
cion, that  liis  great  success  was  owing  fully  as  much  to  the  willingness  of  others  to  be 
deceived,  as  to  his  own  talent  in  deceiving.  The  conversion  of  Finn,  an  Irish  chieftain 
of  the  third  century,  into  a  Caledonian  "King  of  Morven,"  and  the  chronological  blunder 
of  giving  him  Cuchullin  for  a  contemporary,  who  had  flourished  more  than  two  centuries 
before,  are  errors,  which,  gross  as  they  are,  might,  under  cover  of  the  darkness  of  Irish 
history,  at  that  period,  have  been  expected  to  pass  unnoticed.  But  his  representing  this 
Finn,  or  Fingal,  as  in  the  year  208  commanding  the  Caledonians  against  Caracalla,li  and 
then  brinijing  him  forward  again,  at  the  interval  of  more  than  a  century,  to  contend  with 
Cathmor  in  single  combat,  is  one  of  those  daring  flights  of  improbability  and  absurdity, 
upon  which  none  but  a  writer  so  conscious  of  his  own  powers  of  imposture  could  have 
ventured.ll 

*  For  the  best  account  of  these  Fenian  Poems,  and  of  the  general  nature  of  their  style  and  subjects,  the 
reader  is  referred  to  an  able  essay  on  the  authenticity  of  Ossian's  Poems,  by  Dr.  William  Hamilton  Drum- 
mond,  in  the  16th  volume  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy.  A  MS.  collection  of  the  Fenian 
tales  and  songs  is  said  to  be  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  James  Hardiman,  the  intelligent  author  of  the  History 
of  Gal  way. 

t  Even  among  the  Lowlattders,  too,  the  traditional  renown  of  Finn  and  his  heroes  had  long  made  itself 
known,  as  the  following  instance  proves:— When  Bruce  was  defeated  byMacDougal,  Lord  of  Lorn,  he  placed 
himself  in  the  rear  of  his  retreating  followers,  and  checked  the  pursuit.  "  Behold  him,"  said  MacDougal  to 
one  of  his  leaders,  "  he  protects  his  followers  against  us,  as  Gaul,  the  son  of  Morni,  defended  his  tribe  against 
the  rage  of  Fingal." — duoted  from  Barbour,  in  an  article  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  (attributed,  I  believe 
justly,  to  the  pen  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,)  on  the  Report  of  the  Highland  Society,  vol.  vi.  That  the  true  birth- 
place, however,  of  Finn  and  his  heroes  was  sometimes  acknowledged  even  in  Scotland,  appears  from  two 
verses,  quoted  in  the  same  article,  from  the  old  Scotch  poet  Douglas: 

"  Great  Gow  MacMorn,  and  Fin  MacCoul,  and  how 
They  suld  be  Goddis  in  Ireland,  as  men  say." 

Neither  were  the  English  ignorant  of  our  claims  to  these  ancient  heroes  and  bards,  as  may  be  seen  from 
the  following  passage  quoted  by  Camden,  in  speaking  of  the  Irish: — "  They  think  the  souls  of  the  deceased 
are  in  communion  with  famous  men  of  those  places,  of  whom  they  retain  many  stories  and  sonnets,  as  of  tlie 
giants  Fin  MacHuyle,  O'Shin  MacOwen ;  and  they  say,  through  illusion,  that  they  often  see  them." 

The  origin  of  the  addition  of  the  word  Gai  to  Finn's  name  is  thus  satisfactorily  explained:  Oal,  the  latter 
part  of  the  compound,  signifies  a  stranger;  and  being  applied  by  Scotchmen  to  Fin,  the  son  of  Cumhal,  it 
affords  a  decisive  proof  that  they  did  not  consider  him  as  their  countryman." — Essay  on  Ossian,  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Drummond. 

I  Of  one  of  these  Erse  Poems,  a  Conversation  between  Ossian  and  St.  Patrick,  Dr.  Young  says: — "  The 
Highland  Sgeulaiches  have  been  very  busy  in  corrupting  this  poem,  partly  of  necessity  from  the  want  of  a 

written  standard From  their  vain  desire  of  attributing  Fin  Mac-Cumhal  and  his  heroes  to  Scotland, 

they  seem  to  have  intentionally  corrupted  it  in  some  passages,  as  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  Erse  copies 
with  each  other.  Thus,  in  the  verse  before  us,  the  word  Ireland  is  omitted."  Again  Dr.  Young  remarks: — 
"The  Highland  Sgeulaiches  have  taken  the  liberty  of  totally  perverting  this  stanza,  and  changing  it  into 
another,  which  might  make  Fin  Mac  Cumhal  their  own  countryman." 

§  The  late  Dr.  Young,  Bishop  of  Clonfert,  who,  in  the  year  1784,  made  a  tour  to  the  Highlands  of  Scotland, 
for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  original  poems  from  which  Macpherson  had  constructed  his  Epics,  has  accused 
him  of  altering  the  dates  of  his  originals,  of  attributing  to  them  a  iHuch  higher  antiquity  than  belongs  to 
them,  of  suppressing  the  name  of  St.  Patrick,  and,  in  short,  of  corrupting  and  falsifying,  by  every  means, 
even  the  few  scanty  fragments  of  Irish  poetry  he  could  produce  to  sanction  his  imposture. 

II  See  Gibbon's  detection  of  the  anachronism  of  Macpherson  respecting  Caracalla,  (vol.  i.  ch.  6)  where, 
however,  he  expresses  himself  with  a  degree  of  deference  and  timidity  well  deserving  of  Hume's  rebuke  to 
him  on  his  credulity.  "You  are  therefore,'"  says  his  shrewd  friend,  "over  and  above  indulgent  to  us  in 
speaking  of  the  matter  with  hesitation." 

IT  The  primary  and  insurmountable  argument  against  even  the  possibility  of  their  authenticity,  is  thus 
well  stated  by  Hume: — "It  is,  indeed,  strange  lliai  any  man  of  sense  could  have  imagined  it  possible  that 
above  twenty  thousand  verses,  along  with  numberless  historical  facts,  could  have  been  preserved  by  oral 
tradition  during  fifty  generations,  by  the  rudest,  perhaps,  of  all  the  European  nations,  the  most  necessitous, 
the  most  turbulent,  and  the  most  unsettled.  Where  a  supposition  is  so  contrary  to  common  sense,  any 
positive  evidence  of  it  ought  never  to  be  regarded."— Letter  to  Gibbon,  in  Gibbon's  Memoirs  of  his  own  Life 
and  Writings. 

So  slow,  however,  has  the  delusion  been  in  passing  away,  that  so  late  as  the  year  1825,  when  Armstrong's 
Gaelic  Dictionary  was  published,  we  hud  the  author  of  that  work  boasting  of  Ossian,  as  "  the  great  poet  of 
the  Gael,"  and  citing  him  as  authority  for  the  early  manners  and  customs  of  the  Highlanders. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  85 

It  is  true  that,  in  most  of  those  poems,  attributed  to  our  bard  Oisin,  which  funished  the 
grounds,  or  rather  pretext,  for  the  elaborate  forgeries  of  Macpherson,  the  very  same 
license  of  anachronism  is  found  to  prevail.  The  son  of  Finn,  in  these  rude  and  spurious 
productions,  has  not  only  his  life  prolonged  as  far  as  the  fifth  century  for  the  convenience 
of  conversing  with  St.  Patrick,  but  finds  himself  engaged,  so  late  as  the  commencement 
of  the  twelfth,  in  single  combat  with  the  Norwegian  king,  Magnus.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered, however,  that  these  vagaries  of  chronology  occur  in  detached  pieces  of  poetry, 
written  by  different  authors,  and  at  different  periods;  whereas,  the  pretended  epics  of 
Ossian  are  the  production  professedly  of  one  great  and  known  poet,  at  a  defined  period 
of  history  ;  and  yet,  in  the  very  face  of  this  assumed  character,  abound  with  such  mon- 
strous anachronisms,  such  utter  confusion  of  times,  places,  persons,  and  manners  as 
renders  the  belief,  for  so  long  a  period,  in  the  authenticity  of  such  a  work,  one  of  the 
most  startling  marvels  in  all  literary  history. 

To  mention  but  two  or  three  more  instances  in  which  this  personator  of  a  bard  of  the 
third  century  forestalls  the  manners  and  customs  of  a  far  later  period,  we  find  him 
bestowing  on  his  Irish  heroes,  some  centuries  before  the  coat  of  mail  was  introduced, 
bright  corslets  of  steel,*  and  describing  castles  as  existing  in  Ireland,  at  a  time  when 
the  most  stately  palaces  of  her  kings  were  as  yet  constructed  but  of  wood.  In  still  more 
wanton  defiance  both  of  history  and  common  sense,  he  brings  together  the  expedition  of 
Caracalla  at  the  commencement  of  the  third  century,  that  of  Carausius  at  its  close,  and 
the  invasions  of  the  Danes  and  Norwegians,  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  as  all  of 
them  contemporary  events. 

Not  content  with  the  many  violations  of  chronology  that  have  been  mentioned,  the 
pretended  translator  of  Ossian  takes  no  less  liberties  both  with  geography  and  topography, 
transporting  Moylena,  for  instance,  the  scene  of  two  famous  battles,  from  the  King's 
County  to  Ulster,  and  transferring  even  Teamor,  or  Tara,  the  celebrated  residence  of 
the  ancient  monarchs,  from  its  natural  site  in  Meath  to  the  same  northern  province.f 
While  thus  lavishing  upon  Ulster  glories  that  do  not  belong  to  it,  he  has,  on  the  other 
hand,  robbed  it  of  some  peculiarly  its  own;  and  passing  in  silence  over  the  memorable 
Emania,  the  seat  of  the  old  Ultonian  kings,  he  has  chosen  to  substitute  some  castle  of 
Tura,  his  own  invention,  in  its  place.  Instead  of  Craove-Roe,  too,  the  military  school  of 
the  Red-Branch  Knights,  near  Emania,  he  has  called  up  some  structure,  under  the  exotic 
name  of  Muri's  Hall,  which  is  no  less  the  baseless  fabric  of  his  own  fancy  than  the  castle 
ofTura.t 

It  may  be  thought  that  animadversions  of  this  nature  upon  a  romance  still  so  popular, 
belong  more  properly  to  the  department  of  criticism  than  of  history.  But  a  work  which 
Gibbon,  in  tracing  the  fortunes  of  Imperial  Rome,  has  turned  aside  from  his  stately  march 
to  notice,  may  well  lay  claim  to  some  portion  of  attention  from  the  humble  historian  of 
the  country  to  which  all  the  Chiefs  so  fabulously  commemorated  by  it,  in  reality  belonged. 
Had  the  aim  of  the  forgery  been  confined  to  the  ordinary  objects  of  romance,  namely,  to 
delight  and  interest,  any  such  grave  notice  of  its  anachronisms  and  inconsistencies  would 
have  been  here  misplaced.  But  the  imposture  of  Macpherson  was,  at  the  least,  as  much 
historical  as  poetical.  His  suppression,  for  it  could  hardly  have  been  ignorance,^  of  the 
true  history  of  the  Irish  settlement  in  Argyleshire,  so  early  as  the  middle  of  the  third  cen- 
tury,— a  fact  fatal  to  the  whole  groundwork  of  his  pretended  Scottish  history, — could 
have  proceeded  only  from  a  deliberate  system  of  deception,  having  for  its  object  so  far  to 
reverse  the  historical  relationship  between  the  two  countries,  as  to  make  Scotland  the 

*  "  The  Irish  annalists  speak  of  the  Danes  in  the  latter  end  of  the  eighth  century,  as  being  covered  with 
armour;  but  they  never  speak  of  the  Irish  troops  being  so  equipped.  Giraldus  Canibrensis  describes  particu- 
larly the  arms  of  the  Irish,  but  says  not  one  word  of  their  wearing  armour." — Essay  upon  Ossian,  by  Edward 
O'Reilly,  Esq. 

f  For  a  more  detailed  exposure  of  these,  and  many  other  such  blunders,  see  Dissertation  on  the  First 
Migrations  and  Final  Settlement  of  the  Scots  in  North  Britain,  by  Mr.  O'Connor,  of  Belanagare. 

i  The  fortress  of  Tura  is,  indeed,  mentioned  by  Mr.  Beauford,  who  as  an  authority,  however,  is  of  little 
more  value  than  Macpherson  himself: — "  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Cromla,"  says  this  writer,  "  stood  the  ratJi 
or  fortress  of  Tura,  called  by  the  Irish  writers  Alich  Neid." — indent  Topography  of  Ireland. 

§  Some  of  his  own  countrymen  think  more  charital)ly  of  him.— "  Above  all,"  says  a  writer  already  referred 
to,  "Macpherson  was  ignorant  of  the  real  history  of  the  colony  of  the  Dalriads,  or  Irish  Scots,  who  possessed 
themselves  of  a  part  of  Argyleshire,  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century;  an  indubitable  fact,  inconsistent  with 
his  whole  syslem."— Edinburgh  Review,  \o\.  \\i..  Report  of  the  Highland  Society .  We  are,  however,  justified  in 
imputing  to  Macpherson  something  much  worse  than  ignorance,  when,  in  works  professedly  historical  and 
argumentative,  we  find  him  falling  into  the  same  disingenuous  practices,  and  not  hesitating  to  alter,  suppress 
or  falsify,  according  as  it  suited  his  immediate  purpose.  Of  all  this  lie  is  proved  to  have  been  guilty  in  his 
Introduction  to  the  History  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  "The  total  omission,"  says  his  opponent,  "of 
some  expressions  that  must  have  disproved  the  application  of  the  passages,  the  careful  discharge  of  all  hostile 
words  from  the  quotations,  and  the  officious  interpolation  of  friendly  in  their  room— facts  that  appear  evident 
upon  the  face  of  the  extracts  above— certainly  give  an  unhappy  aspect  of  disingenuousness  to  the  whole,  and 
may  seem  to  discredit  the  integrity  and  honour  of  Mr.  Macpherson."— Genuine /iistori/  of  the  Britons  Asserted, 
chap.  i. 


86  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

sole  source  of  all  those  materials  for  poetry  which  she  had  in  reality  derived  througli 
colonization  from  Ireland. 

The  weight  given  to  these  compositions,  as  historical  evidences,  by  the  weak  credulity 
with  which°they  were  at  first  received,  has  now  long  passed  away.  But  it  ought  never, 
in  recording  the  "follies  of  the  wise,"  to  be  forgotten  that  the  critical  Blair  believed 
implicitly  in  the  genuineness  of  these  rhapsodies;  and  that  by  two  grave  historians, 
Henry  and  Whitaker,  they  have  been  actually  referred  to  as  authentic  historical  docu- 
ments; the  former  having  made  use  of  their  authority  in  illustrating  the  early  poetry  of 
the  Britons,  while  the  latter,  in  his  account  of  the  expedition  of  the  emperor  Severus  into 
North  Britain,  makes  up  for  the  silence  of  all  the  ancient  historians,  as  to  its  details,  by 
some  important  particulars  derived  from  the  authentic  page  of  the  Bard  of  Selma ;  in- 
forming us  that  Fingal,  who  was  at  that  time,  as  it  seems,  the  Pendragon  of  Caledonia, 
negotiated  a  peace  with  the  Romans,*  upon  the  banks  of  the  river  Carron.  With  the 
same  ludicrous  seriousness,  in  relating  the  events  of  the  naval  expedition,  under  Niall 
Giallach,  against  the  coasts  of  Britain,  he  describes  the  movements  of  the  numerous  navy 
of  the  ancient  Irish,  the  boatmen  singing  to  the  chime  of  their  oars,  and  the  music  of  the 
harp, — the  shield  of  the  admiral  hung  upon  the  mast,  "a  sufficient  mark  of  itself  in  the 
day,  and  frequently  beat  as  a  signal  at  night," — all  upon  the  joint  authority  of  the  poets, 
Claudian  and  Ossian  I 

In  one  point  of  view,  the  imposture  has  not  been  unserviceable  to  the  cause  of  histori- 
cal truth,  inasmuch  as,  by  directing  public  attention  to  the  subject,  it  has  led  to  a  more 
correct  and  more  generally  diffused  knowledge  of  the  early  relations  between  Scotland 
and  Ireland,  and  rendered  impossible,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  any  recurrence  of  that  confusion 
between  the  annals  of  the  two  countries, — that  mist  thrown  purposely,  in  many  instances, 
around  their  early  connexion, — in  which  alone  such  antiquarian  pretensions  and  histori- 
cal fictions  as  those  of  Fordun,  Hector  Boece,  Dempster,  and  lastly,  Macpherson  himself, 
could  have  hoped  to  escape  detection.  The  spirit  of  inquiry,  too,  that  was  awakened  by 
so  long  a  course  of  controversy,  has  proved  favourable  no  less  to  the  literary  than  to  the 
historical  claims  of  ancient  Ireland ;  as  it  was  found  that,  in  her  songs  and  romances, 
which  had  been  adopted  by  the  Scots  of  Britain,  as  well  as  her  heroes,  lay  the  ground- 
work, however  scanty,  of  this  modern  fabric  of  fiction ;  that,  eo  far  from  her  descendants, 
the  Scots  of  Albany,  having  any  pretensions  to  an  original  literature  or  distinct  school  of 
poesy,  there  had  never  existed,  among  the  Highlanders,  any  books  but  Irish  ;t  and  while 
the  scholars  of  Ireland  could  boast  of  manuscripts  in  their  own  tongue,  near  a  thousand 
years  old,  it  was  not  till  so  late  as  the  year  1778  that  even  a  Grammar  of  the  Erse  dialect 
of  the  Gaelic  was  in  existence. 

It  has  been  already  mentioned,  that  between  the  Irish  and  the  first  inhabitants  of  North 
Britain  there  had  commenced  an  intercourse  at  a  very  early  period.  According  to  all 
accounts,  the  ancient  Piclish  colony  that  finally  fixed  themselves  in  Britain,  had,  on  their 
way  to  that  country,  rested  for  a  time  in  Ireland,  and  had  been  provided  from  thence,  at 
their  own  request,  with  wives.  The  friendship  founded  upon  this  early  connexion  was 
kept  alive  by  continued  intercourse  between  the  two  nations;  and  though  the  footing 
the  Irish  obtained  in  the  third  century  upon  the  western  coast  of  North  Britain,  produced 
a  jealousy  which  sometimes  disturbed,  and,  even  at  one  period,  endangered  this  small 
colony,!  the  advantage  derived  by  both  nations  from  such  an  alliance,  kept  their  fierce 
and  feverish  union  unbroken.  In  addition  to  the  pride  which  Ireland  naturally  felt  in 
the  task  of  watching  over  and  nursing  into  vigour  that  germ  of  future  dominion  which 
she  had  planted  in  North  Britain,  her  kings  and  princes,  eternally  at  war  with  each 
other,  as  naturally  looked  beyond  their  own  shores  for  allies;  and,  accordingly,  as  in  the 
instance  of  the  monarch  Tuathal,  who  owed  his  throne  to  the  aid  of  Pictish  arms,  we 

♦  History  of  Manchester,  book  i.  chap.  xii.  sect.  2. 

t  "  It  might  boldly  ho  averred  that  the  Irish,  who  have  written  a  host  of  grammars,  did  not  derive  their 
prosody  from  the  Caledonians,  who,  till  within  these  thirty  years,  had  never  jiossessed  so  much  as  the  skele- 
ton of  a  national  grammar."— /Jacics's  Claims  of  Ossian.  Dr.  Ferguson,  loo,  in  his  communication  to  the 
JJighlanil  Society,  admits  that  there  were  "  no  hooks  in  the  Gaelic  language  but  the  manuals  of  religion  ;  and 
these  in  so  awkward  and  clumsy  a  spelling,  that  few  could  read  them." 

X  According  to  some  writers,  almost  the  whole  of  this  Irish  colony,  reduced  to  extremity  by  the  constant 
attacks  of  the  I'icts,  were  compelled,  in  the  middle,  it  is  said,  of  the  fiftli  century,  (about  tifty  years  before 
the  establishment  of  ihu  Scotic  kingdom  in  North  Britain,)  to  abandon  their  possessions  in  Argyleshire,  and 
lake  flight  to  Ireland,  where  they  found  a  refuge  in  the  hereditary  territory  of  the  Dalriadic  princes.  Neither 
in  Tigernach,  however,  nor  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  does  there  occur  any  mention  of  such  an 
event,  which  seems  to  depend  wholly  upon  the  authority  of  theScotish  writers,  Major,  Boece,  Buchanan,  &c., 
whose  misrepresentation  of  most  of  the  other  facts  connected  with  the  event,  renders  them  but  suspicious 
testimonies  on  tlie  subject  of  the  Dalriadic  settlement.  Mr.  O'Connor,  however,  has  adopted  the  same  unau- 
thorized view.  "  The  British  Dalriada,"  he  states, "  was  exercised  by  frequent  hostilities  from  the  Cruthneans, 
and,  at  one  period,  with  so  good  success,  that  they  forced  almost  the  whole  colony  to  take  flight  i^nto  Ireland, 
under  their  leader,  Eochad  Munrevar,  who  found  a  secure  retreat  for  his  followers  in  the  Insii  Dalriada." — 
Dissert,  on  hist,  of  Scotland, 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  87 

find  the  alliance  of  that  people  frequently  resorted  to  as  a  means  of  turning  tlie  scale  of 
internal  strife.  On  the  other  hand,  the  hardy  highlanders  of  Caledonia,  in  the  constant 
warfare  they  waged  with  their  southern  neighbours,  were  no  less  ready  to  resort  to  the 
assistance  of  a  people  fully  as  restless  and  pugnacious  as  themselves,  and  whose  manners 
and  habits,  from  a  long  course  of  connexion,  were,  it  is  probable,  but  little  different  from 
their  own. 

As  some  defence  against  the  incursions  of  these  two  hostile  tribes,  the  Romans  had,  at 
different  intervals  during  the  second  and  third  centuries,  erected  those  three  great  walls 
or  ramparts  on  the  northern  frontier  of  their  province,  whose  remains  still  continue  to 
occupy  the  curious  research  and  speculation  of  the  antiquary.  But  the  hostility  of  these 
highlanders  had,  at  the  period  of  which  we  are  now  treating,  assumed  a  still  more  auda- 
cious and  formidable  character;  and,  about  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  so  destruc- 
tive had  become  their  inroads,  that  it  required  the  presence  of  the  son  of  Constantine,  to 
make  head  against  and  repel  them.  Whatever  differences  their  relative  position,  as  rival 
neighbours,  had  given  rise  to,  were  entirely  merged  in  their  common  object  of  harassing 
the  Britons,  whom  a  native  historian  describes  as  trembling  with  the  fear  of  a  new  visi- 
tation, while  still  fainting  from  the  dire  effects  of  the  tempest  which  had  just  swept  over 
them. 

To  deliver  the  province  from  this  scourge,  one  of  the  bravest  of  the  Roman  generals, 
Theodosius,  was  now  appointed  to  the  military  command  of  Britain ;  and  after  two  active 
campaigns,  during  which  he  had  to  contend,  not  only  with  the  Picts  and  Scots  by  land, 
but  also  with  their  new  allies,  the  Saxon  pirates,  by  sea,  he  at  length  succeeded  in  de- 
livering Britain  from  her  inveterate  invaders.  To  such  daring  lengths  had  some  of  these 
incursions  into  her  territory  extended,  that,  on  the  arrival  of  the  Roman  general,  he  had 
found  the  Picts  and  their  allies  advanced  as  far  as  London  and  Kent.*  In  all  this  war- 
fare the  Scots  of  Ireland  were  no  less  active  than  their  brethren  of  Albany;  and  it  is, 
therefore,  remarkable  that  the  Roman  commander,  though  fitting  out  a  fleet  to  chastise 
the  Saxons  in  the  Orcades,  should  yet  have  left  Ireland,  whose  currachs  wafted  over 
such  hostile  swarms  to  his  shores,  still  exempt  from  invasion.  That  his  fleet  chased, 
however,  some  of  her  vessels  into  their  own  northern  harbours,  may  be  concluded  from 
a  passage  of  the  poem  of  Claudian,  which  commemorates  this  war: — 

"  Nee  falso  nomine  Pictos 
Edomuit,  Scotumque  vago  mucrone  secutus, 
Fregit  Hyperboreas  remis  audacibus  undas." 

The  few  following  lines  from  the  same  poem  describe,  briefly  and  picturesquely,  the 
signal  triumph  over  the  three  hostile  nations  which  Theodosius  had  achieved : — 

"  Maduerunt  Saxone  fuso 
Orc.ides,  incaluit  Pictoruni  sanguine  Thule, 
Scotorum  cumulos  flevii  glacialis  lerne." 

From  this  period  there  occurs  nothing  very  remarkable  in  the  course  of  Irish  affairs 
till  about  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  when  the  violent  usurpation  of  the  sove- 
reign throne  by  Huas  Colla,  one  of  three  brothers  bearing  the  same  name,  produced  a 
long  series  of  tumultuous  and  sanguinary  scenes.  The  battle,  in  which  the  rightful 
monarch,  Fiacb,  lost  his  crown  and  his  life  to  the  usurper,  is  distinguished  among  the 
countless  fields  of  carnage  upon  record,  by  the  title  of  the  Battle  of  Dubcomar;  from  the 
circumstance  of  the  monarch's  favourite  Druid  of  that  name  having  been  among  the 
number  of  the  slain.  This  and  other  such  known  instances  of  Druidical  warriors,  show 
that  justly  as  Macpherson  has,  in  general,  been  accused  of  giving  false  pictures  of  Irish 
manners,  his  introduction  of  "Fighting  Druids"  is  not  to  be  reckoned  among  the  nutn- 
ber.f  The  name  of  Landerg,  or  Bloody  Hand,  affixed  by  tradition,  as  we  are  told,  to  the 
Druid  who  has  lived  enchanted,  it  is  thought,  for  ages,  in  one  of  the  mountains  of  the 
county  of  Donegal,  proves  the  sort  of  warlike  reputation  that  was  attached  to  some  of 
this  priesthood ;  and  we  learn  from  Caesar,  that  even  so  solemn  a  question  as  the  election 
of  a  High  Priest  used,  among  the  Gaulish  Druids,  to  be  decided  sometimes  by  an  appeal 
to  arms. 

*  See  Ammian.  lib.  xxvii.  c.  8.,  who  describes  them  as  penetrating  "ad  Lundinium  vetus  oppidum,  quod 
Augustam  posteritas  appellavit."  r  b 

t  O'Reiily's  Essay  upon  Ossian,  where  this  objection  is  brought  forward.  "  From  the  very  name  of  Lam- 
derg,  says  Toland,  "  we  learn  what  sort  of  man  the  Druid  was,  who,  by  the  vulgar,  is  thought  to  live  en- 
chanted in  the  mountain  between  Buniranach  and  Fathen,  in  the  county  of  Donegal."  lie  adds,  that  the 
Uruids  were  many  of  Ihem  warriors, 


88  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

After  a  reign  of  five  years,  the  usurper  Colla  was  compelled  to  abdicate  the  sovereignty 
by  the  rightful  successor  of  the  late  monarch,  Muredach  Tiry,  and  the  three  Collas  took 
flight,  attended  by  300  followers,  to  North  Britain.*  From  thence  returning  in  the  course 
of  a  year,  they  found  means  to  conciliate,  through  the  intervention  of  the  Druids,  the 
good-will  of  the  monarch  Muredach,  and  were  also  by  his  aid  enabled  to  make  war  on 
the  King  of  Ulster,  and  dispossess  him  of  his  dominions.  It  was  in  the  course  of  the 
struggle  consequent  on  this  invasion,  that  the  princely  palace  of  Emania,  whose  construc- 
tion formed  one  of  the  great  epochs  of  Irish  chronology,  was,  after  a  battle,  upon  which, 
we  are  told,  six  successive  suns  went  down,  destroyed  by  the  victorious  army,  and  not  a 
trace  of  its  long-celebrated  glories  left  behind. 

An  invasion  of  Britain,  on  a  far  more  extensive  and  formidable  scale  than  had 
A.  D.  yet  been  attempted  from  Ireland,  took  place  towards  the  close  of  the  fourth  cen- 
390-7.  tury,  under  the  auspices  of  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  one  of  the  most  gallant  of 
all  the  princes  of  the  Milesian  race.  Observing  that  the  Romans,  after  breaking 
up  their  lines  of  encampment  along  the  coast  opposite  to  Ireland,  had  retired  to  the  east- 
ern shore  and  the  northern  wall,  Nial  perceived  that  an  apt  opportunity  was  thus  offered 
for  a  descent  upon  the  now  unprotected  territory.  Instantly  summoning,  therefore,  all 
the  forces  of  the  island,  and  embarking  them  on  board  such  ships  as  he  could  collect,  he 
ranged  with  his  numerous  navy  along  the  whole  coast  of  Lancashire,  effected  a  landing 
in  Wales,  from  whence  he  carried  off  immense  plunder,  and,  though  compelled  ultimately 
to  retreat,  left  marks  of  depredation  and  ruin  wherever  he  passed. f  It  was  against  the 
incursions  of  this  adventui'ous  monarch,  that  some  of  those  successes  were  achieved  by 
the  Romans,  which  threw  such  lustre  around  the  military  administration  of  Stilicho,  and 
inspired  the  muse  of  Claudian  in  his  praise.  "  By  him,"  says  the  poet,  speaking  in  the 
person  of  Britannia,  "  was  I  protected  when  the  Scot  moved  all  Ireland  against  me,  and 
the  ocean  foamed  with  his  hostile  oars."J  From  another  of  this  poet's  eulogies,  it  appears 
that  the  fame  of  that  Roman  legion  which  had  guarded  the  frontier  of  Britain  against  the 
invading  Scots,5  procured  for  it  the  distinction  of  being  one  of  those  summoned  to  the 
banner  of  Stilicho,  when  the  Goths  threatened  Rome.}] 

Joined  with  the  Picts  and  Scots,  in  these  expeditions,  were  also  another  warlike  Irish 
tribe,  the  Attacots  ;  who,  at  an  earlier  period  of  their  country's  history,  had  distinguished 
themselves  by  their  turbulent  bravery;  having  been  the  chief  movers  of  those  two  rebel- 
lions known  by  the  name  of  the  Attacottic  Wars.  The  fierce  valour  of  these  wild 
warriors,  who,  after  their  settlement  in  North  Britain,  inhabited  chiefly  the  districts 
close  to  Adrian's  Wall,  seems  to  have  attracted  the  especial  attention  of  the  Romans, 
who,  acting  upon  the  policy,  which  proved  so  fatal  to  them  in  the  decline  of  the  empire, 
of  incorporating  with  their  own  legions,  and  even  with  Palatine  troops,  auxiliaries  or 
deserters  from  the  barbarian  camps,  succeeded  in  detaching  some  of  these  Attacotti  from 
the  Scoto-Pictish  league,  and  enrolling  them  in  the  regular  force  of  the  empire.lT 

*  A  poem  is  extant,  written  in  the  twelfth  century,  by  Giolla  na  Naomh  O'Dunn,  giving  "  an  account  of 
the  chief  tribes  descended  from  tlie  three  Collas,  sons  of  Carbre  Leffoachar,  monarch  of  Ireland,  who  was 
killed  at  the  battle  of  Gabhra,  k.  d.  290." — Trans,  of  lb.  Celt.  Society.  A  manuscript  copy  of  this  poem  is  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  O'Reilly,  the  Secretary  of  the  Iberno-Celtic  Society. 

t  "  In  the  days  of  Stilicho  particularly,  leaving  the  country  between  the  Walls  to  be  ravaged  by  their  bre- 
thren of  Argyle  and  the  Picts,  they  (the  Scots  of  Ireland)  made  a  descent  on  the  provinces  that  were  inac- 
cessible to  them,  landed  in  both  of  the  divisions  of  Wales,  and  now,  for  the  first  time,  possessed  themselves 
of  the  Island  of  Man." — Oenuine  Hist,  of  the  Britons. 

I  Totam  cum  Scotus  Icrnin 

Movit  et  infesto  spumavit  remige  Tethys. 

In  I.  Cons.  Stilich.  lib.  i. 
Thus  well  translated  in  the  English  Camden  :— 

When  Scots  came  thundering  from  the  Irish  shores. 
And  th'  ocean  trembled,  struck  with  hostile  oars. 

§  The  following  remarks  are  not  the  less  worthy  of  being  cited  for  their  having  come  from  the  pen  of  a 
writer  who  was  either  so  ignorant  or  so  prejudiced  as  to  contend,  that  the  Scots  who  fought  by  the  side  of  the 
Picts  against  the  Romans  were  not  really  Irish: — "  There  can  be  no  greater  proof  of  the  Scots  never  having 
been  conquered,  than  the  very  Roman  walls  themselves,  built  as  fences  against  their  hostilities;  which, 
while  there  is  a  stone  of  them  remaining,  will  be  undeniable  monuments  of  the  valour  and  prowess  of  that 
nation." — Gordon,  Itinerarium  Hcptentrionale,  chap.  xiv. 

II  Venit  et  extremis  Legio  prtetenta  Britannis, 
Quffi  Scoto  dat  fra;na  truci,  ferroque  notatas 
Perlegit  exanimes  Picto  moriente  figuras. 

De  Bella  Oeiico. 

IT  In  the  JiTotitia  Imperii,  the  Attacotti  are  expressly  named.  "  Procedente  tempore  cum  bellicosos  et  for- 
midandos  Romani  invenissent,  pra-miis  propositis  et  sese  auxiliariis  adscriberent  allexerunt,  ideoque  Atta- 
cottos  in  Notitia  Imperii  nominatos  invenimus,  curante  Honorio,  ut  ex  inimicis  amici  et  vacillantis  Imperii 
defensores  haberentur."— Acr.  Ilibern.  Script.,  Prol.  1.  Ixxi. 


HISTOPvY  OF  IRELAND.  89 

The  tottering  slate  of  the  Roman  dominion  in  Gaul,  as  well  as  in  every  other  quarter, 
at  this  period,  encouraged  the  Hero  of  the  Nine  Hostages  to  extend  his  enterprises  to 
the  coast  of  Britany;  where,  after  ravaging  all  the  maritime  districts  of  the  north-west 
of  Gaul,  he  was  at  length  assassinated,  with  a  poisoned  arrow,  by  one  of  his  own  followers, 
near  the  Portus  Iccius,  not  far,  it  is  supposed,  from  the  site  of  the  present  Boulogne.  It 
was  in  the  course  of  this  predatory  expedition  that,  in  one  of  their  descents  on  the  coast 
of  Armoric  Gaul,  the  soldiers  of  Nial  carried  off  with  them,  among  other  captives,  a 
youth,  then  in  his  sixteenth  year,  whom  Providence  had  destined  to  be  the  author  of  a 
great  religious  revolution  in  their  country;  and  whom  the  strangely  fated  land  to  which 
he  was  then  borne,  a  stranger  and  a  slave,  has  now,  for  fourteen  hundred  years,  com- 
memorated as  its  great  Christian  apostle. 

An  accession  of  territory  was,  during  this  reign,  added  to  the  Irish  possessions  in  North 
Britain  ;  the  two  sons  of  Cork,  King  of  Munster,  having  acquired  seigniories  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Picts,  the  one  of  Levinia,  or  Lenox ;  the  other,  of  Moygergin,  in  Mar,  a 
county  of  the  present  Scotland. 

To  Nial  the  Great  succeeded  Dathy,  the  last  of  the  Pagan  monarchs  of  Ireland,  and 

not  unworthy  to  follow,  as  a  soldier  and  adventurer,  in  the  path  opened  to  him  by 

A.  n.  his  heroic  predecessor.     Not  only,  like  Nial,  did  he  venture  to  invade  the  coasts 

406.  of  Gaul ;  but,  allured  by  the  prospect  of  plunder,  which  the  state  of  the  province, 

then  falling  fast  into  dismemberment,  held  forth,  forced  his  way  to  the  foot  of  the 

Alps,  and  was  there  killed,  it  is  said,  by  a  flash  of  lightning,  leaving  the  throne  of  Ireland 

to  be  filled  thenceforward  by  a  line  of  Christian  kings. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CREDIBILITY  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  PAGAN  IRELAND. 

Before  entering  upon  the  new  epoch  of  Irish  history,  which  is  about  to  open  upon  us 
with  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  a  review  of  the  general  features  of  the  period  over 
which  we  have  passed  may  be  found  not  uninteresting  or  unuseful.  With  regard  to  the 
first  and  most  material  question,  the  authenticity  of  those  records  on  which  the  fore- 
going brief  sketch  of  Pagan  Ireland  is  founded,  it  is  essential,  in  the  first  place,  to 
distinguish  clearly  between  what  are  called  the  Bardic  Historians, — certain  metrical 
writers,  who  flourished  from  the  ninth  to  the  eleventh  century, — and  those  regular 
chroniclers  or  annalists  of  whom  a  long  series  was  continued  down,  there  is  every  reason 
to  believe,  from  very  early  ages,  and  whose  successive  records  have  been  embodied  and 
transmitted  to  us  in  the  Annals  of  Tigernach,*  in  those  of  the  Four  Masters,!  of  Inisfallen, 
of  Ulster,J  and  many  others.  § 

To  the  metrical  historians  above  mentioned  is  to  be  attributed  the  credit,  if  not  of 
originally  inventing,  at  least  of  amplifying  and  embellishing,  that  tale  of  the  Milesian 
colonization  which  so  many  grave  and  respectable  writers  have,  since  their  time,  adopted. 
In  his  zeal  for  the  credit  of  this  national  legend,  the  late  learned  librarian  of  Stowe  has 
endeavoured  to  enlist  some  of  the  more  early  Irish  poets  in  its  support. ||     On  his  own 

"  The  Attacotti  make  a  distinguislied  figure  in  the  Notitia  Imperii,  where  numerous  bodies  of  them  appear 
in  the  list  of  the  Roman  army.  One  body  was  in  Illyricum,  their  ensign  a  kind  of  mullet ;  another  at  Rome, 
their  badge  a  circle  ;  the  .Attacotti  Hoiioriani  were  in  Italy." — Pinkerton,  Inquiry,  part  iv.  chap.  2. 

*  In  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  for  the  year  1088,  the  death  of  this  annalist  is  thus  recorded  :— "  Tiger- 
nach O'Braoin,  Comorhan,  or  Successor  of  Kieran  of  Clonmacnois  and  of  St.  Coman  (i.  e.  Abbot  of  Clonmac- 
nots  and  Roscommon,)  a  learned  lecturer  and  historian." 

t  Compiled  in  the  seventeenth  century,  by  Michael  O'Clery,  with  the  assistance  of  three  other  antiquaries, 
and  "chiefly  drawn,"  says  Harris,  "from  the  annals  of  Clonmacnois,  Inisfall,  and  Senat,  as  well  as  from 
other  approved  and  ancient  chronicles  of  Ireland."  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  various  sources  from  whence 
these  records  were  derived,  see  Mr.  Petrie's  Remarks  on  the  History  and  Authenticity  of  the  Autograph 
Original  of  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  now  deposited  in  the  library  of  the  R.  I.  A.  Academy. 

X  Published,  for  the  first  time,  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  from  a  Bodleian  manuscript  of  the  year  1215. 

§  A  long  list  of  these  various  books  of  Annals  maybe  found  in  Nicholson's  Historical  Library,  chap.  2; 
also  in  the  preface  to  Keating's  History,  xxi. 

|[  For  the  very  slight  grounds,  or,  rather,  mere  pretence  of  grounds,  upon  which  Dr.  O'Connor  lays  claim 

to  Fiech  and  Confealad,  Irish  poets  of  the  si.xth  and  seventh  centuries,  as  authorities  for  the  Milesian  story, 

see,  among  other  passages,  Ep.  Nunc,  xxxiv.,  Prol.2.  xv.  xxvi     Having  once  claimed  them,  thus  gratuitously, 

as  favouring  his  views  of  tlie  subject,  he  continues  constantly  after  to  refer  to  them,  as  concurrent  authorities 

11 


90  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

sbowino-,  however,  it  is  manifest  that  in  no  Irish  writings  before  those  of  Maolmura,* 
who  died  towards  the  close  of  the  ninth  century,  are  any  traces  whatever  of  the  Milesian 
fable  to  be  found. 

There  appears  little  doubt,  indeed,  that  to  some  metrical  writers  of  the  ninth  century 
the  first  rudiments  of  this  wild  romance  respecting  the  origin  of  the  Irish  people  are  to 
be  assigned;  that  succeeding  writers  took  care  to  amplify  and  embellish  the  original 
sketch  r  and  that  in  the  hands  of  the  author  or  authors  of  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,f  it 
assumed  that  full-blown  form  of  fiction  and  extravagance  in  which  it  has  ever  since 
flourished.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  too,  that  the  same  British  writer,  Nennius,  who 
furnished  Geoffry  of  Monmouth  with  his  now  exploded  fables  of  tiie  descent  of  the  Britons 
from  King  Brute  and  the  Trojnns,  was  tlie  first  also  who  put  forth  the  tale  of  the  Scythian 
ancestors  of  the  Irish,  and  of  their  coming,  in  the  fourth  age  of  the  world,  by  the  way  of 
Africa  and  Spain,  into  Hibernia.  Having  conversed,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  with  the  most 
learned  among  the  Scots.J  and  been  by  tiiem,  it  is  evident,  informed  of  their  early  tradi- 
tions respecting  a  colony  from  Spain,  he  was  tempted  to  eke  out  their  genealogy  for 
them  by  extending  it  as  far  as  Scythia  and  the  Red  Sea,  just  as  he  had  provided  the 
Britons  with  Trojan  progenitors,  under  the  command  of  King  Brute,  from  Greece. 

To  our  metrical  historians  may  be  assigned  also  the  credit  of  inventing  that  specious 
system  of  chronology  upon  which  the  fabric  of  their  fabled  antiquity  entirely  rests,  and 
which,  though  well  calculated  to  eflx;ct  the  object  of  its  inventors, — that  of  carrying  back 
to  remote  times  the  date  of  the  Milesian  dynasty, — proves  them  not  to  have  been  over- 
scrupulous in  the  means  they  used  for  that  purpose.^  It  is.  Indeed,  as  I  have  already, 
more  than  once,  remarked,  far  less  in  the  events  themselves,  than  in  the  remote  date 
assigned  to  those  events,  that  much  of  the  delusion  attributed  in  general  to  Irish 
history  lies.  The  ambition  of  a  name  ancient  as  the  world,  and  the  lax,  accommodating 
chronology,  which  is  found  ever  ready,  in  the  infancy  of  science,  to  support  such  preten- 
sions, has  led  the  Irish,  as  it  has  led  most  other  nations,  to  antedate  their  own  existence 
and  fame. II 

Together  with  the  primitive  mode  of  numbering  ages  and  ascertaining  the  dates  of. 
public  events,  by  the  successions  of  kings  and  the  generations  of  men,  the  ancient  Irish 
possessed  also  a  measure  of  time  in  their  two  great  annual  festivals  of  Baal  and  of  Samhin, 
the  recurrence  of  which  at  certain  fixed  periods  furnished  points,  in  each  year,  from 
whence  to  calculate.  How  far  even  History  may  advance  to  perfection  where  no  more 
regular  chronology  exists,  appears  in  the  instance  of  Tliucydides,  who  was  able  to  enrich 
the  world  with  his  "  treasure  for  all  time"  before  any  era  from  whence  to  date  had  yet 

with  those  later  bardic  historians,  in  whom  alone  tlic  true  origin  and  substance  of  the  whole  story  is  to  be 
found. 

The  Psalter-na-Rann  attributed  to  tlie  Culdee,  iCngus,  which  is  another  of  the  writings  appealed  to  by  Dr. 
O'Connor,  on  this  point,  was,  however,  not  the  work  of  that  pious  author  (who  wrote  solely  on  religious 
subjects,)  nor  of  a  date  earlier,  as  is  evident,  than  the  tenth  century.  See  Lanigaii,  Ecclesiast.  Hist.,  chap. 
XX.  note  107. 

*  This  writer,  who  died  in  the  year  884,  was  the  author  of  a  poem,  beginning,  "  Let  ns  sing  the  origin  of 
the  Gadelians:"  in  which,  deriving  the  origin  of  the  Miles<ians  from  Japhet,  son  of  Noah,  he  gives  an  account 
of  the  peregrinations  of  the  ancestors  of  the  Irish  from  the  dispersion  at  Babel  to  the  arrival  in  Ireland. 
Contemporary  with  Maolmura  was  Flann  Mac  Lonan,  of  whose  compositions  there  remain,  says  Mr.  O'Reilly, 
three  poems,  which  "  are  to  be  found  in  the  account  of  the  spreading  branches  of  Heber,  son  of  Milesius,  in 
the  Leabhar  Muimhneach,  or  3Iunster  Book." 

t  From  this  work,  which  was  compiled,  about  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century,  by  Cormac  Mac  Culinan, 
Bishop  of  Cashel  and  King  of  3Iunster.  Keating  professes  to  have  drawn  a  great  part  of  his  History  of  Ire- 
land. "Since  most,"  says  Keating, "of  the  authentic  records  of  Ireland  are  composed  in  dann,  or  verse,  I 
shall  receive  them  as  the  principal  testimonies  to  follow  in  compiling  the  following  history;  for,  notwith- 
standing that  some  of  the  chronicles  in  Ireland  differ  from  these  poetical  records  in  some  cases,  yet  the  tes- 
timony of  the  annals  that  were  written  in  verse  is  not  for  that  reason  invalid." — Preface.  About  the  middle 
of  the  tenth  century  flourished  Eothaidh  O'Floinn,  whose  poems,  relating  to  the  marvels  of  the  first  Irish 
colonies,  the  bailies  between  the  Nemelhians  and  the  sea  rovers,  the  destruction  of  (;;onan's  Tower,  are  still 
preserved  in  the  books  of  Glendalough,  Ballymote,  and  Leacan,  the  Dinn  Seanchas,  Book  of  Invasions,  &c. 

J  "  Sic  mihi  perilissimi  Scottorum  nuntiaverunt."     Nennius  wrote  about  the  year  858. 

§  The  extravagant  chronology  of  the  nietricai  catalogues  of  kings  given  by  GillaCoeman,  and  other  later 
bards,  is  fully  acknowledged  by  Dr.  O'Connor  himself:—"  Hujc  plane  indicant  nostras,  de  Scotorum  origine, 
et  primo  in  Iliberniam  ac  inde  in  Britainniam  advenlu,  tradiliones  nieiricas  historica  esse  fide  sudullas  ;  sed 
dum  bardi  prodigiosan!  anticiuilalem  majoribus  adscribere  conarenlur  id  tantum  fingendi  licentia  efficere 
ut  quas  illustrare  debueraiii  veritates  offuscarent,  et  dum  Hiberniam  fabulis  nobilitare  cupiunt  ipsi  sibi 
fldem  ita  derogant  ut  poslea,  cum  ad  tempora  historica  descendunt,  etsi  vera  dixerint,  nimia  severitate 
redarguantur." — Prol.  a.  xlvi. 

It  wasby  Cocman.  notwithstanding,  that  author  of  Ogygia  chiefly  regulated  his  chronology;  and 
the  erudite  effort.s  which  lie  makes  to  reconcile  his  system  to  conmion  sense,  show  how  laboriously,  some- 
times, the  learned  can  go  astray.  "  It  is  no  wonder,"  says  Mr.  O'Connor  of  Balenagaro,  "  that  Gilla-Coeman, 
and  many  others  of  our  old  antiquaries,  have  fallen  into  mistakes  and  anachronisms:  to  their  earliest 
reports  Mr.  O'Flaherty  gave  loo  much  credit,  and  to  llieir  later  accounts  Sir  James  Ware  gave  too  little."— 
Reflections  on  the /list  of  Ireland,  Collectan.  No.  10. 

II  "The  Danes,"  sailii  Dudo  S.  Quiniin,"  derived  themselves  from  the  Danai;  the  Prussians  from  Prusias, 
King  of  Bithynia,  who  brought  the  Greeks  along  wilh  them.  Onlv  Hie  Scots  and  Irish  had  llic  wit  to  derive 
themselves  from  the  Greeha  and  Kgypiiaiis  logciher."— .^Kijy.  vf  hrlUsk  Ckurchcs. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  91 

been  established  in  Greece.  It  was,  iiovvevcr,  in  this  very  mode  of  computing  by  regal 
successions  that  the  great  source  of  the  false  chronology  of  the  Irish  antiquaries  lay. 
From  the  earliest  times,  the  government  of  that  country  consisted  of  a  cluster  of  king- 
doms, where,  besides  the  monarch  of  the  whole  island  and  the  four  provincial  kings,  there 
was  also  a  number  of  inferior  sovereigns,  or  dynasts,  who  each  affected  the  regal  name 
and  power.  Such  a  state  of  things  it  was  that  both  tempted  and  enabled  the  genealogists 
to  construct  that  fabric  of  fictitious  antiquity  by  which  they  imposed  not  only  on  others, 
but  on  themselves.  Having  such  an  abundance  of  royal  blood  thus  placed  at  their 
disposal,  the  means  afforded  to  them  of  filling  up  the  genealogical  lines,  and  thereby 
extending  back  the  antiquity  of  the  monarchy,  were  flir  too  tempting  to  be  easily  resisted. 
Accordingly, — as  some  of  those  most  sanguine  in  the  cause  of  our  antiquities  have 
admitted, — not  only  were  kings  who  had  been  contemporaries  made  to  succeed  each 
other,  but  even  princes,  acknowledged  only  by  their  respective  factions,  were  promoted 
to  the  rank  of  legitimate  monarchs,  and  took  their  places  in  the  same  regular  succession.* 
By  no  other  expedient,  indeed,  could  so  marvellous  a  list  of  royalty  have  been  fabricated, 
as  that  which  bestows  upon  Ireland,  before  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  no  less  than  a  hundred 
and  thirty-six  monarchs  of  Milesian  blood  ;  thereby  extending  the  date  of  the  Milesian 
or  Scotic  settlement  to  so  remote  a  period  as  more  than  a  thousand  years  before  the  birth 
of  Christ. 

Between  the  metrical  historians,  or  rather  romancers,  of  the  middle  ages,  and  those 
regular  annalists  who,  at  the  same  and  a  later  period,  but  added  their  own  stock  of  con- 
temporary records  to  that  consecutive  series  of  annals  which  had  been  delivered  down, 
in  all  probability,  for  many  ages, — between  these  two  sources  of  evidence,  a  wide  dis- 
tinction, as  I  have  already  inculcated,  is  to  be  drawn. f  It  is  true  that,  in  some  of  the 
collections  of  Annals  that  have  come  down  to  us,  the  fabulous  wonders  of  the  first  four 
ages  of  the  world,  from  Csesara  down  to  the  landing  of  the  sons  of  Milesius,  have  been, 
in  all  their  absurdity,  preserved, — as  they  are,  indeed,  in  most  histories  of  the  country 
down  to  the  present  day.  It  is  likewise  true,  that  by  most  of  the  annalists  the  same 
^deceptive  scheme  of  chronology  has  been  adopted,  by  which  the  lists  of  the  kings  pre- 
ceding the  Christian  era  are  lengthened  out  so  preposterously  into  past  time.  But, 
admitting  to  the  full  all  such  deductions  from  the  authority  of  these  records,  more  espe- 
cially as  regards  their  chronology  for  the  times  preceding  our  era,  still  their  pretensions, 
on  tlie  whole,  to  rank  as  fair  historical  evidence,  can  hardly,  on  any  just  grounds,  be 
questioned. 

From  the  objections  that  have  just  been  alleged  against  most  of  the  other  Books  of 
Annals,  that  of  Tigernach  is  almost  wholly  free  ;  as,  so  far  from  placing  in  the  van  of 
history  the  popular  fictions  of  his  day,  this  chronicler  has  passed  them  over  significantly 
in  silence;  and  beginning  his  Annals  with  a  comparatively  late  monarch,  Kimboath, 
pronounces  the  records  of  the  Scots,  previously  to  that  period,  to  have  been  all  uncertain. |; 
The  feeling  of  confidence  which  so  honest  a  commencement  inspires,  is  fully  justified  by 
the  tone  of  veracity  which  pervades  the  whole  of  his  statements;  and,  according  as  he 
approaches  the  Christian  era,  and,  still  more,  as  he  advances  into  that  period,  the  re- 
markable consistency  of  his  chronology,  his  knowledge  and  accuracy  in  synchronizing 
Irish  events  with  those  of  the  Roman  iiistory,  and  the  uniformly  dry  matter  of  fact  which 
forms  the  staple  of  his  details,  all  bespeak  for  these  records  a  confidence  of  no  ordinary 
kind;  and  render  them,  corroborated  as  they  are  by  other  annals  of  the  same  grave 
description,  a  body  of  evidence,  even  as  to  the  earlier  parts  of  Irish  history,  far  more 
trustworthy  and  chronological  than  can  be  adduced  for  some  of  the  most  accredited  trans- 

*  A  nearlv similar  mode  of  lengttieiiing  out  their  regal  lists  was  practised  among  the  Egyptians.  "Their 
kings,"  saysBryant,  "  had  many  names  and  titles  ;  these  titles  have  been  branched  out  into  iiersons,  and 
inserted  in  the  lists  of  real  monarchs;  ....  by  wliich  means  the  chronology  of  Egypt  has  been  greatly 
embarrassed." 

t  Till  of  late  years  they  have  been,  by  most  writers,  both  English  and  Irish,  confounded.  Thus  the  sensi- 
ble author  of  "  An  Analysis  of  the  Antiquities  of  Ireland,"  who,  though  taking  a  just  and  candid  view  of 
liis  subject,  had  no  means  of  access  to  the  documents  which  alone  could  strengthen  and  illustrate  it,  has,  in 
the  following  passage,  mixed  up  together,  as  of  equal  importance,  our  most  fabulous  compilations  and  most 
authentic  annals: — ■'  Let  us  have  faithful  copies,  with  just  versions  of  the  hidden  records  of  Keating,  of  the 
Psalter  of  Cashel,  of  the  Book  of  Lecan,  of  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen,  of  those  of  the  Four  Masters,  and  of 
every  other  work  which  may  be  judged  to  be  of  importance.  The  requisition  is  simple  as  it  is  reasonable. 
They  have  long  amused  us  with  declamations  on  the  inestimable  value  of  these  literary  treasures;  and 
surely,  after  having  excited  our  curiosity,  their  conduct  will  be  inexcusable,  if  they  do  not  in  the  end  pro- 
vide for  its  gratification." 

t  Doctor  O'Connor,  it  is  right  to  mention,  is  of  opinion  that  Tigernach  had,  like  all  the  other  annalists, 
begun  his  records  from  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  that  the  commencement  of  his  manuscript  has  be^ 
lost.  But,  besides  that,  the  view  taken  by  the  annalist  as  to  the  uncertainty  of  all  earlier  monuments,  sufli- 
ciently  accounts  for  his  not  ascending  any  higher,  all  the  different  manuscripts,  it  appears,  of  hia  Annals 
agree  in  not  carrying  the  records  farther  back  than  a.  c.  305. 


92  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

actions  of  that  early  period  of  Grecian  story,  when,  as  we  know,  the  accounts  of  great 
events  were  iicpt  by  memory  alone.* 

A  learned  writer,  who,  by  the  force  of  evidence,  has  been  constrained  to  admit  the 
antiquity  of  the  lists  of  Irish  kings,  has  yet  the  inconsistency  to  deny  to  this  people,  the 
use  of  letters  before  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick.  It  is  to  be  recollected,  that  the  regal 
lists  which  he  thus  supposes  to  have  been  but  ortally  transmitted,  and  which,  from  the 
commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  are  shown  to  have  been  correctly  kept,  consists  of 
a  Ion"-  succession  of  princes,  in  genealogical  order,  with,  moreover,  the  descent  even 
of  the°collateral  branches  in  all  their  difti^rent  ramitications.f  Such  is  the  nature  of  the 
royal  lists  which,  according  to  this  sapient  supposition,  must  have  been  transmitted  cor- 
rectly, from  memory  to  memory,  through  a  lapse  of  many  centuries;  and  such  the  weak- 
ness of  that  sort  of  skepticism, — not  unmixed  sometimes  with  a  lurking  spirit  of  unfair- 
ness,— which,  while  straining  at  imaginary  difficulties  on  one  side  of  a  question,  is  prepared 
to  swallow  the  most  indigestible  absurdities  on  the  other.  And  here  a  consideration  on 
the  general  subject  of  Irish  antiquities  presents  itself,  which,  as  it  has  had  great  weight 
in  determining  my  own  views  of  the  matter,  may,  perhaps,  not  be  without  some  influence 
on  the  mind  of  my  reader.  In  the  course  of  tliis  chapter  shall  be  laid  before  him  a  view 
of  the  state  in  which  Ireland  was  found  in  the  fifth  century, — of  the  condition  of  her  peo- 
ple, their  forms  of  polity,  institutions,  and  usages  at  that  period  when  the  Christian  faith 
first  visited  her  shores;  and  when,  by  the  light  which  then  broke  in  upon  her  long 
seclusion,  she  became,  for  the  first  time,  in  any  degree  known  to  the  other  nations  of 
Europe.  In  that  very  state,  political  and  social,  in  which  her  people  were  then  found, 
with  the  very  same  laws,  forms  of  government,  manners  and  habits,  did  they  remain, 
without  change  or  innovation,  for  the  space  of  seven  hundred  years ;  and  though,  at  the 
end  of  that  long  period,  brought  abjectly  under  a  foreign  yoke,  yet  continued  unsubdued 
in  their  attachment  to  the  old  law  of  their  country,  nor  would  allow  it  to  be  superseded 
by  the  code  of  the  conqueror  for  nearly  five  hundred  years  after. 

It  is  evident  that  to  infuse  into  any  order  of  things  so  pervading  a  principle  of  stability, 
must  have  been  the  slow  work  of  time  alone ;  nor  could  any  system  of  laws  and  usages  , 
have  taken  so  strong  a  hold  of  tlie  hearts  of  a  whole  people  as  those  of  the  Irish  had  evi- 
dently obtained  at  the  time  of  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick,  without  the  lapse  of  many  a 
foregone  century,  to  enable  them  to  strike  so  deeply  thoir  roots.  In  no  country,  as  we 
shall  see,  was  Christianity  received  with  so  fervid  a  welcome;  but  in  none  also  had  she 
to  make  such  concessions  to  old  established  superstitions,  or  to  leave  so  much  of  those 
religious  forms  and  prejudices,  which  slie  found  already  subsisting,  unaltered.  Nor  was 
it  only  over  the  original  Irish  themselves,  tiiat  these  prescriptive  laws  had  thus  by  long 
tenure  gained  an  ascendency :  as  even  those  foreign  tribes, — for  the  most  part,  as  we 
have  seen,  Teutonic, — who  obtained  a  settlement  among  them,  had  been  forced,  though 
conquerors,  to  follow  in  the  current  of  long-established  customs;];  till,  as  was  said  of  the 
conquering  colonists  of  an  after  day,  they  grew,  at  lungtii,  to  be  more  Hibernian  than 
the  Hibernians  themselves.  The  same  ancient  forms  of  religion  and  of  government  were 
still  preserved;  the  language  of  the  multitude  soon  swept  away  that  of  the  mere  caste 

*  "  It  is  strongly  iinplioil  by  his  (Paiisanlas's)  exprpssion,  that  the  written  register  of  the  Olympian  victors 
was  not  so  old  as  (^huriEbiis,  but  that  the  account  of  the  fir>l  Olynipiatls  had  been  kept  by  memory  alone. 
Indeed,  it  appears  curtain  from  all  memorials  of  the  best  authority,  that  writing  was  not  common  in  Greece 
so  early." — MVfurd,  vol.  i.  chap  3. 

"  When  we  consider  that  this  was  the  first  attempt  (the  Olympionics  of  Timcpu.'s  of  Sicily)  that  we  know 
of,  to  establish  an  era,  and  that  it  was  in  the  liJlUh  Olympiad,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  preceding  Greek 
chronology?" — Wood's  Inquiry  into  l/ie  Life,  S^c.  of  Homer. 

t  "  In  Ireland,  the  genealogies  which  are  preserved,  could  not  have  been  handed  down  in  such  an 
extensive,  and  at  the  same  time  so  correct  a  manner,  without  this  acquaintance  with  letters  as  the  tables 
embrace  too  great  a  compass  to  retain  them  in  the  memory  ;  and  as,  without  the  assistance  of  these  elements 
of  knowledge  there  wouid  have  been  no  suflicient  inducement  to  bestow  on  them  such  peculiar  attention." — 
IVebb,  .Analysis  of  lite  JlHliq  of  Ireland  Another  well-informed  writer  thus  enforces  the  same  view  :— "  Tlie 
Irish  genealogical  tables,  which  are  still  extant,  carry  intrinsic  proofs  of  their  being  genuine  and  authentic, 
by  their  chronological  accuracy  and  consistency  with  each  other  through  all  the  lines  collateral,  as  well  as 
direct ;  a  consistency  not  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  of  their  being  fabricated  in  a  subsequent  age 
of  darkness  and  ignorance,  but  easily  explained  if  we  admit  them  to  have  been  drawn  from  the  real  source 
of  family  records  and  truth." — Inquiry  concerning  the  orig-inal  of  Ike  Scots  in  Britain,  by  Barnard,  Bishop  of 
Killaloe. 

"Foreigners  may  imagine  that  it  is  granting  too  much  to  the  Irish,  to  allow  them  lists  of  kings  more 
ancient  than  those  of  any  other  country  in  modern  Eurofte;  but  the  singularly  com  pact  and  remote  situation  of 
that  island,  and  its  freedom  from  Roman  conquest,  and  from  the  concii-'sions  of  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire, 
may  infer  this  allowance  not  too  much.  But  all  contended  for  is  the  list  of  kings  so  easily  preserved  by  the 
repetition  of  bards,  at  high  solemnities,  and  some  grand  events  of  history." — Pinkerton,  Inquiry  into  the  Hist, 
of  Scotland,  part  iv.  chap.  i. 

I  The  consequences  of  this  "Oriental  infle.xibility,"— as  Niebher  expresses  it,  in  speaking  of  the  Syrians', 
—are  thus  described  by  Camden  :— "  The  Irish  are  so  wedded  to  their  own  customs,  that  they  not  only  retain 
them  themselves,  but  currupt  the  English  that  come  among  them.  " 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  93 

who  ruled  them,  and  their  entire  exemption  from  Roman  dominion  left  them  safe  from 
even  a  chance  of  change.* 

How  far  the  stern  grasp  of  Rontan  authority  might  have  succeeded  in  effacing  from 
the  minds  of  the  Irish  their  old  iiabits  and  their  predilections,  it  is  needless  now  to  inquire. 
But  had  we  no  other  proof  of  the  venerable  antiquity  of  their  nation,  this  fond  fidelity 
to  the  past,  this  retrospective  spirit,  which  is  sure  to  be  nourisiied  in  the  minds  of  a 
people  by  long-hallowed  institutions,  would,  in  the  absence  of  all  other  means  of  proof, 
be  fully  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  When,  in  addition  to  this  evidence  impressed  upon 
the  very  character  of  her  people,  we  find  Ireland  furnished  also  with  all  that  marks  an 
ancient  nation, — unnumbered  monuments  of  other  days  and  belonging  to  unknown 
creeds, — a  language  the  oldest  of  all  European  tongues  still  spoken  by  her  people,  and 
Annals  written  in  that  language  of  earlier  date  than  those  of  any  other  northern  nation 
of  Europe,!  tracing  the  line  of  her  ancient  kings,  in  chronological  order,  up  as  far  at 
least  as  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era, — when  we  find  such  a  combination  of 
circumstances  all  bearing  in  the  same  direction,  all  confirming  the  impression  derived 
from  the  historical  character  of  the  people, — it  is  surely  an  abuse  of  the  right  of  doubt- 
ing, to  reject  lightly  such  an  amount  of  evidence,  or  resist  the  obvious  conclusion  to 
which  it  all  naturally  leads. 

Among  the  most  solemn  of  the  customs  observed  in  Ireland,  during  the  times  of  pagan- 
ism, was  that  of  keeping,  in  each  of  the  provinces,  as  well  as  at  the  seat  of  the  monar- 
chical government,  a  public  Psalter,  or  register,  in  which  all  passing  transactions  of  any 
interest  were  noted  down.  This,  like  all  their  other  ancient  observances,  continued  to 
be  retained  after  the  introduction  of  Christianity  ;  and  to  the  great  monasteries,  all  over 
the  country,  fell  the  task  of  watching  over  and  continuing  these  records.|:  That,  in  their 
zeal  for  religion,  they  should  have  destroyed  most  of  those  documents  which  referred  to 
the  dark  rites  and  superstitions  of  heathenism,  appears  highly  credible.^  But  such 
records  as  related  chiefly  to  past  political  events  were  not  obnoxious  to  the  same  hostile 
feeling;  and  these  the  monks  not  only,  in  most  instances,  preserved,  but  carried  on  a 
continuation  of  them,  from  age  to  age,  in  much  the  same  tone  of  veracious  dryness  as 
characterizes  that  similar  series  of  records,  the  Saxon  Chronicle.  In  like  manner,  too, 
as  the  English  annalists  are  known,  in  most  instances,  to  have  founded  their  narrations 
upon  the  Anglo-Saxon  documents  derived  from  their  ancestors,  so  each  succeeding  Irish 
chronicler  transmitted  the  records  which  lie  found  existing,  along  with  his  own;  thus 
giving  to  the  whole  series,  as  has  been  well  said  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  the  force  of  con- 
temporary evidence.ll 

The  precision  with  which  the  Irish  annalists  have  recorded,  to  the  month,  day,  and 
hour,  an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  which  took  place  in  the  year  664,  affords  both  an  instance  of 
the  exceeding  accuracy  with  which  they  observed  and  noted  passing  events,  and  also  an 
undeniable  proof  that  the  annals  for  that  year,  though  long  since  lost,  must  have  been  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  have  transmitted  to  us  that  remarkable  record.  In  calculating 
the  period  of  the  same  eclipse,  the  Venerable  BedelT — led  astray,  it  is  plain,  by  his  igno- 
rance of  that  yet  undetected  error  of  the  Dionysian  cycle,  by  wliicli  the  equation  of  the 
motions  of  the  sun  and  moon  was  afl^ectcd, — exceeded  the  true  time  of  tiie  event  by  several 
days.  Whereas,  the  Irish  chronicler,  wholly  ignorant  of  the  rules  of  astronomy,  and 
merely  recording  what  he  had  seen  passing  before  his  eyes, —  namely,  that  the  eclipse 
occurred,  about  the  tenth  hour,  on  the  3J  of  May,  in  the  year  664, — has  transtiiittcd  a 
date  to  posterity,  of  which  succeeding  astronomers  have  acknowledged  the  accuracy. 

*  It  has  been  falsely  asserted  by  some  writers,  tliat  the  Hcjmans  visited,  and  even  conquered,  Ireland.  The 
old  chronicler,  Wyntovvn,  carries  tlipm  to  that  country  even  so  early  as  the  first  century  ;  and  Gueudeville, 
the  wretched  compiler  of  the  Atlas  Histnrique,  has,  in  his  map  of  Ireland,  represented  the  country  as  reduced 
within  the  circle  of  the  Roman  sway.  The  pretended  monk.  Richard,  also,  who,  thanks  to  the  credulity  of 
historians,  was  permitted  to  establish  a  new  Roman  province,  Vespasiana,  to  the  north  of  Anloiiine  s  Wall, 
has,  in  like  manner,  made  a  present  to  Constantine  the  Great  of  the  tributary  submission  of  Ireland.  "  A. 
M.  4307,  Constantinus,  qui  Magnus  postea  dicitur  .  .  .  cui  se  sponte  tributariam  ofl'ert  Hibernia." 

t  "Cseterarum  enim  gentium  Septentrionalium  antiquitates  scriptas  longy  recentiores  esse  existiino,  si 
cum  Hibernicis  comparentur." — Dr.  O'Connor,  Ep.  J\runc.  xi.x. 

I  "  Alibi  indicavi  celebriora  Hibernis  monasteria  amanuensem  aluisse,  Scribhinn  appellatum." — Rer.  Hib. 
Script    Ep.  J^unc. 

§  "  Of  the  works  of  the  Druids,  as  we  are  informed  from  the  Lecan  Records,  by  the  learned  Donald  Mac 
Firbiss,  no  fewer  than  180  tracts  were  committed  to  the  flames  at  the  instance  of  St.  Patrick.  Such  an  exam- 
ple set  the  converted  Christians  to  work  in  all  parts,  till,  in  the  end,  all  the  remains  of  the  Druidic  supersti- 
tion were  utterly  destroyed-"— Disscrf.  on  the  Hist,  of  Ireland. 

II  "The  annals  of  these  writers  are,  perhaps,  but  Latin  translations  of  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicles  ....  at 
least,  the  existence  of  similar  passages,  yet  in  Anglo-Saxon,  is  one  of  the  best  proofs  we  can  obtain  of  this 
curious  fact,  that  the  Latin  narrations  of  all  our  chroniclers,  of  ihe  events  preceding  the  Conquest,  are  in 
general  translations  or  abridgments  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  documents  of  our  ancestors.  This  fact  is 
curious,  because,  wherever  it  obtains,  it  gives  to  the  whole  series  of  our  annals  the  force  of  contemporary 
evidence." — Turner,  Hlst.of  AngloSarons,  book  vi.  chap.  7. 

IT  Hist.  Ecclesiast.  lib  iii.  can.  27. 


94  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

It  may  be  said,  that  this  observation  was  supplied  and  interpolated  by  some  later  hand; 
but  this  would  only  rescue  us  from  one  difficulty  to  involve  us  as  deeply  in  another ;  as  it 
must,  in  that  case,  be  admitted  that  among  the  Irish  of  the  middle  ages  were  to  be  found 
astronomers  sufficiently  learned  to  be  able  to  anticipate  that  advanced  state  of  knowledge 
which  led  to  the  correction  of  the  dionysian  period,  and  to  ascertain,  to  the  precise  hour, 
a  long-past  eclipse,  which  the  learned  Bede,  as  we  have  seen,  was  unable  to  calculate  to 
the  day.  But  how  far,  at  a  distance  nearly  two  centuries  from  the  time  of  this  eclipse, 
were  even  the  best  Irish  scholars  from  being  capable  of  any  such  calculations  may  be 
judged  from  a  letter,  still  extant,  on  this  very  subject  of  eclipses,  which  was  addressed  to 
Charlemagne  by  an  Irish  doctor  of  the  ninth  century,  named  Dungal.*  The  letter  is  in 
reply  to  a  question  proposed  by  the  emperor  to  the  most  eminent  scholars  of  that  day  in 
Europe,  respecting  the  appearance,  as  had  been  alleged,  of  two  solar  eclipses,  in  the 
course  of  the  year  810;  and  the  Irish  doctor,  though  so  far  right  as  to  express  his  doubts  that 
these  two  eclipses  had  been  visible,  is  unable,  it  is  plain,  to  assign  any  scientific  reason 
for  his  opinion.  Down  to  a  much  later  period,  indeed,  so  little  had  the  Irish  scholars 
advanced  in  this  science,  that  as  it  appears  from  the  second  part  of  the  Annals  of  Inis- 
fallen,  they  had  one  yeart  experienced  much  difficulty  and  controversy  before  they  could 
succeed  even  in  fixing  Easter  Day. 

It  may,  therefore,  be  taken  for  granted,  that  it  was  not  from  any  scientific  calculation 
of  after  times,  but  from  actual  and  personal  observation  at  the  moment  that  this  accurate 
date  of  the  eclipse  in  664  was  derived.l  VVith  equal  clearness  does  it  follow  that  some 
record  of  the  observation  must  have  reached  those  annalists,  who,  themselves  ignorant  of 
the  mode  of  calculating  such  an  event,  have  transmitted  it  accurately  to  our  days  as  they 
received  it.  There  are  still  earlier  eclipses, — one  as  far  back  as  a.  d.  496, — the  years  of 
whose  appearance  we  find  noted  down  by  the  chroniclers  with  equal  correctness:  and 
so  great  was  the  regularity  with  which,  through  every  succeeding  age,  all  such  changes  in 
the  ordinary  aspect  of  the  heavens  was  observed  and  registered,  that,  by  means  of  these 
records,  the  chronologist  is  enabled  to  trace  the  succession,  not  only  of  the  monarchs  of 
Ireland,  but  of  the  inferior  kings,  bishops,  and  abbots,  from  the  first  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity, down  to  the  occupation  of  the  country  by  the  English. 

Having,  therefore,  in  the  accurate  date  of  the  eclipse  of  664,  and  in  its  correct  trans- 
mission to  succeeding  times,  so  strong  an  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  written  record 
at  that  period ;  and  knowing,  moreover,  that  of  similar  phenomena  in  the  two  preceding 
centuries,  the  memory  has  also  been  transmitted  down  to  after  ages,  it  is  not  surely 
assuming  too  much  to  take  for  granted  that  the  transmission  was  effected  in  a  similar 
manner;  and  that  the  medium  of  written  record,  through  which  succeeding  annalists 
were  made  acquainted  with  the  day  and  hour  of  the  solar  eclipse  of  664,^  conveyed  to 
them  also  the  followinrr  simple  memorandum  which  occurs  in  their  chronicles  for  the 
year  469. — "  Death  of  Mac-Cuilin,  bishop  of  Lusk. — An  eclipse  of  the  sun. — The  pope 
Gelasius  died." 

It  thus  appears  pretty  certain,  that,  as  fur  back  as  the  century  in  which  Christianity 
became  the  established  faith  of  Ireland,  the  practice  of  chronicling  public  events  may  be 
traced  ;  and  I  have  already  shown,  that  the  same  consecutive  chain  of  records  carries  the 
links  back,  with  every  appearance  of  historical  truth,  to  at  least  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era,  if  not  to  a  century  or  two  beyond  that  period.  To  attempt  to  fix,  in- 
deed, the  precise  time  when  the  confines  of  history  begin  to  be  confused  with  those  of 
fable,  is  a  task  in  Irish  antiquities,  as  in  all  others,  of  mere  speculation  and  conjecture.|| 

*  Epist.  Dungali  Reclusi  ad  Carol.  Magnum  de  diiplicili  Solis  Eclipsi,  Ann.  810.  This  letter  may  be  found 
in  D'Achiiry's  Spicile?iiim.  torn.  iii.  together  with  some  critical  rernarlcs  upon  it  by  Ismael  Bullialdus,  the 
learned  champion  of  the  Philolaic  system,  whom  U'Achery  had  consulled  on  this  subject. 

t  Ker.  Hibern.  Script.  Pro).  2.  cxxxvi.  Dr  O'Connor  refers,  for  the  al)ove  record,  to  Itie  year  U44  ;  l)ut  this 
is  evidently  a  typographical  error,  such  as  abound,  I  regret  to  say,  throughout  this  oplendid  work, — the  con- 
tinuation of  tlie  Annals  of  Inisfallen  having  come  down  no  fartiier  than  the  year  13'i0. 

I  Annals  of  Tigeriiach.  For  tlie  substance  of  the  argument,  founded  upon  this  record,  I  am  indebted  to 
Dr.  O'Connor,  Prol.  2.  cxxxiv. 

§  The  dates  assigned  to  the  several  eclipses  are,  in  this  and  other  instances  confirmed  by  their  accordance 
vvith  the  catalogues  of  eclipses  composed  by  modern  astronomers,  with  those  in  the  learned  work  of  the  Bene- 
dictines, and  other  such  competent  authorities.  There  is  even  an  eclipse,  it  appears,  noticed  in  the  Annals  of 
Ulster,  ad.  ann.  674,  which  has  been  omitted  in  L'Art  de  verifier  les  Z)a(e5,— Ep.  Nunc.  .\civ. 

II  According  to  Mr.  O'Connor  of  Balenacgare,  in  his  later  and  more  moderate  stage  of  antiquarianism,  "  it 
is  from  the  succession  of  Feredach  the  Just,  and  the  revolution  soon  after,  under  Tuathal  the  Acceptable,  that 
we  can  date  exactness  in  our  Heathen  ll\sX.ory. "—Rcfiections  on  the  Hist,  of  Ireland.  The  period  here  assigned 
commences  about  a.  d.  85.  A  Right  Reverend  writer,  however,  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Irish  Aca- 
demy caiTies'in  his  faith  in  Irish  chronology  much  farther.  "  A  general  agreement,"  says  Bishop  Barnard, 
"appears  in  the  names  and  lineage  of  that  long  series  of  princes  that  succeeded  and  descended  from  the  first 
conqueror  down  to  the  fifth  century  ;  and  the  descent  of  the  collateral  branches  is  traced  up  to  the  royal  stem 
with  such  precision  and  consistency,  as  shows  it  to  have  been  once  a  matter  of  public  concern.  The  later 
bards  and  seanachies  could  not  have  fabricated  tables  that  should  have  stood  the  test  of  critical  examination 
as  these  will  do;  from  whence  I  infer,  that  they  have  been  a  true  transcript  from  ancient  records  then  extant, 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  95 

It  lias  been  seen  that  Tigernach,  by  far  the  best  informed  and  most  judicious  of  our 
annalists,  places  the  dawn  of  certainty  in  Irish  history  at  so  early  a  period  as  the  reio^n 
of  Kimboath,  about  300  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ:  and  it  is  certain  that  the  building 
of  the  celebrated  Palace  ofEmania,  during  that  monarch's  reign,  by  establishing  an  era", 
or  fixed  point  of  time,  from  whence  chronology  might  begin  to  calculate,  gives  to  the 
dates  and  accounts  of  the  succeeding  reigns  an  appearance  of  accuracy  not  a  little  im- 
posing. This  apparent  exactness,  however,  in  the  successions  previous  to  the  Christian 
era,  will  not  stand  the  test  of  near  inquiry.  For  the  purpose  of  making  out  a  long  line 
of  kings  before  that  period,  a  deceptive  scheme  of  chronology  has  been  adopted  ;  and  all 
the  efforts  made  by  O'Flaherty  and  others  to  connect  the  traditions  of  those  times  into  a 
series  of  regular  history,  but  serve  to  prove  how  hopeless,  or,  at  least,  wholly  uncertain, 
is  the  task. 

As  we  descend  towards  the  first  age  of  Christianity,  events  stand  out  from  the  ground 
of  tradition  more  prominently,  and  begin  to  take  upon  them  more  of  the  substance  of  his- 
torical truth.  T.'ie  restoration,  under  Eochy  Feyloch,  of  the  ancient  Pentarchy  which 
had  been  abolished  by  the  monarch  Hugony, — the  important  advance  made  in  civilization 
during  the  reign  of  Conquovar  Mac  Ness,  by  committing  the  laws  of  the  country  to 
writing, — these  and  other  signal  events,  almost  coeval  with  the  commencement  of  Chris- 
tianity, border  so  closely  upon  that  period  to  which,  it  has  been  shown,  written  records 
most  probably  extended,  as  to  be  themselves  all  but  historical. 

In  corroboration  of  the  view  here  taken  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Irish  Annals,  and 
of  the  degree  of  value  and  confidence  which  is  due  to  them,  I  need  but  refer  to  an  au- 
thority, which,  on  such  subjects,  ranks  among  the  highest.  "The  Chronicles  of  Ireland," 
says  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  '^  written  in  the  Irish  language,  from  the  second  century  to 
the  landing  of  Henry  Plantagonet,  have  been  recently  published,  with  the  fullest  evi- 
dence of  their  genuineness  and  exactness.  The  Irish  nation,  though  they  are  robbed  of 
many  of  their  legends  by  this  authentic  publication,  are  yet  by  it  enabled  to  boast  that 
they  possess  genuine  history  several  centuries  more  ancient  than  any  other  European 
nation  possesses,  in  its  present  spoken  language; — they  have  exchanged  their  legendary 
antiquity  for  historical  fame.  Indeed,  no  other  nation  possesses  any  monument  of  its 
literature,  in  its  present  spoken  language,  which  goes  back  within  several  centuries  of 
the  beginning  of  these  chronicles."* 

With  the  exception  of  the  mistake  into  which  Sir  James  Mackintosh  has  here,  ratlier 
unaccountably,  been  led,  in  supposing  that,  among  the  written  Irish  chronicles  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  there  are  any  so  early  as  the  second  century,  the  tribute  paid  by 
Jiim  to  the  authenticity  and  historical  importance  of  these  documentsf  appears  to  me,  in 
the  highest  degree,  deserved ;  and  comes  with  the  more  authority,  from  a  writer  whose 
command  over  the  wide  domain  of  history  enabled  him  fully  to  appreciate  the  value  of 
any  genuine  addition  to  it. 

It  has  been  thus  clearly,  as  I  conceive,  demonstrated  that  our  Irish  Annals  are  no 
forgery  of  modern  times;  no  invention,  as  has  been  so  often  alleged,  by  modern  monks 
and  versifiers :  but,  for  the  most  part,  a  series  of  old  authentic  records,  of  which  the 
transcripts  have  from  age  to  age  been  delivered  down  to  our  own  times.  Though  con- 
founded ordinarily  with  the  fabulous  tales  of  the  Irish  Bards,  these  narrations  bear  on  the 
face  of  them  a  character  the  very  reverse  of  poetical,  and  such  as,  in  itself  alone,  is  a  suf- 
ficient guarantee  of  their  truth.  It  has  been  shown,  moreover,  that  the  lists  preserved 
of  the  ancient  Irish  kings  (more  ancient  than  those  of  any  other  country  in  modern  Eu- 

bnt  since  destroyed.  I  am  ready  to  admit,  however,  that  the  transactions  of  those  times  are  mixed  with  the 
fictions  of  later  ages  ....  il  is,  therefore,  neither  to  be  received  nor  rejected  in  the  sross,  but  to  be  read  with 
a  skeptical  caution." — Inquiry  concerning  the  Original,  S,-c.,  by  Barnard,  Bishop  of  Killaloe. 

*  Hist  of  England,  vol.  i.  chap.  2.  A  writer  in  the  Edin.  Rev.  No.  xcii.,  in  speaking  of  Dr.  O'Connor's 
work,  thus,  in  a  similar  manner,  expresses  himself: — "  We  have  here  the  works  of  the  ancient  Irish  historians, 
divested  of  modern  fable  and  romance  ;  and  whatever  opinion  may  be  formed  of  the  early  traditions  they  re- 
cord, satisfactory  evidence  is  alforded  that  many  facts  they  relate,  long  anterior  to  our  earliest  chroniclers, 
rest  on  contemporary  authority.  .  .  .  Some  of  Dr.  O'Connor's  readers  may  hesitate  to  admit  the  degree  of  cul- 
ture and  prosperity  he  claims  for  his  countrymen  ;  but  no  one,  we  think,  can  deny,  after  perusing  his  proofs, 
that  the  Irish  were  a  lettered  people,  while  the  Saxons  were  still  immersed  in  darkness  and  ignorance."  I 
shall  add  one  other  tribute  to  the  merit  of  Dr.  O'Connor's  work,  coming  from  a  source  which  highly  enhances 
the  value  of  the  praise :— "  A  work,"  says  Sir  F.  Palgrave,  "  which,  whether  we  consider  the  1:  arning  of  the 
editor,  the  value  of  the  materials,  or  the  princely  munificence  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  at  whose  expense 
it  was  produced,  is  without  a  parallel  in  modern  literature."— ftise  of  the  English  Commonwealth. 

t  How  little,  till  lately,  these  Annals  were  known,  even  to  some  who  have  written  most  confidently  re- 
specting Ireland,  may  be  seen  by  reference  to  a  letter  addressed  by  Mr.  O'Connor  to  General  Vallancey, 
acknowledging  his  perusal  then,  "for  the  first  time,  of  the  Annals  of  Tigernach  and  of  Inisfallen,  which  his 
venerable  friend  had  lately  sent  h\m.— Reflect,  on  Hist,  of  Ireland,  Collect.  No.  10.  The  ignorance  of  Mr.  Beau- 
ford,  too,  a  professed  Irish  antiquary,  respecting  the  valuable  work  of  Tigernach,  is  shown  by  tlie  statement 
in  his  Druidism  Revived,  (Colleclau.  Hib,  No.  vii.)  that  the  records  of  this  annalist  coninience  only  at  the  fil'ili 
cciuury,  "  without  making  the  least  meuiiou  of  the  pagan  state  of  the  Irish." 


96  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

rope)  are  regulated  by  a  system  of  chronology  which,  however  in  many  respects  imper- 
fect, computes  its  dates  in  the  ancient  mode,  by  generations  and  successions;  and  was 
founded  upon  the  same  measures  of  time — tiie  lunar  year,  and  the  regular  recurrence  of 
certain  periodical  festivals — by  which  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  other  great  nations 
of  antiquity,  all  computed  the  earlier  stages  of  their  respective  careers. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

REVIEW    OF     THE    INSTITUTIONS    AND    STATE    OF    CIVILIZATION    OF    THE 

PAGAN     IRISH. 

Having  thus  pointed  out  how  far  reliance  may  safely  be  placed  on  that  brief  abstract 
of  the  earlier  portion  of  Irish  history,  which  has  been  given  in  a  preceding  chapter,  it 
may  be  worth  while  to  pause  and  contemplate  the  picture  which  this  period  of  our  annals 
presents;  a  picture  the  more  worthy  of  attention,  as,  from  that  persevering  adherence  to 
old  customs,  habits,  and,  by  natural  consequence,  dispositions,  which  has  ever  distin- 
guished the  course  of  the  Irish  people,  the  same  peculiarities  of  character  that  mark  any 
one  part  of  their  country's  history  will  be  found  to  pervade  every  other;  insomuch,  that, 
allowing  only  for  that  degree  of  advancement  in  the  arts  and  luxuries  of  life,  which  in 
the  course  of  time  could  not  but  take  place,  it  may  be  asserted,  that  such  as  the  Irish 
were  in  the  early  ages  of  their  pentarchy,  such,  in  most  respects,  they  have  remained  to 
the  present  day. 

We  have  seen  that,  from  the  earliest  times  of  which  her  traditions  preserve  the  me- 
mory, Ireland  was  divided  into  a  certain  number  of  small  principalities,  each  governed 
by  its  own  petty  king,  or  dynast,  and  the  whole  subordinate  to  a  supreme  monarch,  who 
had  nominally,  but  seldom  really,  a  control  over  their  proceedings.  This  form  of  polity, 
which  continued  to  be  maintained,  without  any  essential  innovation  upon  its  principle, 
down  to  the  conquest  of  the  country  by  Henry  II.,  was  by  no  means  peculiar  to  Ireland, 
but  was  the  system  common  to  the  whole  Celtic,  if  not  also  Teutonic  race*,  and,  like  all 
the  other  primitive  institutions  of  Europe,  had  its  origin  in  the  East.  Without  going  so 
far  back  as  the  land  of  Canaan,  in  the  time  of  Joshua,  where  every  city  could  boast  its 
own  king,  we  find  that  the  small  and  narrow  territory  of  the  Phoenicians  was,  in  a  simi- 
lar manner,  parcelled  out  into  kingdoms;  and  from  Homer's  account  of  the  separate 
dominions  of  the  Grecian  chiefs,  it  would  seem  that  they  also  were  constructed  upon  the 
same  Canaanite  pattern.  The  feeling  of  clanship,  indeed,  out  of  which  this  sort  of  go- 
vernment by  a  chieftainry  sprung,  appears  to  have  prevailed  strongly  in  Greece,  and  to 
have  been  one  of  the  great  cements  of  all  their  confederations,  warlike  or  political.f 

In  none  of  these  countries,  however,  do  the  title  and  power  of  Royalty  appear  to  have 
been  partitioned  out  into  such  minute  divisions  and  subdivisions  as  in  the  provincial  go- 
vernment of  Ireland,  where,  in  addition  to  the  chief  king  of  each  province,  every  subor- 
dinate prince,  or  head  of  a  large  district,  assumed  also  the  title  of  king,  and  exercised 
etfectually  within  his  own  dominion  all  the  powers  of  sovereignty, — even  to  the  preroga- 
tive of  making  v.^ar,  not  only  with  coequal  princes,  but  with  the  king  of  the  whole  pro- 
vince, v^henever  he  could  muster  up  a  party  siifRciently  strong  for  such  an  enterprise. 

To  the  right  of  primogeniture,  so  generally  acknowledged  in  those  ages,  no  deference 
whatever  was  paid  by  the  Irish.  Within  the  circle  of  the  near  kin  of  the  reigning  prince, 
all  were  alike  eligible  to  succeed  him;  so  that  the  succession  may  be  said  to  have  been 
hereditary  as  to  the  blood,  but  elective  as  to  the  person.]:     Not  only  the  monarch  himself 

*  During  the  lieptarrhy,  the  island  of  Great  Britain  contained  about  fifteen  kingdoms,  Saxons,  British 
and  Scotch;  and  in  one  of  the  smallest  of  thcni.  the  kingdom  of  Kent,  there  were  at  one  time  three  chiefs  on 
whom  the  aniiahsts  hestow  the  title  of  king.    See  Edin.  Review,  No.  I.w.  art.  12. 

t  The  opinion  that  the  feudal  sjstem  oiignated  in  the  East,  is  not  without  some  strong  evidence  in  its 
favour.  In  Diodorus  Siculus,  (lib.  1,)  we  find  the  tenure  by  military  service  pretty  accurately  described,  and 
said  to  be  a  custom  of  the  Egyptians,  as  well  as  of  some  Greek  cities  derived  from  them.      Aiuri^xv  cTt  th^w 

•ro/c,  k«t'  AiyuTTToV  ivofxa^ofxiwt;  ytcr^yon  x*<  to-jq  //a;^'/''""'?   Traeiyoixivot;. 

See  Richiirdson,  (Dissert  on  the  languuKes,  &c.  of  Eastern  Nations,)  who  asserts  that  feudality  "  flourished 
111  the  Last,  with  much  vigour,  in  very  early  times." 

J  Campbell's  Strictures,  &c.  sect.  v. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  97 

was  created  thus  by  election,  but  a  successor,  or  Tanist,*  was,  during  his  lifetime,  as- 
signed to  him  by  the  same  process;  and  as  if  the  position  alone  of  heir-apparent  did  not 
render  him  sufficiently  formidable  to  the  throne,  the  law,  in  the  earlier  ages,  also,  it  is 
said,  conferred  upon  him  the  right  of  being  chief  general  of  the  array,  and  chief  judge  of 
the  whole  state  or  kingdom.  For  the  succession  to  the  minor  thrones  a  similar  provision 
was  made :  to  every  petty  king  a  successor  was,  in  like  manner,  appointed,  with  powers 
proportioned  to  those  of  his  chief;  and  thus,  in  addition  to  the  constant  dissension  of  all 
these  princes  among  themselves,!  each  saw  by  his  side  an  adult  and  powerful  rival, 
chosen  generally  without  any  reference  to  his  own  choice  or  will ;  and,  as  mostly  hap- 
pens, even  where  the  successor  is  so  by  hereditary  right,  forming  an  authorized  rallying- 
point  for  the  ambitious  and  disaffected. 

So  many  contrivances,  as  they  would  seem,  for  discord,  could  not  but  prove  successful. 
All  the  defects  of  the  feudal  system  were  here  combined,  without  any  of  its  atoning  ad- 
vantages. It  is  true  that  an  executive  composed  of  such  divided  and  mutually  thwarting 
powers  must  have  left  to  the  people  a  considerable  portion  of  freedom  ;  but  it  was  a  free- 
dom, under  its  best  aspects,  stormy  and  insecure,,  and  which  life  was  passed  in  strug- 
gling for,  not  in  enjoying.  The  dynasts  themselves,  being,  from  their  position,  both 
subjects  and  rulers,  were,  by  turns,  tyrants  and  slaves:  even  the  monarchy  itself  was 
often  regarded  but  as  a  prize  to  the  strongest;  and  faction  pervaded  all  ranks,  from  the 
hovel  to  the  supreme  throne.  Accordingly,  as  may  be  gathered  from  even  the  compara- 
tively pacific  events  I  have  selected,  commotion  and  bloodshed  were,  in  those  times,  the 
ordinary  course  of  public  affairs.  Among  the  numerous  occupants  of  thrones,  the  tenure 
of  authority  and  of  life  was  alike  brief;  and  it  is  computed  that,  of  the  supreme  kings 
who  wielded  the  sceptre,  before  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  not  one  seventh  part 
died  a  natural  death,  the  remaining  sovereigns  having  been  taken  off  in  the  field,  or  by 
murder.  The  same  rivalry,  the  same  temptations  to  violence,  wore  in  operation  through- 
out all  the  minor  sovereignties:  every  provincial  king,  every  head  of  a  sept,  had  his  own 
peculiar  sphere  of  turbulence,  in  which,  on  a  smaller  scale,  the  same  scenes  were  enacted ; 
in  which  the  law  furnished  the  materials  of  strife,  and  the  sword  alone  was  called  in  to 
decide  it. 

Among  the  many  sources  of  this  discord  must  not  be  forgotten  those  tributes,  or  sup- 
plies, which,  in  return  for  the  subsidies  granted  to  them  by  their  superiors,  the  inferior 
princes  were  bound  to  furnish.  This  exchange  of  subsidy  and  tribute, — the  latter  being 
usually  paid  in  cattle,  clothes,  utensils,  and,  frequently,  military  aid,J — was  carried  on 
proportionably  through  all  the  descending  scale  of  dynasties,  and  its  mutual  obligations 
enforced  as  strictly  between  the  lord  of  the  smallest  rath  and  his  dependents,  as  between 
the  monarch  and  his  subordinate  kings.  Among  the  various  forms  in  which  tribute  was 
exacted,  not  the  least  oppressive  were  those  periodical  progresses  of  the  monarch,  during 
which  he  visited  the  courts  of  the  different  provincial  kings,  and  was,  together  with  his 
retinue,  entertained,  for  a  certain  time,  by  each.  Every  inferior  lord  or  chieftian  as- 
sumed a  similar  privilege,  and,  at  certain  seasons,  visiting  from  tenant  to  tenant,  was 
maintained,  with  his  followers,  at  their  expense.  This  custom  was  called,  in  afler-times, 
(by  a  name  not,  I  suspect,  of  Irish  origin,)  coshering. 

Though  the  acceptance  of  subsidy  from  the  monarch  implied  an  acknowledgment  of 
subordination  and  submission,  it  was  of  a  kind  wholly  different  from  that  of  the  feoffees, 
in  the  feudal  system, ^  who,  by  the  nature  of  their  tenures,  were  subjected  to  military  ser- 

*  "Whoever  knows  any  thing  of  Irish  history  wiU  readily  agree  that  an  Irish  Tanist  of  a  royal  family 
even  after  those  of  that  quality  were  deprived  of  the  judiciary  power,  and  not  always  invested  with  the  ac- 
tual command  of  the  army,  was,  notwithstanding,  held  in  such  high  consideration,  as  to  be  esteemed  nothing 
less  than  a  secondary  king.  'J  he  title  of  Righ-damnha,  meaning  king  in  fieri,  was  generally  given  to  the 
presumptive  successor  of  the  reigning  king." — Dissert,  on  Laws  of  the  Ancievt  Irish. 

t  The  following  is  O'Flaherly's  applausive  view  of  this  system  .— "  He  (Selden)  cannot  produce  an  instance 
in  all  Europe  of  a  more  ancient,  perfect,  or  better-established  form  of  government  than  that  of  Ireland; 
where  the  sovereign  power  was  concentred  in  one  king,  and  the  subnitern  power,  gradually  descending  from 
the  tive  kings  to  the  lowest  classes  of  men,  represents  and  exactly  resembles  the  Hierarchy  of  the  Celestial 
Christ,  described  in  the  verses  addressed  to  the  archangel  Michael."— Og;?/^.,  part  i.  book  1. 

X  There  is  extant  a  book  containing  the  laws  of  these  different  subsidies  and  tribu teg,  called  the  Leabhar 
na  Ceart,  or  Book  of  llights,  and  attributed  to  St.  Benin,  the  favourite  disciple  of  St.  Patrick.  It  is  clear, 
however,  from  the  corslets  and  suits  of  armour  so  profusely  enumerated  in  the  list  of  royal  gifts,  that  these 
"  State  Laws  of  Subsidies,"  as  Vallancey  styles  them,  must  have  been  of  a  much  later  date ;  not  more  ancient, 
probably,  than  those  songs  and  tales  bearing  the  name  of  the  poetOisin,  in  which  a  similar  display  of  rich 
armour  is  prematurely  introduced.  An  account  of  this  curious  volume  may  be  found  in  the  Trans.  Iberno- 
Celt  Soc,  and  in  Vallancey's  Dissert,  on  the  Laws  of  the  Ancient  Irish. 

§  That  there  was  a  degree  of  resemblance  between  the  feudal  system  and  the  Irish,  will  appear  from  the 
description  given  by  Mr.  Hallam  of  the  state  of  France  at  the  time  when  Hugh  Capet  usurped  the  throne. 
"  France,"  says  this  admirable  historian,  "was  rather  a  collection  of  states  partially  allied  to  each  other,  than 
a  single  monarchy.  The  kingdom  was  as  a  great  fief,  or  rather  a  bundle  of  fiefs,  and  the  king  little  more 
than  one  of  a  number  of  feudal  nobles,  differing  rather  in  dignity  than  in  power  from  some  of  the  rest." — 
Vitui  of  the  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  JIges.    There  were,  however,  as  I  have  shown  above,  essentisl 

12 


98  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

vice;  whereas,  in  Ireland,  the  subordinate  princes  were  entirely  free  and  independent  of 
those  above  them,  holding  their  possessions  under  no  condition  of  any  service  or  homage 
whatsoever.*  Even  in  France,  the  great  feudatories,  in  many  instances,  did  not  hesitate 
to  take  arms  against  their  sovereign;  and  still  less  scrupulous,  it  may  be  supposed,  were 
the  numerous  free  tenants  of  thrones  under  the  Irish  system. f  Sufficient  pretexts  for 
withholding  tribute  from  the  monarch  were  seldom  wanting  to  the  factious;  and  by  re- 
course to  arms  alone  could  the  sovereign,  in  such  cases,  seek  redress.  On  the  eve,  some- 
times, of  a  battle,  the  tributaries  failed  in  bringing  up  their  promised  aid;  or,  still  worse, 
entered  the  field  reluctantly,  and,  on  the  first  attack,  took  flight.| 

Under  any  circumstances,  so  general  and  consiant  a  state  of  warfare  must,  by  render- 
ing impossible  the  cultivation  of  the  peaceful  arts,  prove  fatal  to  the  moral  advancement 
of  the  people;  but  the  civil  and  domestic  nature  of  the  feuds  in  which  the  Irish  were  con- 
stantly engaged,  conld  not  but  render  them,  beyond  all  other  species  of  warfare,  demora- 
lizing and  degrading.  To  the  invasion  of  a  foreign  land  men  march  with  a  spirit  of  ad- 
venture, which  throws  an  air  of  chivalry  even  around  rapine  and  injustice;  while  they 
who  resist,  even  to  the  death,  any  invasion  of  their  own,  are  sure  of  enlisting  the  best 
feelings  of  human  nature  in  their  cause.  But  tlie  sanguinary  broils  of  a  nation  armed 
against  itself  have  no  one  elevating  principle  to  redeem  them,  and  are  inglorious  alike  in 
victory  and  defeat.  Whatever  gives  dignity  to  other  warfare  was  wanting  in  these  per- 
sonal, factious  feuds.  The  peculiar  bitterness  attributed  to  family  quarrels  marks  also 
the  course  of  civil  strife;  and  that  flow  of  generous  feeling  which  so  often  succeeds  to 
fierce  hostility  between  strangers,  has  rarely,  if  ever,  been  felt  by  parties  of  the  same 
state  who  have  been  once  arrayed  in  arms  against  each  other.  One  of  the  worst  results, 
indeed,  of  that  system  of  law  and  government  under  which  Ireland  first  started  into 
political  existence,  and  retained,  in  full  vigour  of  abuse,  for  much  more  than  a  thousand 
years,  was  the  constant  obstacles  which  it  presented  to  the  growth  of  a  public  national 
spirit,  by  separating  the  mass  of  the  people  into  mutually  hostile  tribes,  and  accustoming 
each  to  merge  all  thought  of  the  general  peace  or  welfare  in  its  own  factious  views,  or 
the  gratification  of  private  revenge. 

That  separate  states  may  be  so  bound  in  federate  union  as  to  combine  effectively  for 
all  the  great  purposes  of  peace  and  war,  is  sufficiently  proved  by  more  than  one  historical 
instance.  But  there  was  no  such  form  or  principle  of  cohesion  in  the  members  of  the 
Irish  pentarchy.  The  interposing  power  assigned,  theoretically,  to  the  monarch,  became 
of  little  effect  in  practice,  and,  in  moments  of  peculiar  violence,  when  most  wanted,  was 
always  least  efficient.  Part  of  tlie  business,  we  are  told,  of  the  triennial  assemblies  held 
at  Tara  was  to  hear  appeals  against  tyrannical  princes,  and  interpose  for  the  redress  of 
wrongs.  But  even  granting  these  conventions  to  have  been  held  regularly,  which  appears 
more  than  doubtful, ^  it  is  plain  that  in  the  rapid  succession  of  daily  scenes  of  blood  which 
stained  the  Irish  annals,  an  assembly  convened  but  once  in  every  three  years  must  have 
exercised  but  a  tardy  and  soon-forgotten  influence. 

Such  a  course  of  discord  and  faction,  prolonged,  as  it  was,  through  centuries,  could  not 
fail  to  aflTect  materially  the  general  character  of  the  nation,  and  to  lay  deep  the  seeds  of 
future  humiliation  and  weakness.  A  people  divided  thus  among  themselves  must  have 
been,  at  all  times,  a  ready  prey  for  the  invader;  and  the  fatal  consequences  of  such  disunion 
were  shown  most  lamentably,  a  few  centuries  after  this  period,  when,  as  will  be  seen,  by 
Irish  assistance  alone  were  the  Danish  marauders  enabled  to  preserve  the  footing  they  so 
long  and  so  ruinously  held  in  the  country.||     By  the  same  causes,  though  existing,  perhaps, 

differences  between  the  two  systems  ;  and  Mr.  Hallam  himself,  in  speaking  of  the  constitution  of  ancient  Tre- 
land,  remarks  that  the  relations  borne  by  the  different  ranks  of  chieftains  to  each  other  and  to  the  crown,  may 
only  loosely  be  called  federal."— Consti<u(.  Hist   vol.  iii. 

*  This  principle  was  retained,  even  after  the  subjection  of  the  country  to  the  English.  "  The  Irish  lords," 
says  Sir  J  Davis,  "did  only  promise  to  become  tributary  to  Henry  II.,  and  such  as  pay  tribute  are  not  pro- 
perly subjects,  but  sovereigns." 

t  According  to  Vallancey,  even  the  monarch  himself  was  no  more  e-vempt  from  attack  than  the  rest  of  his 
royal  brethren  :—"  Most  certain  it  is,  that  the  provincial  kings  and  other  sovereigns  never  acknowledged 
any  supreme  right  in  these  pretenders  to  monarchy,  but  always  asserted  their  own  independency  against 
them  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  as  appears  most  glaringly  from  the  Irish  Annals."— See  Vallancey's  clever 
Dissertation  on  the  Laws  of  the  Ancient  Irish,  written  by  him  at  the  commencement  of  his  career,  before 
the  Orientalism  of  our  Irish  antiquities  had  taken  such  a  disturbing  hold  of  his  imagination. 

J  Leiand,  Preliminary  Discourse. 

§  If  we  may  believe  O'Halloran,  tlie  meetings  of  the  great  Fes  of  Teamor  were  interrupted  even  for  centu- 
ries. In  speaking  of  the  convention  held  in  the  reign  of  Ugony  the  Great,  he  says,  "This,  by  the  by,  is  the 
first  instance  for  above  two  centuries  of  the  meeting  of  the  Feis  Tamarach,  or  General  Convention  of  the 
Estates  of  the  Kingdom  at  Tara,  except  such  a  one  as  was  appointed  by  Ciombhaoth,  of  which  I  have  not 
sufficient  authority  positively  to  affirm."— Vol.  ii.  chap.  v. 

II  "The  annals  of  the  country  bear  unanimous  testimony  to  the  melancholy  truth,  that  in  these  plundering 
expeditions  they  (the  Danes)  were  frequently  aided  by  some  of  the  native  Irish  princes,  who,  either  anxious 
to  diminish  the  preponderating  power  of  some  neighbouring  chieftain,  or  desirous  to  revenge  some  real  or 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  99 

in  a  much  less  aggravated  degree,  were  the  Celts,  both  of  Britain  and  Gaul,  brought  eo 
easily  under  the  dominion  of  the  Romans.  The  politic  use  to  which  the  rival  factions 
among  the  Gauls  might  be  turned,  could  not  escape  the  acute  observation  of  CaBsar;  and 
history,  which  has  left  untold  the  name  of  the  recreant  Irishman  who,  as  we  have  seen, 
proffered  his  treasonable  services  in  the  camp  of  Agricola,  has,  with  less  charity,  recorded 
that  of  the  British  chief  Mandubratius,  who,  from  motives  of  mere  personal  revenge, 
invited  Ctesar  into  Britain.*  Even  in  the  earliest  periods  of  Irish  history  may  be  detected 
some  traces  of  this  faithless  spirit,  which  internal  dissensions  and  mutual  distrust  are  sure 
to  generate  among  a  people  ;  and  the  indistinct  story  of  the  ftio^ht  of  Labhra,  a  Leinster 
prince,  into  Gaul,  and  bis  return  from  thence  at  the  head  of  Gaulish  troops,  sufficiently 
intimates  that  such  appeals  to  foreign  intervention  were,  even  in  Agricola's  time,  not  new. 

While  such  were  the  evils  arising  from  the  system  according  to  which  power  was 
distributed,  no  less  mischiefs  flowed  fron>  the  laws  which  regulated  the  distribution  of 
property.  In  all  cases  where  property  was  connected  with  chieftainry,  the  right  of 
succession  was  regulated  in  the  same  manner  as  that  of  the  succession  to  the  throne. 
During  the  lifetime  of  the  reigning  chief,  some  person  of  the  sept,  his  brother,  son,  or 
cousin,  was  appointed  by  election  to  succeed  him;  and  lands  devolved  in  this  manner 
were,  like  the  inheritance  of  the  crown,  exempt  from  partition.  To  the  chosen  succes- 
sors of  kings  the  title  of  Roydamna  was  in  general  applied;  but  the  person  appointed  to 
succeed  one  of  the  inferior  chiefs  was  always  called  a  Tanist.  Wherever  inheritances 
were  not  connected  with  either  royalty  or  chieftainry,  their  descent  was  regulated  by 
the  custom  of  Gavelkind, — a  usage  common  to  both  Gothic  and  Celtic  nations, — and  the 
mode  in  which  property  was  partitioned  and  re-partitioned  under  this  law,  threw  a  constant 
uncertainty  round  its  tenure,  and  in  time  frittered  away  its  substance. 

On  the  death  of  the  Cean  Fume,  or  head  of  a  sept,  his  successor,  who  became  such  not 
by  inheritance,  but  by  election,  or  strong  hand,  assembled  all  the  males  of  the  sept,  and 
divided  the  lands,  at  his  discretion,  between  them.  Whenever  any  of  these  inferior 
tenants  died,  the  sept  was  again  called  together,  and  their  several  possessions  being  all 
thrown  into  hotch-potch,  a  new  partition  of  all  was  made;  in  which  the  son  of  him  who 
had  died  did  not  receive  the  portion  his  father  had  possessed,  but  a  share  of  the  whole 
was,  according  to  seniority,  allotted  to  every  male  of  the  sept.  As  soon  as  another  tenant 
died,  the  tenure  of  the  property  was  again  disturbed,  and  the  same  process  of  partition,  in 
the  same  invariable  mode,  repeated.  It  appears  that  to  the  Cean  Finne,  or  head  of  the 
family,  was  reserved  a  chief  rent  on  the  gavelled  landsj  which  maintained  his  power  and 
influence  over  the  members  of  the  sept;  and  in  the  event  of  any  of  them  forfeiting  or 
dying  without  issue,  secured  a  reversion  to  him  of  the  property  of  the  gavel  lands  so  held.f 

By  the  custom  of  Gavel  kind,  as  it  existed  among  the  Irish,  females  of  every  degree  were 
precluded  from  the  inheritance;  while  illegitimate  sons  were  equally  entitled  with  the 
legitimate  to  their  portions  of  the  land.  The  exclusion  of  females  from  inheritance,}; — a 
law  characteristic  of  those  times,  when  lands  were  won  and  held  on  condition  of  military 
service  alone, — was  common  to  the  Irish  with  most  other  early  nations^  as  well  Teutons 
as  Celts;  though  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  all  the  Teutonic  tribes  adopted  it.|!     The 

imaginary  insult  received,  or,  perhaps,  willing  to  share  in  the  spoils  of  an  opulent  neighbour,  were  always 
forward  to  join  the  common  enemy." — O'Reilly,  on  the  Btehon  Laws,  Trans.  R.  1.  Jt  vol.  xiv. 

*  According  to  the  etymologist  Baxter,  the  name  of  Mandubratius  signifies  "tho  Betrayer  of  his  Country," 
and  was  affi.xed  to  this  chieftain,  in  consequence  of  his  treason: — "  Inde  populari  Cassivelanorum  convicio, 
Mandubratur  tanquam  Pairim  prodilor  appellatus  est. 

t  "  It  is  also  said,  that  when  the  gavel  was  made  by  the  father,  after  his  deaththe  equal  share  which  he 
allotted  to  himsself,  went  to  the  eldest  son,  according  to  the  ma.\ini  of  the  patriarchs,  who  allowed  a  double 
proportion  to  the  first  born.  .And,  lastly,  like  the  twin  tenure  of  Kent,  it  was  not  subject  to  escheat  for 
treason  or  felony." — D' Alton,  Essay  on  the  Antiquities  of  Ireland. 

X  Consistently  with  his  notion  that  the  Britons  and  the  Irish  were  derived  from  the  same  stock,  the  Histo- 
rian of  Manchfster  represents  this  custom  as  existing  also  in  Britain  ;  but  at  the  same  time,  for  this,  as  well 
as  for  many  other  Irish  usages,  which  he  endeavours  to  prove  common  to  both  countries,  refers  to  evidence 
relating  to  Ireland  alone.  It  is  difficult,  indeed,  upon  any  point,  to  place  much  faith  in  an  historian  who,  to 
prove  that  the  descent  of  the  crown  among  the  Britons  flowed  in  the  course  of  hereditary  and  lineal  succes- 
sion, tells  us  gravely  that  "Trenmor,  Trathal,  Comhal  and  Fingal— father,  son,  grandson,  and  great-grand- 
son—successively inherited  the  monarchy  of  Morven  for  their  patrimony."— /fis<.  of  Manehesttr,  book  1.  chap, 
viii.  sect.  2. 

§  Mr  O'Reilly  {Essay  on  the  Brehon  Laws)  denies  that  females  in  Ireland  were  excluded  from  the  inheritance 
of  lands;  but  unfortunately  adduces  no  authority  in  support  of  his  assertion.  "  If  it  would  not  extend  this 
Essay  (he  says)  to  an  unreasonable  length,  examples  might  be  given  from  the  ancient  Irish  laws  sufficient  to 
prove  that  women  exercised  the  right  of  chiefry  over  lands  properly  their  own,  and  had  a  power  to  dispose  of 
all  their  chattel  property  at  their  pleasure."  He  afterwards  adds,  "  But  supposing  that  Irish  women  did  not 
enjoy  landed  property,  the  same  must  be  said  of  tho  women  of  several  other  ancient  nations."  This  sort  of 
reversionary  successor  resembles,  in  some  respects,  the  adscilitious  Caesars,  or  presumptive  heirs  of  the  impe- 
rial office,  among  the  Romans. 

II  "  In  a  word,'  says  General  Vallancey,  "  all  the  Teutonic  or  German  nations  excluded  the  daughters  from 
sharing  with  their  brothers  or  other  heirs  male  jn  t.he  father's  landed  inheritance."  This  is  not,  however,  the 
ease.    In  the  Burgundian  law,  one  of  the  most  ancient  codes  of  the  barbarians,  is  the  following  passage.: — 


100  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

admission  of  natural  children,  however,  to  a  legal  right  of  inheritance,  may  be  pronounced 
a  custom  peculiar  to  Ireland.  General  Vallancey,  in  his  zeal  to  ennoble  all  that  is  con- 
nected with  Irish  antiquity,  endeavours  to  show  that  this  custom  is  of  patriarchal  origin, 
citing,  as  his  only  instance,  that  of  the  children  of  Jacob  by  the  handmaids  of  his  wives 
Leah  and  Rachel,  who  enjoyed,  among  the  heads  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  a  station 
equal  to  that  of  the  children  of  his  solemnly  married  wives.  But  the  instance,  besides 
being  a  solitary  one,  as  well  as  attended  with  peculiar  circumstances,  is  by  no  means  suf- 
ficient to  prove  that  such  was  the  patriarchal  custom;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  signi- 
ficant act  of  Abraham,  in  presenting  only  gifts  to  his  natural  children,  and  separating 
them  from  his  son  Isaac,  marks,  as  definitely  as  could  be  required,  the  distinction  then 
drawn  between  legitimate  and  illegitimate  children.* 

As,  in  all  communities,  property  is  the  pervading  cement  of  society,  a  state  of  things 
such  as  has  been  just  described,  in  which  its  tenure  was  kept,  from  day  today,  uncertain, 
and  its  relations  constantly  disturbed,  was  perhaps  the  least  favourable  that  the  most  per- 
verted ingenuity  could  have  devised,  for  either  the  encouragement  of  civilization  or  the 
maintenance  of  peace.f  The  election  of  a  Tanist,  too,  with  no  more  definite  qualifica- 
tions prescribed  than  that  he  should  be  chosen  from  among  the  oldest  and  most  worthy  of 
the  sept,  opened,  whenever  it  occurred,  as  fertile  a  source  of  contention  and  rivalry  as  a 
people,  ready  at  all  times  for  such  excitement,  could  desire.  However  great  the  advan- 
tages attending  an  equal  division  of  descendible  property,  in  communities  advanced  suffi- 
ciently in  habits  of  industry  to  be  able  to  profit  by  those  advantages,  the  effect  of  such  a 
custom  among  a  people  like  the  Irish,  the  great  bulk  of  whom  were  in  an  uncivilized 
Btate,  was  evidently  but  to  nurse  in  them  that  disposition  to  idleness  which  was  one  of 
the  main  sources  of  their  evils,  and  to  add  to  their  other  immunities  from  moral  restraint, 
the  want  of  that  powerful  influence  which  superior  wealth  must  always  enable  its  posses- 
sor to  exercise.  Had  there  been  any  certainty  in  the  tenure  of  the  property,  when  once 
divided,  most  of  the  evils  attending  the  practice  might  have  been  escaped.  But  the  new 
partition  of  all  the  lands,  whenever  a  death  occurred  in  the  sept,  and  the  frequent  removal 
or  translation  of  the  inferior  tenants  from  one  portion  to  another,  produced  such  uncer- 
tainty in  tiie  tenure  of  all  possessions,  as  made  men  reckless  of  the  future,  and  completely 
palsied  every  aim  of  honest  industry  and  enterprise.  By  the  habits  of  idleness  thus 
engendered,  the  minds  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people  were  left  vacant  and  restless,  to 
seek  employment  for  themselves  in  mischief,  and  follow  those  impulses  of  wild  and  ungo- 
verned  passion,  of  which  their  natures  were  so  susceptible. 

One  of  the  worst  political  consequences  of  these  laws  of  property  was,  that,  by  their 
means,  the  division  of  the  people  into  tribes  or  clans,  so  natural  in  the  first  infancy  of 
society,  was  confirmed  and  perpetuated.  The  very  warmth  and  fidelity  with  which  the 
members  of  each  sept  combined  among  themselves,  but  the  more  alienated  them  from 
every  part  of  the  community,  and  proportionably  diminished  their  regard  for  the  general 
welfare. 

Another  evil  of  the  social  system,  under  such  laws,  was  the  false  pride  that  could  not 
fail  to  be  engendered  by  that  sort  of  mock  kingship,  that  mimic  sovereignty,  which  per- 
vaded the  whole  descending  scale  of  their  grandees,  down  to  the  Ruler  of  a  small  Rath, 
or  even  the  possessor  of  a  few  acres,  who,  as  Sir  John  Davies  says,  "  termed  himself  a 
Lord,  and  his  portion  of  land  his  country."  As  even  the  lowest  of  these  petty  potentates 
would  have  considered  it  degrading  to  follow  any  calling  or  trade,  a  multitude  of  poor 
and  proud  spirits  were  left  to  ferment  in  idleness;  and,  there  being  but  little  vent,  in 
foreign  wartare,  for  such  restlessness,  till  towards  the  decline  of  the  Roman  power  in 

Inter  Burgiindioin's  id  voliimus  ciistodiri,  ut  si  quis  filium  non  reliquerit,  in  loco  filii  filia  in  patrismatrisque 
hereditate  succoeriat."  The  reader  will  find  this,  and  other  instances  to  the  same  purpose,  cited  in  an  able 
article  on  Mr.  Hallam's  Middle  Ages,  Edin.  Review,  No.  lix. 

*  It  is  asserted  by  Eiistathins,  that,  among  the  Greeks,  as  low  as  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  illegitimate 
children  stood  on  equal  grounds  of  favour  with  the  legitimate;  but,  except  occasionally,  as  in  such  instances 
as  that  of  Teucer,  where  the  high  rank  of  both  parents  throws  a  lustre  round  the  offence,  or  in  cases  where 
a  god  was  called  in  to  bear  the  burden  of  the  offspring,  there  appears,  among  the  Greeks,  to  have  been  as 
much  disgrace  attached  to  illegitimacy,  as  among  any  other  people.  So  far  were  their  laws  from  allovifinff 
children  of  this  description  to  inherit,  that,  in  fixing  the  utmost  amount  of  money  which  it  was  lawful  for  a 
father,  at  any  time,  to  give  them,  it  was  strictly  provided  that  such  sum  could  only  be  given  during  Iiis  life- 
time. 

t  In  speaking  of  the  annual  partition  of  their  lands,  by  the  ancient  Germans,  as  described  by  Cassar  (lib.  vi- 
cap.  2-i.,)  t^ir  F.  Palgrave  says,  "  If,  as  we  are  told  by  CiPsar,  the  Germans  wished  to  discourage  agriculture 
and  civilization,  the  means  were  excellently  adapted  to  the  end;  and  to  understand  the  rural  economy  of  the 
barbaric  nations,  we  must  always  keep  in  mind  that  their  habitations  were  merely  encampments  upon  the 
land.  Instead  of  firm  and  permanent  mansions,  constituting  not  only  the  wealth,  but  the  defence  of  the 
wealth  of  the  owner,  we  must  view  the  Teuton  and  the  Cell  dwelling  in  wattled  hovels  and  turf-built 
sheelingB,  which  could  be  raised  in  the  course  of  a  night,  and  abandoned  without  regret  or  sacrifice,  when  the 
partition  of  the  district  compelled  every  inhabitant  to  accept  a  new  domicile.  Such  was  the  state  of  Ireland." 
— Vol.  i.  chap.  3.  *^ 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  101 

Britain,  it  expended  itself  in  the  struggles  of  domestic  faction  and  fierce  civil  broils.  Nor 
was  it  only  by  the  relative  position  of  the  different  classes  of  the  country,  but  by  that  also 
of  the  different  races  which  inhabited  it,  that  the  aliment  of  this  false  pride  was  so  abun- 
dantly ministered.  The  same  barbarous  right  of  conquest  by  which  the  Spartans  held 
their  helots  in  bondage,  was  claimed  and  exercised  by  the  Scotic  or  dominant  caste  of 
Ireland,  not  merely  over  the  great  mass  of  the  population,  but  also  over  the  remains  of 
the  earliest  colonists — the  Belgians  and  Damnonians.  Leaving  to  the  descendants  of 
these  ancient  people  only  the  mechanic  and  servile  occupations,  their  masters  reserved 
to  themselves  such  employments  as  would  not  degrade  their  high  original;  and  it  was 
not  till  the  reign  of  Tuathal,  as  we  have  seen,  when  a  committee,  empowered  by  a  gene- 
ral assembly  of  the  states,  took  the  management  of  the  trade  and  manufactures  into  their 
care,  that  any  of  the  ruling  caste  condescended  to  employ  themselves  in  such  pursuits. 
But,  besides  this  subject,  or  conquered  class,  whose  position,  in  relation  to  their  Scotic 
masters,  corresponded,  in  some  respects,  with  that  of  the  Coloni  among  the  Franks,  and 
the  Ceorls  among  the  Anglo-Saxons,  there  were  also  purchased  slaves,  still  lower,  of 
course,  in  the  social  scale,  and  forming  an  article  of  regular  commerce  among  the  Irish, 
both  at  this  period  and  for  many  centuries  after.  We  shall  see  that  St.  Patrick,  whom, 
as  I  have  already  stated,  the  soldiers  of  the  monarch  Nial  carried  off  as  a  captive  from 
the  coast  of  Armoric  Gaul,  was,  on  his  arrival  in  Ireland,  sold  as  a  common  slave. 

It  has  been  already  remarked  that  the  system  of  polity  maintained  in  Ireland  bore,  in 
many  respects,  a  resemblance  to  the  feudal ;  and  some  of  those  writers  who  contend  for 
a  northern  colonization  of  this  country,  have  referred  to  the  apparently  Gothic  character 
of  her  institutions,  as  a  confirmation  of  their  opinion.  In  all  probability,  however,  the 
elements  of  what  is  called  the  feudal  system  had  existed  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  in  Britain 
and  Gaul,  many  ages  before  even  the  oldest  date  usually  assigned  to  the  first  introduction 
of  feudal  law  into  Europe;  being  traceable,  perhaps,  even  to  the  landing  of  the  first 
colonies  on  these  shores,  when,  in  parcelling  out  their  new  territory,  and  providing  for 
its  defence,  there  would  naturally  be  established,  between  the  leaders  and  followers,  in 
such  an  enterprise,  those  relations  of  fealty  and  protection,  of  service  and  reward,  which 
the  common  object  they  were  alike  engaged  in  would  necessarily  call  forth,  and  in  which 
the  principle  and  the  rudiments  of  the  feudal  policy  would  be  found.  It  has  been  shown 
by  Montesquieu,  from  the  law  of  the  Burgundians,  that  when  that  Vandalic  nation  first 
entered  Gaul,  they  found  the  tenure  of  land  by  service  already  existing  among  the 
people.* 

Little  doubt,  therefore,  as  there  is  of  a  Scythic  or  Gothic  colony  having,  about  a  cen- 
tury or  two  before  our  era,  gained  possession  of  Ireland,  no  evidence  thereof  is  to  be 
looked  for  in  the  laws  and  usages  of  that  country,  which,  on  the  contrary,  bear  impressed 
on  them  the  marks  of  Celtic  antiquity  ;  having  existed,  perhaps,  through  at  least  as  many 
centuries  before  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick,  as  they  are  known  to  have  continued  to  exist 
after  that  event,  and  with  scarcely  a  shadow  of  change. 

In  attempting  to  estimate  the  probable  degree  of  civilization  which  the  people  of  Ire- 
land, in  those  early  ages,  may  have  attained,  it  will  be  found  that  the  picture  of  their 
state  transmitted  to  us,  as  well  in  their  own  annals  as  in  the  representations  of  others,  is 
made  up  of  direct  contrasts;!  and  that  there  is  not  a  feature  in  their  history,  indicative 
of  an  advance  in  social  refinement,  that  is  not  counteracted  by  some  other  stamped  with 
the  strongest  impress  of  barbarism.  It  is  only  by  compounding  between  these  two  oppo- 
site extremes,  that  a  just  medium  can  be  attained,  and  that  the  true,  or  at  least  probable, 
state  of  the  case,  can  be  collected  from  such  evidence. 

The  double  aspect,  indeed,  under  which  the  ancient  character  of  tiie  country  thus 
glimmers  upon  us,  through  the  mists  of  time,  has  divided  the  writers  who  treat  of  her  an- 
tiquities into  two  directly  opposite  parties;  and  as  if  even  the  history  of  Ireland  was  fated 
to  be  made  a  subject  of  faction,  the  contest  has  been  carried  on  by  the  respective  dis- 
putants, with  a  degree  of  vehemence  and  even  bitterness  which,  on  a  question  relating 
to  personages  and  events  so  far  removed  into  past  ages,  appears  not  a  little  extraordinary. 
While,  on  the  one  side,  the  warm  zealots  in  the  cause  of  Ireland  exalt  to  such  a  height 
the  standard  of  her  early  civilization,  as  to  place  it  on  a  level  with  that  of  the  proudest 
states  of  antiquity, — describing  the  sumptuous  palaces  of  her  kings,  the  grand  assemblies 

*  "  II  est  dit,  dans  ta  loi  des  Bourguignons,  que  quand  ces  peuples  ^taldirent  dans  les  Gaules,  ils  recurent 
les  deux  lers  des  terres,  et  le  tiers  des  serfs.  La  servitude  de  la  glebe  6toit  done  etalilie  dans  cetle  parlie  de 
la  Gaule  avant  I'entrfee  des  Bourguignons."— Liv.  xxx.  cliap.  10. 

t  The  character  of  the  Issedones,  a  people  of  antiquity  mentioned  by  Herodotus,  was,  in  like  manner,  re- 
presented in  perfectly  different  aspects  to  the  world.  While,  like  the  ancient  Irish,  they  were  accused  of 
feeding  on  the  flesh  of  their  parents,  there  are  mentioned  qualities  belonging  to  tliem,  characteristic  of  a  re- 
fined people.  "  They  venerate  justice,"  says  Herodotus,  "  and  allow  their  females  to  enjoy  equal  authority 
with  the  men.  It  is  in  the  same  book  of  his  work  where  he  attributes  to  them  this  mark  of  social  refine- 
ment, that  he  tells  us  they  cooked  and  ate  their  dead  parents. 


102  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

of  her  legislators,  the  institutions  of  her  various  orders  of  chivalry,  and  the  collegiate  re- 
treats of  her  scholars, — while  thus,  the  Keatings,  Walkers,  O'Hallarans,  availing  them- 
selves as  well  of  the  falsehood  as  of  the  facts  of  Irish  tradition  and  history,  have  agreed 
in  picturing  the  early  times  of  tlieir  country  as  a  perfect  golden  age  of  glory,  political 
wisdoni,  and  refinement;  their  opponents,  the  Ledwiches  and  Pinkertons,  alike  confident 
in  the  strength  of  their  evidence,  pronounce  the  whole  of  the  very  same  period  to  have 
been  one  unreclaimed  waste  of  ignorance  and  barbarism. 

The  chief  authorities  upon  which  this  latter  view  of  the  question  rests,  are,  among  the 
Greek  writers,  Diodorus  Siculus  and  Strabo  ;  and  among  the  Romans,  Pomponius  Mela  and 
Solinus.  By  all  tliese  four  writers,  who  flourished,  at  successive  intervals,  from  a  period 
just  preceding  the  Christian  era  to  about  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  Ireland  is  re- 
presented to  have  been,  at  the  respective  times  when  they  lived,  in  a  state  of  utter  savage- 
ness.  According  to  Strabo*  and  Diodorust  the  natives  were  in  the  habit  of  feeding  upon 
human  flesh;  the  former  writer  adding,  that  the  corpses  of  their  parents  were  their 
favourite  food,  and  that  they  committed  incest  publicly.  The  description  of  them  by 
Pomponius  Mela  is  more  general,  but  fully  as  strong:  "They  had  no  sense  whatever," 
he  says,  "of  virtue  or  religion:"}:  and  Solinus  also,  in  mentioning  some  of  their  barbarous 
customs,  declares  "  that  they  made  no  distinction  between  right  and  wrong."^ 

Were  there  not  strong  grounds  for  calling  in  question  their  claims  to  authority,  as 
regards  Ireland,  the  evidence  of  these  writers  would  possess,  of  course,  considerable 
weight.  But  the  truth  is,  to  none  of  them,  and,  least  of  all,  to  the  two  most  ancient  and 
respectable  of  the  number,  Diodorus  and  Strabo,  is  any  attention,  on  the  subject  of  a 
country  so  wholly  unknown  to  them,  to  be  paid.  The  ready  reception  given  by  i)iodorus 
to  all  stray  fictions,  even  in  those  parts  of  his  work  not  professedly  fabulous,  would,  in  itself, 
justify  some  degree  of  distrust  in  any  statements  of  his  not  otherwise  sustained.  But  in 
the  case  of  Ireland  there  was,  in  addition  to  this  too  easy  belief,  an  entire  ignorance  on 
the  subject.  Writing  his  work  before  the  Romans  had  made  any  settlement  in  Britain, 
he  but  shared  in  the  general  darkness  then  prevailing,  both  among  Romans  and  Greeks, 
with  regard  to  the  state,  history,  and  even  geographical  position  of  the  British  Isles.|| 
More  than  half  a  century  after  Diodorus  had  completed  his  history,  we  find  Pomponius 
Mela  declaring,  that  until  the  expedition  of  the  emperor  Claudius,  then  in  progress,  Bri- 
tain had  been  shut  out  from  the  rest  of  the  world. If  When  such,  till  that  period,  had 
been  the  general  ignorance  respecting  Britain,  it  may  be  judged  how  secluded  from  the 
eyes  of  Europe  must  have  been  the  still  more  western  island  in  her  neighbourhood;  and 
how  little  known  its  internal  state,  except  to  those  Celtic  and  Iberian  tribes  of  Spain, 
with  whom  the  commerce  which  then  frequented  the  Irish  harbours,  must  have  been 
chiefly  interchanged.  It  is,  indeed,  curious,  as  contrasted  with  the  reports  of  her  brute 
barbarism  just  cited,  that  the  first  authentic  glimpse  given  of  the  state  of  Ireland  by  the 
Romans,  should  be  to  disclose  to  us  such  a  scene  of  busy  commerce  in  her  harbours,  and 
of  navigators  in  her  waters;  while,  to  complete  the  picture,  at  the  same  moment,  one 
of  her  subordinate  kings  was  a  guest,  we  are  told,  in  the  tent  of  Agricola,  and  nego- 
tiating with  him  for  military  aid. 

The  geographer  Strabo,  another  of  the  witnesses  adduced  in  proof  of  Irish  barbarism, 
was  equally,  disqualified  with  Diodorus  from  giving  evidence  upon  the  subject,  and  from 
precisely  the  same  cause, —  his  entire  ignorance  of  all  relating  to  it.  Even  on  matters 
lying  within  the  sphere  of  his  own  peculiar  science,  this  able  geographer  has,  in  his  ac- 
count of  Ireland,  fallen  into  the  most  gross  and  presumptuous  errors;**  presumptuous, 
inasmuch  as  some  of  them  were  maintained  in  direct  and  wilful  defiance  of  what  had 
been  delivered  down,  upon  the  same  points,  by  the  ancient  Greek  geographers,  who, 
from  following  closely  in  the  steps  of  the  Phoenicians,  were,  in  most  instances,  correct. 

*  The  charges  of  strabo  against  Ireland  are  contained  in  the  following  passage  :—neg/  «c  ovJ'iv  i^^/uiv 
Xtrytiv  o'ct^ii ,  TTKnv  OTl  nygiaiTipoi  tcdv  BpiTTdvcev  vTratpycvvtv  ot  KctTOtKOWTK  avTHV,  avBgaiTocpoLyoi  ts 
ovri!  nM  ■7roKv<^:iyot,  (al.  Tron^ctyol)  tov;  cTe  5r«tTfg«S"  TekiwrVc-av'ra.i  KtTi(rBlitv  tv  kuXoo  TlQi/ASVOt  KtU 
<fiaviga)C  fAitryivBAi  mtiTi  a.KK^t<:  yuveti^t  yot.i  /uHTgaa-i  «a/  aS'iK'pui;. — Lib.   iv. 

t  "  They  eat  men,"  says  Diodorus,  in  sp(;aking  of  the  Gauls,  "  like  the  Britons  inhabiting  Iris,  or  Irin." 
•tiff'/  Tivti(  avQ^a'Trouc  ia^Btut,  axrTri^  uti  gam  jipiTTAVcev  tcvc:  kuttoikcuvtuc  tuv  ovo/u.at^o/nivnv  iJVv. — Lib.  iv. 
Of  the  application  of  this  passage  to  Ireland,  Rennel  thus  doubtfully  speaks:—"  It  is  not  altogether  certain, 
thouah  lijglily  probable,  that  the  country  intended  is  Ireland." 

t  Omnium  virtutum  ignari.  pietatis  admodum  expertes.— Lib.  iii.  c.  6. 

§  Fas  al(iue  ncfas  eodeni  animo  ducunt. 

11  Diodorus  himself  acknowledges  that,  at  the  lime  when  he  wrote,  the  British  isles  were  among  the  regions 
least  known  to  the  world  : —  Hwin-a.  TriTTTCDKiv  vrro  itiv  koivxv  itvBgciiTraiv  tTrryvcttrtv  — Lib.  iii. 

TT  Britannia,  qualis  sit  qualesque  progeneret,  mox  certiora  et  magis  e.\plorata  dicentur.  Quippe  tamdiu 
clausam  aperitecce  Principum  Maximus,  Clandius.— ZJe  Sit.  Orb.  lib.  iii. 

•*  Among  others  of  these  errors,  he  represents  Ireland  so  far  to  the  north  of  Britain,  as  to  be  almost  unin 
habitable  from  extremity  of  cold.— Lib.  ii.  As  far  as  we  have  at  present  the  means  of  judging,  his  predeces- 
sors Eratosthenes  and  Pylheas  were  far  more  correctly  informed  as  to  the  geography  of  the  western  parts  of 
Europe. 


HISTORY  OP  IRELAND.  103 

It  ought,  however,  in  justice  to  Strabo,  to  be  mentioned,  that  he  prefaces  his  account  of  the 
Irish  brutalities  by  admitting  that  he  had  not  received  it  from  any  trust-worthy  authority.* 

How  little  could  have  been  known  of  Ireland  at  the  time  when  Mela  wrote,  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  which  he  himself  tells  us,  that  even  Britain  was  then,  for  the  first 
time,  about  to  be  made  known  to  her  invaders.  But  many  a  British  campaign  took  place 
after  that  event,  before  Ireland  was  even  thought  of;  and,  till  the  time  of  Agricola's  ex- 
pedition, it  was,  to  the  Romans,  an  undiscovered  land.  With  regard  to  Solinus,  besides 
that  the  period  at  which  he  lived  seems  to  be  altogether  uncertain,  he  is  allowed,  in 
general,  to  have  been  but  an  injudicious  compiler  from  preceding  writers,  and  little 
stress,  therefore,  is  to  be  laid  on  his  authority. 

It  is,  then,  manifest,  that  all  the  evidence  derived  from  foreign  sources,  to  prove  the 
barbarous  state  of  the  Irish  before  the  Christian  era,  must,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
authorities  themselves,  be  considered  worthless  and  null  ;  while  the  numerous  testimonies 
which  Ireland  still  can  produce,  in  her  native  language,  her  monuments,  her  ancient 
annalsand  traditions,  all  concur  in  refuting  so  gross  and  gratuitous  an  assumption.  Having 
disposed  thus  of  the  chief,  if  not  the  only  strong  grounds  of  one  of  the  two  conflicting 
hypotheses,  to  which  the  subject  of  Irish  antiquities  had  given  rise,  I  am  bound  to  deal  no 
less  unsparingly  with  that  other  and  far  more  agreeable  delusion,  which  would  make  of 
Ireland,  in  those  early  ages,  a  paragon  of  civilization  and  refinement, — would  exalt  the 
splendour  of  her  Royal  Palaces,  the  romantic  deeds  of  her  Red-Branch  Knights,  the 
Celestial  Judgments  of  her  Brehons,  and  the  high  privileges  and  functions  of  her  Bards. 
That  there  is  an  outline  of  truth  in  such  representations,  her  most  authentic  records  tes- 
tify ; — it  is  the  filling  up  of  this  mere  outline  which  is,  for  the  most  part,  overcharged 
and  false.  The  songs  and  legends  of  the  country  are,  in  such  descriptions  confounded 
with  her  history ;  her  fictions  have  been  taken  for  realities,  and  her  realities  heightened 
into  romance.  Those  old  laws  and  customs  of  the  land,  so  ruinous,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
peace  and  industry,  could  not  have  been  otherwise  than  fatal  to  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion; nor  can  any  one  who  follows  the  dark  and  turbid  course  of  our  ancient  history, 
through  the  unvaried  scenes  of  turbulence  and  rapine  which  it  traverses,  suppose  for  an 
instant,  that  any  high  degree  of  general  civilization  could  coexist  with  habits  and  prac- 
tices so  utterly  subversive  of  all  the  elements  of  civilized  life. 

At  the  same  time  speculating  on  the  aspect  of  Irish  society  at  any  period  whatsoever, 
full  allowance  is  to  be  made  for  those  anomalies  which  so  often  occur  in  the  course  of 
affairs  in  that  country,  and  which,  in  many  instances,  baffle  all  such  calculations  respect- 
ing its  real  condition,  as  are  founded  on  those  ordinary  rules  and  principles  by  which 
other  countries  are  judged.  Even  in  the  days  of  Ireland's  Christian  fame,  when,  amidst 
the  darkness  which  hung  over  the  rest  of  Europe,  she  stood  as  a  light  to  the  nations, 
and  sent  apostles  in  all  directions  from  her  shores, — even  in  that  distinguished  period  of 
her  history,  we  shall  find  the  same  contrasts,  the  same  contrarieties  of  national  character, 
presenting  themselves;  insomuch  that  it  would  be  according  as  the  historical  painter 
selected  his  subjects  of  portraiture — whether  from  the  calm  and  holy  recesses  of  Glen- 
dalough  and  Inisfallen,  or  the  rath  of  the  rude  chief  and  the  fierce  councils  of  rebel  kings — 
that  the  country  itself  would  receive  either  praise  or  reprobation,  and  be  delineated  as  an 
island  of  savages  or  of  saints. 

But  there  is  an  era  still  more  strongly  illustrative  of  this  view  of  Irish  character,  and 
at  the  same  time  recent  enough  to  be  within  the  memory  of  numbers  still  alive.  That 
it  is  possible  for  a  state  of  things  to  exist,  wherein  some  of  the  best  and  noblest  fruits  of 
civilization  may  be  most  conspicuously  displayed  in  one  portion  of  the  community,  while 
the  habitual  violences  of  barbarism  are,  at  the  same  time,  raging  in  another,  is  but  too 
strongly  proved  by  the  history  of  modern  Ireland  during  the  last  thirty  years  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century, — a  period  adorned,  it  will  hardly  be  denied,  by  as  many  high  and  shining 
names  as  ever  graced  the  meridian  of  the  most  favoured  country,  and  yet  convulsed, 
through  its  whole  course,  by  a  furious  struggle  between  the  people  and  their  rulers, 
maintained  on  both  sides  with  a  degree  of  ferocity,  a  reckless  violence  of  spirit,  worthy 
only  of  the  most  uncivilized  life.  Such  an  anomalous  state  of  society,  so  fresh  within 
recollection,  might  abate,  at  least,  if  not  wholly  remove,  any  confidence  in  the  conclusion, 
that,  because  the  public  annals  of  ancient  Ireland  leave  little  else  in  the  memory  but  a 
confused  chaos  of  factions  and  never-ending  feuds,  she  could  not  therefore  have  arrived 
at  a  higher  rank  in  civilization  than  such  habits  of  turbulence  and  lawlessness  are  usually 
found  to  indicate. 

In  the  ill  repute  of  the  ancient  Irish  for  civilization,  their  neighbours,  the  Britons, 

*    Koti  TctuTO.  cf'  S'ura  \fyof4(v,  '»(  ovx.  i^oyn;  ci^ioTria-nii!  ^a^Tt/gac. — Lib.   iv. 


104  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

equally  shared ;  and  the  same  charges  of  incest,  community  of  wives,  and  other  such 
abominations,  which  we  find  alleged  against  the  Irish  are  brought  also  against  the  na- 
tives of  Britain  by  Caesar  and  Dion  Cassias.*  It  is  possible  that,  in  both  instances,  the 
imputations  may  be  traced  to  that  policy  of  the  commercial  nations  of  antiquity  which 
led  them  to  impute  all  manner  of  atrocities  and  horrors  to  the  inhabitants  of  places  where 
they  had  established  a  profitable  commerce.f  We  have  seen  with  what  jealous  care  the 
Phoenician  merchants,  and  subsequently,  also,  the  Carthaginians  and  Greeks,  endeavoured 
to  turn  the  attention  of  the  world  from  their  trade  with  the  British  Isles,  so  as  to  prevent 
all  commercial  rivals  from  interfering  with  their  monopoly.  A  part  of  this  policy  it  may 
have,  perhaps,  been  to  represent  the  Irish  as  brutes  and  cannibals,  and  their  neighbours, 
the  Britons,  as  little  better;  and  the  traders  who  crowded  the  ports  of  the  former  island 
in  the  first  century  would  be  sure  to  encourage  the  same  notion.  So  well  and  long  did 
these  traditional  stigmas  adhere,  that  the  poet  Ausonius,  in  the  fourth  century,  pronounces 
the  appellation  Briton  to  be  then  synonymous  with  that  of  bad  or  wicked  man  ;J  and 
about  the  same  period, — not  many  years  previously  to  the  great  naval  expedition  of  the 
Irish  monarch,  Niul  Giallach,  against  the  coasts  of  Britain, — we  find  St.  Jerome  gravely 
describing  an  exhibition  which  he  had  himself  witnessed  in  his  youth,  in  Gaul,  of  some 
cannibal  Scots,  or  Irishmen,  regaling  themselves  upon  human  flesh. ^ 

Much  the  same  sort  of  inconsistencies  and  contradictions  as  are  found  to  embarrass  and 
render  difficult  any  attempt  to  estimate  the  social  and  moral  condition  of  the  ancient 
Irieh,  will  be  found  also  in  the  facts  illustrative  of  their  state  of  advancement  in  those 
arts,  inventions,  and  contrivances,  which  are  the  invariable  results  of  civilized  life.  That, 
so  early  as  the  first  century,  their  harbours  were  much  resorted  to  by  navigators  and 
merchants,  the  authority  of  Tacitus  leaves  us  no  room  to  doubt;  and  their  enjoyment  of 
a  foreign  trade  may  be  even  referred  to  a  much  remoter  period,  as  we  find  Ptolemy,  in 
citing  testimony  of  one  of  those  more  ancient  geographers,  from  whom  his  own  materials 
on  the  subject  of  Ireland  are  mostly  derived,  remarking,  among  his  other  claims,  to  cre- 
dibility, his  having  rejected  all  such  accounts  of  that  country  as  were  gathered  from 
merchants  who  had  visited  her  ports  with  a  view  to  traffic  alone. || 

Notwithstanding  this  clear  and  authentic  evidence  of  her  having  been,  not  merely  in 
the  first  century,  but  in  times  preceding  our  era,  in  possession  of  a  foreign  commerce,  it 
appears  equally  certain  that  neither  then,  nor  for  many  ages  after,  had  the  interior  trade 
of  the  country  advanced  beyond  the  rude  stages  of  barter;  nor  had  coined  money,  that 
indispensable  ingredient  of  civilized  life,1F  been  yet  brought  into  use.  It  is  true,  both 
O'Flaherty  and  Keating  tells  us  of  a  coinage  of  silver  in  the  reign  of  the  monarch  Eadna 
Dearg,  no  less  than  466  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  at  a  place  called  Argeatre,  as 
they  say,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Suir,  in  Ossory.  But  it  is  plain  that  the  name  here, 
as  in  many  other  such  traditions,  was  the  sole  foundation  of  the  fable, — etymology  having 
been,  in  all  countries,  one  of  the  most  fertile  sources  of  fiction  and  conjecture.**  Equally 
groundless  may  be  pronounced  the  account  given  by  Keating  of  mints  erected  and  money 
coined  for  the  service  of  the  state,  about  the  time  of  the  commencement  of  St.  Patrick's 
apostleship.  It  is  certain  that,  for  many  centuries  after  this  period,  the  custom  of  pay- 
ing gold  by  the  weight  may  be  traced  ;  and  so  long  did  cattle,  according  to  the  primitive 
meaning  of  the  term  pecunia,  continue  to  be  the  measure  of  value,  that,  so  late  as  the 

*  Uxoris  habent  deni  duodenique  inter  se  communas,  et  maxime  fratres  cum  fratribus  parentesque  cum 
liberis."— i)efie/;.  Oal.  lib.  v.  cap  IG.  In  rcfeiring  to  the  charges  of  these  two  historians  against  the  Britons, 
Whitaker  says,  "  The  accusation  is  too  surely  as  just  as  it  is  scandalous."— i/isi  of  Manchester,  book  I.  chap. 
X.  sect.  5.  In  a  sermon  of  St.  Clirysostotn.  quoted  by  Camden  (Introduct.  Ixx.)  that  father  exclaims,  "  How 
often  in  Britain  did  men  eat  the  flesh  of  their  own  kind!" 

t  In  the  opinion  of  Pownal.  this  policy  of  the  ancients,  in  "  keeping  people  away  from  their  possessions," 
will  account  for  the  tales  of  the  Anthropophagi,  the  Syrens,  and  all  the  other  "  metaniorphosic  fables,  turning 
policied  and  commercial  people  into  horrid  and  savage  monsters." 

X  Aut  Brito  hie  non  est  Silvius,  aut  malus  est. — Epig.  110. 

This  poet  has  a  whole  stringof  pointless  epigrams  on  the  same  quibble.  Cellarius,  in  quoting  one  of  them 
says,  •' Male  illo  tempore  Uiiliinni  audiebant :"  ideo,  epigranmiate  112,— "  Nemo  bonus  Brito  est." 

§  Quid  loquar  de  ciEteris  nationibuscum  ipse  adolesceutulus  in  Gallia  viderim  Scotos,  gentem  Britannicam, 
humanis  yesci  carnibus."— S.  Hieron  contra  Jovinian,  lib.  ii. 

II  'fhiis  in  the  Latin  version  of  Ptolemy :—"  Atqui  el  ipse  Marinus  Tyrius  mercatorum  relationibus  nequa- 
quam  fidem  adhibere  videtur.  Itaque  Philenionis  sermoni  longitudinem  Insula  Hiberniee  ab  ortu  occasum 
usque  XX.  dierum  esse  tradenti  haudquaquam  adstipulatur,  dicens  hoc  eos  a  mercatoribus  percepisse,  hos 
enim  ait  veritatis  in  derogationem  baud  curari,  intentos  mercimoniis."— Gee^.  lib.  ii.  c.  11. 

TT  "  Soyez  seul,  et  arriyez,  par  quelque  accident,  chez  un  peupic  inconnu,  si  vous  voyez  una  piece  de  men* 
noie,  coinptez  quo  vous  etes  arrive  chez  une  nation  pohcite."— Montesquieu,  I.  xviii.  c.  15. 

**  By  the  same  ready  process,  another  Irish  monarch,  Acpy  Fuarchis,  who  reigned  a.  m.  3508,  was  made 
the  inventor  of  Currachs,  or  wicker  boats;  his  name,  Fuarchis,  signifying  a  boat  not  well  joined.— O^v-  part 
111.  cnap.  34. 


/    \ 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  105 

beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  celebrated  Book  of  Ballymote*  (a  compilation 
from  the  works  of  some  earlier  Irish  seanachies,)  was  purchased  by  a  certain  Hugh 
O'Donnel  for  140  milch  cows; — a  transaction  combining  in  itself,  rather  curiously,  at 
once  the  higli  estimation  of  literary  merit  which  marks  an  advanced  state  of  society,  and 
a  mode  of  payment  belonging  only  to  its  very  earliest  ages. 

While  in  their  home  commerce  such  evidence  of  backwardness  presents  itself,  their 
means  of  carrying  on  a  foreign  trade  appear  to  have  been  equally  limited.  For  any  dis- 
tance beyond  their  own  and  the  immediately  neighbouring  coasts,  the  resources  of  their 
navigation  were  but  rude  and  insecure,  consisting  chiefly  of  those  large,  open  boats, 
called  Currachs,  which,  like  the  light  vessels  of  osier  and  leather  used  by  the  ancient 
Liburnians,  were  composed  of  a  frame-work  of  wood  and  wicker,  covered  over  with  the 
skins  of  cattle  or  of  deer.  These  boats,  though  in  general  navigated  by  oars,  were  capable 
of  occasionally  carrying  masts  and  sails, — the  latter  being,  like  those  of  the  Veneti,  formed 
of  hides.  There  was  also  in  use,  among  the  Irish,  for  plying  upon  the  rivers  and  lakes 
small  canoes,  made  out  of  trees;  and  it  must  have  been  of  this  sort  of  rude  crafc  that 
Giraldus  spoke,  when  he  said  that  the  tail  of  a  live  salmon  could  upset  them.f  That  the 
currachs  were  considered  to  a  certain  degree  seaworthy,  may  be  judged  from  the  expe- 
ditions in  which  they  were  sometimes  employed.  It  was  in  a  skiff  of  this  kind,  described 
by  Columba's  biographer  as  furnished  with  sails,  that  St.  Cormac  is  said  to  have  more 
than  once  ventured  forth  in  quest  of  some  lonely  isle  in  the  ocean  where  he  might  fix  his 
retreat  ;f  and  in  one  of  these  exploratory  cruises  he  was  out  of  sight  of  land,  we  are  told, 
for  fourteen  days  and  nights. 5 

It  is  among  the  many  remarkable  proofs  of  that  identity  of  character  and  customs  which 
the  Irish  preserved  through  so  many  ages,  that,  so  far  back  as  the  time  when  Himilco 
visited  these  seas,  the  very  same  sort  of  boats  were  in  use  among  the  natives ;  and  that 
the  holy  men  of  the  "  Sacred  Island"  were  then  seen  passing,  in  their  hide-covered  barks, 
from  shore  to  shore,  in  the  very  same  manner  as  was  practised  by  her  saints  and  mission- 
aries more  than  a  thousand  years  after. || 

A  reverend  historian  cited  in  a  preceding  part  of  this  work,  has  described,  as  we  have 
seen,  with  much  pomp  and  circumstance,  the  fleet  of  the  Irish  monarch,  Nial  Giallach, 
with  the  shield  of  the  admiral  at  the  m^st-head,  the  rowers  chiming  their  oars  to  the 
music  of  the  harp,  and  other  such  probable  appurtenances.  On  the  same  poetical  au- 
thority from  whence  this  description  is  derived,  we  are  told  by  another  writer  of  the 
names  given  by  the  Irish  mariners  to  particular  stars,  by  whose  light  they  were  accus- 
tomed to  steer  in  their  voyages, — such  as  the  Guide  to  Erin,  the  Guide  to  Scandinavia, 
the  Guide  of  Night.1T  Such  false  pictures  of  manners,  put  forth  in  grave  works,  and  on 
such  authority  as  that  ofOssian,  are  little  less  than  deliberate  insults  on  a  reader. 

To  the  facts  above  stated,  as  apparently  inconsistent  with  the  notion  of  the  Irish  having 
been,  in  those  times,  a  trading  people,  may  be  opposed,  on  the  other  side,  the  actual  traces 
still  remaining  of  ancient  causeways  and  roads  throughout  the  country.**  One  great 
commercial  road,  having  walls,  we  are  told,  on  each  side,  strengthened  with  redoubts, 
was  carried  from  Galway  along  the  south  boundaries  of  the  people  called  anciently  the 
Auteri,  and  alorg  by  the  borders  of  the  counties  of  Mealh  and  Leinster,  to  Dublin. ff  If 
the  conjecture  oif  Whitaker,  too,  be  adopted,  that  the  great  road,  called  the  Watling 
Street,  extending  from  Dover,  through  London,  as  far  as  Anglesey  in  Wales,  was  origi- 
nally denominated,  by  the  ancient  Britons,  the  Way  of  the  Irish,  it  is  equally  probable 
that  tlie  causeway  from  Galway  to  Dublin  formed  a  part  of  the  same  line  of  conveyance ; 
and  that  articles  of  commerce  from  the  western  and  central  parts  of  Ireland  may  have 
been,  by  this  route,  transmitted  through  Britain,  and  into  Gaul. 

Among  the  tests  by  which  the  civilization  of  a  people  may  be  judged,  their  degree  of 

*  For  an  account  of  the  origin  and  transmission  of  this  celebrated  Book  of  Records,  which  was  chiefly  com- 
piled by  Solomon  O'Drum,  see  Trans.  Iberno-Celt  Society. 

t  Giraldus  speaks  more  particularly  of  the  British  currach.— (DescWpi.  Camb.)  "Cum  autem  naviculam 
salmo  injectus  cauda  fortiter  percusserit  non  absque  periculo  plerumque  vecturam  priter  et  vectorem  evertit." 

t  Eremum  in  oceano  qusrere. 

§  Nam  cum  ejus  navis  a  terris  per  quatuordecem  astei  teraporis  dies  totidemque  noctes,  plenis,  velis  Austro 
flante  vento,  ad  seplentrionalis  plagan  caeli  directo  excurrere  cursa.—Mamnan.  De.  S.  Columb.  Abbale  Hlensi. 

II  Sed  rei  ad  miraculnm 

Navigia  junctis  semper  aptant  pellibus, 
Corioque  vastum  sffipe  percirrrent  salum. 

Fest.  Avien,     Ora  Maritim. 

TT  Armstrong's  Gaelic  Dictionary. 

**  See  Brewer,  Introduct.,  for  remarks  on  the  vestiges  of  "  ecclesiastical  and  commercial  paved  roads  still 
observable  in  several  parts  of  Ireland."  "  These  public  ways,"  he  adds,  "  appear  to  have  led  fiom  such  sea- 
ports as  were  formerly  of  principal  consideration  to  the  interior  of  the  country." 

It  Wood,  Primitive  Origin  of  the  Irish,  p  96. 

13 


106  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

advancement  in  the  art  of  architecture  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  least  fallible ;  but  here 
again  the  historian  is  encountered  by  the  same  contrasts  and  inconsistencies, — not  merely 
between  tradition  and  existing  visible  evidence,  but  also  between  the  several  remaining 
monuments  themselves,  of  which  some  bespeak  all  the  rudeness  of  an  infant  state  of  so- 
ciety, while  others  point  to  a  far  different  origin,  and  stand  as  marks  of  a  tide  of  civiliza- 
tion long  since  ebbed  away.  In  tlie  geography  of  Ptolemy,  we  find  a  number  of  Irish 
cities  enumerated,  on  some  of  which  he  even  bestows  the  epithet  illustrious  or  distin- 
guished ;*  and  intimates  that,  in  two  of  them,  the  cities  llybernis  and  Rheba,  celestial 
observations  had  been  made.  But  though  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that,  in  the  time 
of  those  more  ancient  geographers  from  whom  Ptolemy  is  known  to  have  drawn  his 
materials,  such  cities  may  have  existed,  his  testimony  on  this  point  is  to  be  received  with 
caution;  as  in  Germany,  where,  at  the  time  when  Tacitus  wrote,  no  other  habitations 
were  known  than  detached  huts  and  caves,  this  geographer,  who  published  his  work  but 
about  half  a  century  later,  has  contrived  to  conjure  up  no  less  than  ninety  cities.  In  the 
same  manner,  any  inference  that  might  be  drawn  in  favour  of  the  civilization  of  Ireland, 
from  the  supposition  that  those  observations  of  the  length  of  the  solstitial  days,  by  which 
the  latitudes  of  the  Irish  cities  were  determined,  had  been  really  taken  in  those  cities 
themselves,  would  prove,  most  probably,  fallacious;  as  it  is  supposed  that  but  few  of  the 
latitudes  given  by  Ptolemy  were  the  result  of  actual  astronomical  observation.! 

Of  those  ancient  Raths,  or  Hill-fortresses,  which  formed  the  dwellings  of  the  old  Irish 
chiefs,  and  belonged  evidently  to  a  period  when  cities  were  not  in  existence,  there  are  to 
be  found  numerous  remains  throughout  the  country.  This  species  of  earthen  work  is 
distinguished  from  the  artificial  mounds,  or  trumuli,  by  its  being  formed  upon  natural 
elevations,  and  always  surrounded  by  a  rampart.  Within  the  area  thus  enclosed,  which 
was  called  the  Rath,  stood  the  habitations  of  the  chieftain  and  his  family,  which  were, 
in  general,  small  buildings  constructed  of  earth  and  hurdles,  or  having,  in  some  instances, 
walls  of  wood  upon  a  foundation  of  earth.  In  outward  shape,  as  I  have  said,  these  dwell- 
ings of  the  living  resembled  those  mounds  which  the  Irish  raised  over  their  dead ;  and  it  is 
conjectured  of  the  ancient  earthen  works  on  tlie  Curragh  of  Kildare,  that  while  the  larger 
rath  was  the  dwelling  of  the  ancient  chieftains  of  that  district,  the  small  entrenchments 
formed  their  cemetery  or  burial-place.  If  thus  uncivilized  were  the  habitations  of  the 
great  dynasts  of  those  days,  it  may  be  imagined  what  were  the  abodes  of  the  humbler 
classes  of  the  community; — though  here,  unfortunately,  the  imagination  is  not  called 
upon  for  any  effort;  as,  in  the  cottier's  cabin  of  the  present  day,  the  disgraceful  reality 
still  exists:  and  two  thousand  years  have  passed  over  the  hovel  of  the  Irish  pauper  in 
vain. 

A  degree  still  lower,  however,  on  the  scale  of  comfort,  would  have  been  the  lot  of  the 
ancient  Irish,  were  it  true,  as  Ledwich  and  others  have  asserted,  that  they  lived  chiefly, 
in  the  manner  of  the  Troglodytes,  in  subterranean  caves.  That  some  of  those  caverns, 
of  which  so  great  a  number,  both  artificial  and  natural,  have  been  discovered  throughout 
Ireland,  may  have  been  used  as  places  of  refuge  for  the  women  and  children  during  times 
of  danger  and  invasion,  appears  to  be  highly  probable.  We  find  some  of  them  described 
as  divided  into  apartments,  and  even  denoting  an  attempt  at  elegance  in  their  construction. 
They  have  also  sometimes  sustaining  walls  of  dry  stone-work,  to  confine  the  sides  and 
support  the  flags  which  form  tlie  ceiling.  But  though  they  are  pronounced  to  have  been 
evidently  subterranean  houses,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  human  beings  reduced  to  such 
a  bodes.  + 

It  was  among  a  people  thus  little  removed  from  the  state  of  the  Germans  in  the  time 
of  Tacitus,  that  the  Palaces  of  Tara  and  Emania,  as  authentic  records  leave  us  but  little 
room  to  doubt,  displayed  their  regal  halls,  aiul,  however  skepticism  may  now  question 
their  architectural  merits,  could  boast  the  admiration  of  many  a  century  in  evidence  of 
their  grandeur.  That  these  edifices  were  merely  of  wood  is  by  no  means  conclusive  either 
against  the  elegance  of  their  structure,  or  the  civilization,  to  a  certain  degree,  of  those 

*  T«c  tfs  loi/f^f/ac  vyi^x  at  iTrnrufxci  ttoxii^. 

f-  "Quant  a  la  diirtV  du  jour  solstitial,  nous  avons  deja  dit,  et  nous  verrons  occasion  de  prouver  encore, 
que  la  tres  srande  partie  de  ces  especes  de  determinations  contenues  dans  le  huitieme  livre  de  Ptol6mee 
n'6toit  le  rtsultat  d  aucune  observation  astronomique,  et  qu'elle  n'etoit  conclue  que  d'apres  les  latitudes  adop- 
tees de  son  terns;  ainsi  on  ne  pent  leur  accorder  aucune  confiance  quand  elles  ne  sont  pas  apuyees  sur  le 
t6moignage  de  quelques  autres  cei ivains. "—GwsscHn,  Recherches  sur  la  Ocographie  des  Anciens. 

X  "  Son)e  of  them  are  excavated  into  the  hard  gravel,  with  the  flags  resting  on  no  other  support;  and  so  low 
that  you  can  only  sit  erect  in  them;  that  is,  from  three  to  four  feet  from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling.  I  have  not 
seen  any  higher  than  four  feet The  tradition  of  the  country  makes  them  granaries;  but  for  gra- 
naries they  could  never  have  been  intended,  as  it  would  have  been  very  difficult  to  convey  grain  into  them, 
through  long  and  narrow  passages,  not  more  than  two  feet  square." — Description  of  a  remarkable  Building 
(^c,  by  F.  C.  Bland,   Trans.  R.  Irish  Acad.  vol.  xiv. 

Sec,  for  similar  "  hiding-pits,"  as  he  calls  them,  among  the  Britons,  King  Muniment,  Anliq.  book  i.  chapt.  1. 


/ 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  107 

who  erected  them.  It  was  in  wood  that  the  graceful  forms  of  Grecian  architecture  first 
unfolded  their  beauty;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that,  at  the  time  when  Xerxes, 
invaded  Greece,  most  of  her  temples  were  still  of  this  perishable  material. 

Not  to  lay  too  much  stress,  however,  on  these  boasted  structures  of  ancient  Ireland,  of 
which  there  is  but  dry  and  meager  mention  by  her  annalists,  and  most  hyperbolical  descrip- 
tions  by  her  bards,  there  needs  no  more  striking  illustration  of  the  strong  contrast  which 
her  antiquities  present,  than  that,  in  the  very  neighbourhood  of  the  earthen  rath  and  the 
cave,  there  should  rise  proudly  aloft  those  wonderful  Round  Towers,  bespeaking,  in  their 
workmanship  and  presumed  purposes,  a  connexion  with  religion  and  science,  which 
marks  their  builders  to  have  been  of  a  race  advanced  in  civilization  and  knowledge, — a 
race  different,  it  is  clear,  from  any  of  those  who  are  known,  from  time  to  time,  to  have 
established  themselves  in  the  country,  and,  therefore,  most  probably,  the  old  original 
inhabitants,  in  days  when  the  arts  were  not  yet  strangers  on  their  shores. 

There  are  yet  a  few  other  facts,  strongly  illustrative  of  this  peculiar  view  of  our  anti- 
quities, to  which  it  may  be  worth  while  briefly  to  advert.  Respecting  the  dress  of  the 
ancient  Irish,  we  have  no  satisfactory  information.  In  an  account  given  of  them  by  a 
Roman  writer  of  the  third  century,  they  are  represented  as  being  half  naked;*  and  the 
Briton  Gildas,  who  wrote  about  three  hundred  years  after,  has  drawn  much  the  same 
picture  of  them.f  It  was  only  in  battle  however,  that  they  appear  to  have  presented 
themselves  in  this  barbarian  fashion ;  and  a  similar  custom  prevailed  also  among  the  ancient 
Britons  and  Picts.  But,  though  no  particulars  of  the  dress  of  the  Irish,  in  those  remote 
times,  have  reached  us,  enough  may  be  collected  from  the  accounts  of  a  later  period, 
when  they  had  become  more  known  to  Europe,  to  satisfy  us  that  the  Milesian  lord  of  the 
rath  and  "the  plebeian  of  the  hovel  had  as  little  advanced  on  the  scale  of  civilization  in 
their  dress  as  in  their  dwellings;  and  that,  while  the  latter  was  most  probably  clothed, 
like  the  lower  order  of  Britons,  in  sheepskin,  the  chief  himself  wore  the  short  woollen 
mantle,  such  as  was  customary,  at  a  later  period,  among  his  countrymen,  and  which, 
according  to  some  authorities,  reached  no  farther  than  the  elbows;  leaving,  like  the 
Rheno,  or  short  mantle  of  the  ancient  Germans,^  the  remainder  of  the  body  entirely  naked. 
There  is  reason  to  believe,  however,  that  at  that  time,  as  well  as  subsequently,  they  may 
have  worn  coverings  for  the  thighs  and  legs,  or  at  least  that  sort  of  petticoat,  or  fallin,  as 
it  was  called,  which  is  known  to  have  been  worn,  as  well  as  the  braccse,  by  the  Irish,  in 
the  time  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis.§ 

Such  having  been  the  rude  state  of  the  ancient  Irish,  within  any  range  of  time  to 
which  our  knowledge  of  them  extends,  it  remains  to  be  asked,  to  whom  then,  to  what  race 
or  period,  could  have  belonged  those  relics  of  an  age  of  comparative  refinement,  those 
curious  and  costly  ornaments  of  dress,  some  of  the  purest  gold,  elaborately  wrought,  and 
others  of  silver,  which  have  been  discovered,  from  time  to  time,  in  different  parts  of 
Ireland,  having  been  dug  up  out  of  fields  and  bogs  where  they  must  have  lain  hidden  for 
ages?!!  Nor  is  it  only  of  ornaments  for  the  person  that  these  precious  remains  consist; 
as  there  are  found  also  among  them  instruments  supposed  to  have  been  connected  with 
religious  worship,  which  are  said  to  be  of  the  finest  gold,  without  any  alloy,  and  to  have, 
some  of  them,  handles  of  silver,  chased  with  plated  gold. IT    In  like  manner,  a  variety  of 

*  Adhuc  semi-nudi. — Eumen.  Panegyric.  Vet. 

t  Magis  vultus  pilliis  quara  corporum  pudenda,  pudendisque  proxima,  vestibus  tegentes  — Oildes. 

t  Pellibus  aut  parvis  rhenonum  tergisraentis  utuntur,  magna  corporis  parte  nuda. — Cws.  de  Bell.  Oall.  1. 
vi.  c.  21. 

§  In  their  dress,  as  well  as  in  most  other  respects,  to  attempt  to  distinguish  very  definitely  between  the 
Celts  and  Teutons  will  be  found  a  vain  and  fallacious  task.  We  have  seen  that  the  Irish  and  Gaulish  Celts 
were  fond  of  variegated  dresses;  and  so,  it  appears,  were  the  Lombards  and  Anglo-Saxons.  "  Vestimenta 
(says  Diaconus,  I.  iv.  c.  7.,)  qualia  Angli-Saxones  habere  solent,  ornata  institis  latioribus,  vario  colore  con- 
textis."  The  braces  of  the  Irish  were,  like  those  of  the  Germans,  tight,  while  the  Sarmatians  and  Uataviana 
preferred  them  large  and  loose. 

"  Et  qui  te  laxis  imitantur,  Sarmata,  braccis 
Vangiones,  Batavique  truces."  Lucan,  1.  i.  430. 

II  "  Within  the  limits  of  my  own  knowledge,"  says  the  Rev.  W.  Hamilton,  "golden  ornaments  have  been 
found  to  the  amount  of  near  one  thousand  pounds  "—Letters  Concerning  the  Coast  of  Antrim. 

The  superior  richness  of  the  urns  and  ornaments  discovered  in  Ireland,  compare  with  those  found  in  the 
English  barrows,  is  fully  acknowledged  by  Sir  Richard  Iloare.  "The  Irish  urns  were,"  he  says,  "  in  general, 
more  ornamented,"  and  the  articles  of  gold,  also,  "richer  and  more  numerous." — Tour  in  Ireland,  General 
Remarks. 

IT  See  Cough's  Camden,  vol.  iv.  Collectan.  Hibern.  vol.  iv.  Among  other  curious  Irish  remains,  bishop 
Pocoke  produced  to  the  Antiquarian  Society  a  bracelet,  or  armilla,  of  fine  gold.  See  drawing  of  this  and  a 
gold  bracelet  in  Cough,  vol.  iv.  pi.  14.  Also  plate  12.  for  some  curious  instruments,  supposed  by  Pocoke  to  be 
fibuls,  while  Simon  and  Vallancey  are  both  of  opinion  that  they  were  paterae,  used  by  the  ancient  Druids. 
Among  the  most  beautiful  of  the  ornaments  discovered  in  Ireland  have  been  those  golden  torques  or  collars, 
supposed  to  have  been  worn  by  the  Irish  Druids,  as,  according  to  Strabo,  they  were  by  the  Gauls.  One  ol 
these,  of  delicate  workmanship,  and  of  the  purest  gold,  is  in  the  possession  of  the  Marquis  of  Langsdowne. 


108  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Bwords  and  other  weapons*  have  been  discovered,  the  former  of  which  would  seem  to 
have  been  fabricated  before  iron  had  been  brought  into  use  for  such  purposes,  as  they  are 
all  of  a  mixed  metal,  chiefly  copper,  admitting  of  a  remarkably  high  polish,  and  of  a 
temper  to  carry  a  very  sharp  edge. 

To  attempt  to  reconcile, — even  on  the  grounds  already  suggested,  of  the  anomolous 
character  of  the  people,^ — the  civilized  tastes,  the  skill  of  metallurgy,  the  forms  of  wor- 
ship, which  these  various  articles,  in  their  several  uses,  imply,  with  such  a  state  of  things 
as  prevailed  in  Ireland  during  the  first  ages  of  Christianity,  appears  altogether  impossible ; 
and  the  sole  solution  of  this  and  other  such  contradictions,  in  the  ancient  history  of  the 
Irish,  is  that,  at  the  time  when  they  first  became  known  to  the  rest  of  Europe,  they  had 
been  long  retrograding  in  civilization ;  that,  whether  from  the  inroads  of  rude  northern 
tribes,  or  the  slowly  demoralizing  effects  of  their  own  political  institutions,  they  had 
fallen,  like  other  once  civilized  nations,  into  eclipse;  and  though,  with  true  Celtic  perse- 
verance, still  clinging  to  their  old  laws  and  usages,  their  Assemblies  at  Tara,  their 
Colleges  of  Bards,  the  Great  Psalter  of  their  Antiquaries,  yet  preserving  of  the  ancient 
fabric  little  more  than  the  shell,  and,  amidst  all  these  skeletons  of  a  bygone  civilization, 
sinking  fast  into  barbarism.  This  view  of  the  matter  seems  so  remarkably  confirmed  by 
that  interval  of  ignorance,  and  even  oblivion,  as  to  the  state  and  fortunes  of  Ireland, 
which  succeeded  to  the  times  of  the  geographer  Pytheas,  of  Eratosthenes,  and  the  Tyrian 
authorities  of  Ptolemy.  By  all  these,  and  more  especially  the  latter,  the  position  and 
localities  of  that  island  appear  to  have  been  far  better  known  than  by  Strabo  or  any  of 
the  later  Greek  authorities,t — a  circumstance  to  be  explained  only  by  the  supposition 
that  those  ties  of  intercourse,  whether  commercial  or  religious,  which  the  Irish  once 
maintained,  it  is  clear,  with  other  nations,  had  during  this  interval  been  interrupted,  and 
all  the  light  that  had  flowed  from  those  sources  withdrawn.  Through  a  nearly  similar 
course  of  retrogradation  \we  shall  find  them  again  doomed  to  pass,  after  their  long  and 
dark  suffering  under  the  yoke  of  the  Danes,  when,  exhausted  not  more  by  this  scourge 
than  by  their  own  internal  dissensions,  they  sunk  from  the  eminent  station  they  had  so 
long  held  in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  and  fell  helplessly  into  that  state  of  abasement,  and 
almost  barbarism,  in  which  their  handful  of  English  conquerors  found  them. 

In  the  state  of  society  which  prevailed  in  Ireland,  in  the  middle  ages,  when  it  differed 
but  little,  probably,  from  that  of  the  period  we  are  now  considering,  an  eminent  historian 
has  discovered  some  points  of  resemblance  to  the  picture  represented  to  us  of  the  Homeric 
age  of  Greece  ;t  and  it  is  certain  that  the  style  of  living,  as  described  by  Homer,  in  the 
palace  of  Ulysses,  the  riot  and  revel  in  the  great  hall,  which  was  the  scene  of  the  cooking 
as  well  as  of  the  feasting, — the  supposed  beggar  admitted  of  the  party,  and,  not  least, 
the  dunghill  lying  in  the  path  from  the  court-gate  to  the  door,5  might  all  find  a  paralell 
in  the  mansions  of  Irish  chieftains,  even  to  a  later  period  than  that  assigned  by  the 
historian. 

Among  the  numerous  other  vestiges  still  remaining  of  an  age  of  civilization  in  Ireland, 
far  anterior  to  any  period  with  which  her  history  makes  us  acquainted,  should  not  be 
forgotten  those  extraordinary  coal-works  of  Ballycastle,  on  the  coast  of  Antrim,  which  are 
pronounced  to  have  been  wrought  in  times  beyond  even  the  reach  of  tradition, 1|  and  which 
a  writer,  by  no  means  indulgent  to  the  claims  of  Irish  antiquities,  conjectures,  from  the 
"  marks  of  ancient  operations"  which  they  exhibit,  to  have  been  the  work  of  some  of  the 
very  earliest  colonists  of  the  country.ir    The  last  resource  with  certain  theorists,  respect- 

*  "One  circumstance  as  to  the  swords  seems  to  be  decisive  : — they  are  as  exactly  and  as  minutely  to  every 
apparent  mark  the  same  with  the  swords  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  collection,  now  in  the  British  Museum,  as  if 
they  came  out  of  the  same  armory.  The  former  found  in  the  field  of  Canna;  are  said  to  be  Carthagenian; 
these,  therefore,  by  parity  of  reasoning  may  likewise  he  said  to  have  been  of  the  same  people.  Governor 
PownaCs  .Account  of  some  Irish  jintiquitics  to  the  Society  of  Antiquarians,  1774.  ''What  makes  these  brazea 
swords  such  a  valuable  remnant  to  the  Irish  antiquarian  is.  ihey  serve  to  corroborate  the  opinion  that 
the  Phoenicians  once  had  footing  in  this  kingdom." — CampbeWs  Philosoph.  Su7-vey  of  the  South  of  Ireland. 

t  Pytlieam  prajterca  increpat  Strabo  ut  mendacem,  qui  Hibcrniam  ac  U.xisaman  (Ushant)  ad  occidentum 
ponit  a  Gallia  cum  h«c  omnia,  ait  ad  Septentj-ionem  vergant.  Jtaque  veteres  geographi  HiberniiE  situm 
detiniunt  melius  quam  scriptores  scculi  aurei  Augusti,  liimilco  el  Phoenices  melius  quam  Gra!ci  vel  Romani ! 
Rcr.  Script.  Hib.  prol.  i.  xii. 

I  Mitford,  History  of  Greece,  vol.  i. 
§  Odyss.  lib.  vii. 

II  "The  antiquity  of  this  work  is  pretty  evident  from  hence,  that  lliere  does  not  remain  the  most  remote 
tradition  of  it  in  the  country  ;  but  it  is  still  more  strongly  demonstrated  from  a  natural  process  which  has 
taken  place  since  its  formation:  for  the  sides  and  pillars  were  found  covered  with  sparry  incrustations, 
which  the  present  workmen  do  not  observe  to  be  deposited  in  any  definite  portion  of  time."— /ieo.  /*'.  Hamil- 
ton's Letters  concerning  the  Coast  of  Antrim. 

IT"  The  superior  inlelligeiiceof  this  people  (the  Daninii  or  Danaans)  and  of  theClanna  Rhoboig,  considered 
with  Tacitua's  account  of  the  trade  of  Ireland,  induce  me  to  suppose  that  the  coal-works  at  Ballycastle,  on 
the  northern  coast,  which  e.\hibit  marks  of  ancient  operations,  had  been  worked  by  either  or  both."— 
IVood's  Inquiry  into  the  Primitive  Inhabitants  of  Ireland. 

The  following  evidence  on  this  subject  is  worthy  of  attention  :— "  If  we  may  judge  from  the  number  of 
ancient  mine  e.Tcavations  which  are  still  visible  in  almost  every  part  of  Ireland,  it  would  apiiear  that  an 


p  HISTORY  OF  IKELAND.  109 

iri^owr  antiquities,  is  to  attribute  all  such  works  to  the  Danes;  and  to  this  people  the 
ancient  coal-works  of  Ballycastle,  as  well  as  all  the  other  mine  excavations  through- 
out Ireland,  have  been  assigned.  But  the  scanty  grounds  assumed  for  such  a  conjec- 
ture, and  the  utter  improbability  that  a  people,  harassed  as  were  the  Danes,  and  never,  at 
any  period,  in  peaceable  possession  of  the  country,  should  have  found  time  for  such  slow 
and  laborious  operations  of  peace,  has  been  already  by  various  writers  convincingly  de- 
monstrated. 

Postponing  the  consideration  of  some  other  usages  and  characteristics  of  the  Pagan 
Irish  to  a  somewhat  later  period,  when,  remaining  still  unchanged,  the  materials  for  illus- 
trating them  will  be  found  more  ample  and  authentic,  I  shall  here  only  advert  to  one  or 
two  points  connected  with  their  knowledge  of  the  usefnl  arts  and  manner  of  living, 
respecting  which  information,  however  scanty,  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  the 
ancients.  Those  who  regard  Mela  as  sufficient  authority  for  the  barbarous  habits  of  the 
people,  will  not,  of  course,  reject  his  evidence  as  to  the  exercise  among  them  of  agricul- 
ture and  grazing: — "The  climate  of  Jverna,"  says  this  geographer,  "is  unfavourable  to 
the  ripening  of  seeds;  but  so  luxuriant  in  pasture,  not  only  plenteous,  but  sweet,  that  the 
cattle  fill  themselves  in  but  a  small  part  of  the  day,  and,  unless  restrained  from  the  pas- 
ture, would  burst  by  over-eating."* 

Another  favourite  witness  of  the  anti-Irish  school,  Solinus,  thus  speaks  of  the  military 
weapons  of  the  old  natives  : — "Those  among  them  who  study  ornament,  are  in  the  habit 
of  adorning  the  hilts  of  their  swords  with  the  teeth  of  sea-animals,  which  they  burnish  to 
the  whiteness  of  ivory ;  for  the  chief  glory  of  those  people  lies  in  their  arms."f 

We  have  already  seen  that  numbers  of  swords,  made  of  brass,  have  been  found  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  country;  and  of  these  some  are  averred  to  be  exactly  of  the  same 
description  with  the  swords  found  on  the  field  of  Cannae,  which  are  in  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton's collection.  Swords  similar  to  these  have  been  discovered  also  in  Cornwall,  and 
Count  Caylus  has  given  an  engraving  of  one,  of  the  same  kind,  which  he  calls  Gladius 
Hispaniensis,  and  which  came,  as  it  appears,  from  Herculaneum.  It  has  been  thought 
not  improbable  that  all  these  weapons,  the  Irish  as  well  as  the  others,  were  of  the  same 
Punic  or  Phoenician  origin,  and  may  be  traced  to  those  colonies  on  the  coast  of  Spain 
which  traded  anciently  with  the  British  isles.  There  are  said  to  have  been  likewise 
discovered  some  scythe-blades  of  bronze,  such  as  were  attached  anciently  to  the  wheels 
of  war  chariots;!  the  use  of  that  Asiatic  mode  of  warfare  having  prevailed  formerly,  we 
are  told,  in  Ireland  as  well  as  in  Britain.  That  for  some  parts  of  their  armour,  more 
especially  their  wicker  shields,  and  bows  with  short  arrows,  the  Irish  were  indebted  to 
their  Scythic  conquerors,  the  Scots,  appears  by  no  means  unlikely. 5  But  the  most 
ancient  remains]]  of  their  weapons  are  the  stone  hatchets,  and  also  those  heads  of  arrowsIT 
and  spears,  some  of  flint,  and  others  pointed  with  bones,  the  latter  resembling  those 
which,  for  want  of  iron,  were  used,  as  Tacitus  tells  us,  by  the  ancient  Finlanders.'*'* 

ardent  spirit  for  mining  adventure  must  have  pervaded  this  country  at  some  very  remote  period.  In  many 
cases,  no  tradition  that  can  be  depended  upon  now  remains  of  the  time  or  people  by  whom  the  greater  part 
of  these  works  were  originally  commenced."  This  experienced  engineer  adds  : — "  It  is  worthy  of  remark, 
that  many  of  our  mining  excavations  exhibit  appearances  similar  to  the  surface-workings  of  the  most 
ancient  mines  in  Cornwall,  which  are  generally  attributed  to  the  Phoenicians." — Report  to  the  Royal  Dublin 
Society,  on  the  Metallic  Mnes  of  Leinster,  in  1828,  by  Richard  Oriffith,  Esq. 

*  Iverna  est  cneli  ad  maturanda  semina  iniqui ;  verum  adeo  luxuriosa  herbis  non  lietis  modo,  sed  etiam 
dulcibus,  ut  se  exigua  parte  diei  pecoia  impleant  et  nisi  pabulo  prohibeantur,  diutibus  pasta  dissiliant. — De 
Situ  Orbis. 

t  Qui  student  cultui  dentibus  marinariim  belluarum  insigniunt  ensium  capulos,  candicant  enini  ad  ebur- 
neam  claritatera ;  nam  prascipua  viris  gloria  est  in  telis. — Solinus,  Polyhist. 

X  Meyrick  on  Ancient  Armour,  vol.  i.  One  of  these  scythe-blades  of  bronze  he  describes  as  thirteen 
inches  long. 

§  Ware's  Antiquities,  chap.  2. 

|(  "  Hammers  of  stone  have  been  found  in  the  copper-mines  of  Kerry  ;  heads  of  arrows,  made  of  flint,  are 
often  dug  up,  and  are  now  esteemed  the  work  of  fairies." — Collectan.  No.  2. 

IT  According  to  a  work  quoted  by  Meyrick,  these  arrows  must  have  been  more  ancient  than  even  the  time 
of  the  Phoenicians.  "The  inhabitants  of  Britain  and  Ireland,  previous  to  their  intercourse  with  the  Phce- 
nicians,  had  merely  bows,  with  arrows  of  reed,  headed  with  flint,  or  pointed  with  bones,  sharpened  to  an 
acute  edge."  No  sooner,  liowever,  did  the  Phoenicians  effect  an  amicable  interchange  with  these  islanders, 
than  they  communicated  to  them  the  art  of  minufacturing  their  warlike  instruments  of  metal.— Costume  of 
the  Orig.  Inhab.  of  the  British  Isles. 

**  Sola  in  sagittis  spes,  quas,  inopia  ferri,  ossibus  asperant.— German,  c.  46. 


110  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  X. 

INTRODUCTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  INTO  IRELAND. 

The  period  of  Irish  history  on  which  we  are  novv  about  to  enter,  and  of  which  the  mis- 
sion of  St.  Patrick  forms  the  principal  feature,  will  be  found  to  exhibit,  perhaps,  as  sin- 
gular and  striking  a  moral  spectacle  as  any  the  course  of  human  affairs  ever  yet  pre- 
sented. A  community  of  fierce  and  proud  tribes,  for  ever  warring  among  themselves, 
and  wholly  secluded  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  with  an  ancient  hierarchy  entrenched 
in  its  own  venerable  superstitions,  and  safe  from  the  weakening  infusion  of  the  creeds 
of  Greece  or  Rome,  would  seem  to  present  as  dark  and  intractable  materials  for  the  for- 
mation of  a  Christian  people  as  any  that  could  be  conceived.  The  result  proves,  how- 
ever, the  uncertainty  of  such  calculations  upon  national  character,  while  it  affords  an 
example  of  that  ready  pliancy,  that  facility  in  yielding  to  new  impulses  and  influences, 
which,  in  the  Irish  character,  is  found  so  remarkably  combined  with  a  fond  adherence  to 
old  usages  and  customs,  and  with  that  sort  of  retrospective  imagination  which  for  ever 
yearns  after  the  past. 

While,  in  all  other  countries,  the  introduction  of  Christianity  has  been  the  slow  work 
of  time,  has  been  resisted  by  either  government  or  people,  and  seldom  effected  without  a 
lavish  eff'usion  of  blood;  in  Ireland,  on  the  contrary,  by  the  influence  of  one  humble  but 
zealous  missionary,  and  with  but  little  previous  preparation  of  the  soil  by  other  hands, 
Christianity  burst  forth,  at  the  first  ray  of  apostolic  ligiit,  and,  with  the  sudden  ripeness  of 
a  northern  summer,  at  once  covered  the  whole  land.  Kings  and  princes,  when  not  them- 
selves among  the  ranks  of  the  converted,  saw  their  sons  and  daughters  joining  in  the  train 
without  a  murmur.  Chiefs,  at  variance  in  all  else,  agreed  in  meeting  beneath  the 
Christian  banner;  and  the  proud  Druid  and  Bard  laid  their  superstitions  meekly  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross;  nor,  by  a  singular  blessing  of  Providence — unexampled,  indeed,  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  church — was  there  a  single  drop  of  blood  shed  on  account  of  religion, 
through  the  entire  course  of  this  mild  Christian  revolution,  by  which,  in  the  space  of  a 
few  years,  all  Ireland  was  brought  tranquilly  under  the  dominion  of  the  Gospel.* 

By  no  methods  less  gentle  and  skilful  than  tliose  which  her  great  Apostle  employed, 
could  a  triumph  so  honourable,  as  well  to  himself  as  to  his  nation  of  willing  converts, 
have  been  accomplished.  Landing  alone,  or  witii  but  a  few  humble  followers,  on  their 
shores,  the  circumstances  attending  his  first  appearance  (of  which  a  detailed  account  shall 
presently  be  given)  were  of  a  nature  strongly  to  afi^ect  the  minds  of  a  people  of  lively  and 
religious  imaginations;  and  the  flame,  once  caught,  found  fuel  in  the  very  superstitions 
and  abuses  which  it  came  to  consume.  Had  any  attempt  been  made  to  assail,  or  rudely 
alter,  the  ancient  ceremonies  and  symbols  of  tiieir  faith,  all  that  prejudice  in  favour  of 
old  institutions,  which  is  so  inherent  in  the  nation,  would  at  once  have  rallied  around 
their  primitive  creed  ;  and  the  result  would,  of  course,  have  been  wholly  diff*erent.  But 
the  same  policy  by  wiiich  Christianity  did  not  disdain  to  win  her  way  in  more  polished 
countries,  was  adopted  by  the  first  missionaries  in  Ireland  ;  and  the  outward  forms  of  past 
error  became  the  vehicle  through  which  new  and  vital  truths  were  conveyed. t  The 
days  devoted,  from  old  times,  to  Pagan  festivals,  were  now  transferred  to  the  service  of 
the  Christian  cause.  Tiie  feast  of  Sanihin,  which  had  been  held  annually  at  the  time  of 
the  vernal  equinox,  was  found  opportunely  to  coincide  with  the  celebration  of  Easter; 
and  the  fires  lighted  up  by  the  Pagan  Irish,  to  welcome  the  summer  solstice,  were  con- 
tinued afterwards,  and  even  down  to  the  present  day,  in  honour  of  the  eve  of  St.  John. 

*  Giraldus  Camlirensis  has  been  guilty  of  either  the  bigotry  or  the  stupidity  of  adducing  this  bloodless  tri- 
umph of  Christianity  among  the  Irish,  as  a  charge  against  that  people ; — Pro  Chrisli  ecclesia  corona  martyri 
nulla.  Non  igitur  inventus  est  in  partibus  istis,  qui  ecclesiie  surgeiitis  funilamcnta  sanguinis  eti'usione 
cementaret :  non  fuit  qui  facerit  hoc  bonein  ;  non  fuit  useque  ad  uriiini."— Tbpo"'.  Hib.  dist.  iii.  cap.  29. 

t  The  very  same  policy  was  recommended  by  Pope  Gregory  to  Augustin  and  his  fellow-labourers  in  Eng- 
land. See  his  letter  to  the  Abbot  Mellitus,  in  Bede,  '(■'''•  '■  c  30,)  where  he  suggests  that  the  temples  of  the 
idols  in  that  nation  ought  not  to  he  destroyed.  "  Let  the  idols  that  are  in  them,"  he  says,  "  be  destroyed  ;  let 
holy  water  be  made,  and  sprinkled  in  the  said  temples  ;  let  altars  be  erected,  and  relics  placed.  For  if  those 
temples  are  well  built,  it  is  requisite  that  they  be  converted  from  the  worship  of  devils  to  the  service  of 
the  true  God ;  that  the  nation,  not  seeing  those  temples  destroyed,  may  remove  error  from  their  hearts,  and 
knowing  and  adoring  the  true  God,  may  more  willingly  re.sort  to  the  same  places  they  were  wont.  .  .  .  For 
there  is  no  doubt  but  that  it  is  impossible  to  retrench  all  at  once  from  obdurate  minds,  because  he  who 
endeavours  to  ascend  the  highest  place,  rises  by  degrees  or  steps,  and  not  by  leaps."  See  Hume's  remarks 
on  this  policy  of  the  first  missionaries,  vol.  i.  chap.  1. 

With  similar  views,  the  early  Christians  selected,  in  general,  for  the  festivals  of  their  church,  such  days  as 
had  become  hallowed  to  the  Pagans  by  the  celebration  of  some  of  their  religious  solemnities. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  Ill 

At  every  step,  indeed,  the  transition  to  a  new  faith  was  smoothed  by  such  coincidences 
or  adoptions.  The  convert  saw,  in  the  baptismal  font,  where  he  was  immersed,  the  sacred 
well  at  which  his  fathers  had  worshipped.  The  Druidical  stone  on  the  "high  places" 
bore,  rudely  graved  upon  it  the  name  of  the  Redeemer;  and  it  was  in  general  by  the  side 
of  those  ancient  pillar  towers — whose  origin  was  even  then,  perhaps,  a  mystery — that,  in 
order  to  share  in  the  solemn  feelings  which  they  inspired,  the  Christian  temples  arose. 
With  the  same  view,  the  Sacred  Grove  was  anew  consecrated  to  religion,  and  the  word 
Dair,  oroak,  so  often  combined  with  the  names  of  churches  in  Ireland,  sufficiently  marks 
the  favourite  haunts  of  the  idolatry  which  they  superseded.*  In  some  instances,  the 
accustomed  objects  of  former  worship  were  associated,  even  more  intimately,  with  the 
new  faith ;  and  the  order  of  Druidesses,  as  well  as  the  idolatry  which  they  practised, 
seemed  to  be  revived,  or  rather  continued,  by  the  Nuns  of  St.  Bridget,  in  their  inextin- 
guishable fire  and  miraculous  oak  at  Kildare.f 

To  what  extent  Christianity  had  spread,  in  Ireland,  before  the  mission  of  St.  Patrick, 
there  are  no  very  accurate  means  of  judging.  The  boast  of  Tertullian,  that,  in  his  time, 
a  knowledge  of  the  Christian  faith  had  reached  those  parts  of  the  British  isles  yet  unap- 
proached  by  the  Romans,  is  supposed  to  imply  as  well  Ireland  as  the  northern  regions 
of  Britain  ;f  nor  are  there  wanting  writers,  who,  placing  reliance  on  the  assertion  of 
Eusebius,  that  some  of  the  apostles  preached  the  Gospel  in  the  British  isles,  suppose  St. 
James  the  elder  to  have  been  the  promulgator  of  the  faith  among  the  Irish, ^ — ^just  as  St. 
Paul,  on  the  same  hypothesis,  is  said  to  have  communicated  it  to  the  Britons. 

But  though  unfurnished  with  any  direct  evidence  as  to  the  religious  state  of  the  Irish  in 
their  own  country,  we  have  a  proof  how  early  they  began  to  distinguish  themselves,  on  the 
continent,  as  Christian  scholars  and  writers,  in  the  persons  of  Pelagius,  the  eminent  here- 
siarch,  and  his  able  disciple  Celestius.  That  the  latter  was  a  Scot,  or  a  native  of  Ireland, 
is  almost  universally  admitted  ;  but  of  Pelagius  it  is,  in  general,  asserted  that  he  was  a 
Briton,  and  a  monk  of  Bangor,  in  Wales.  There  appears  little  doubt,  however,  that  this 
statement  is  erroneous,  and  that  the  monastery  to  which  he  belonged  was  that  of  Bangor, 
or  rather  Banchor,  near  Carrickfergus.  Two  of  the  most  learned,  indeed,  of  all  the 
writers,  respecting  the  heresy  which  bears  his  name,  admit  Pelagius,  no  less  than  his 
disciple,  to  have  been  a  native  of  Ireland.  || 

By  few  of  the  early  Christian  heresiarchs  was  so  deep  an  impression  made  on  their  own 
times,  or  such  abundant  fuel  for  controversy  bequeathed  to  the  future,  as  by  this  remarka- 
ble man,  Pelagius,  whose  opinions  had  armed  against  him  all  the  most  powerful  theolo- 
gians of  his  day,  and  who  yet  extorted,  even  from  his  adversaries,  the  praise  of  integrity 
and  talent.  The  very  bitterness  with  which  St.  Jerome  attacks  him,  but  shows  how 
deeply  he  felt  his  power;1T  while  the  eulogies  so  honourably  bestowed  upon  him  by  his 
great  opponent,  St.  Augustine,  will  always  be  referred  to  by  the  lovers  of  tolerance,  as  a 
rare  instance  of  that  spirit  of  fairness  and  liberality  by  which  the  warfare  of  religious  con- 
troversy may  be  softened.** 

*  Thus  Dairmagli,  now  called  Durrogh,  in  the  King's  County,  once  the  site  of  a  celebrated  monastery,  signi- 
fies the  Oak  Grove  of  the  Plain,  or  the  Plain  of  the  Oaks.  The  name  of  the  ancient  monastery,  Doire- 
Calgaich,  from  whence  the  city  of  Derry  was  designated,  recalls  the  memory  of  the  Hill  of  Oaks,  on  which 
it  was  originally  erected;  and  the  chosen  seat  of  St  Bridget,  Kildare,  was  but  the  Druid's  Cell  of  Oaks  con- 
verted into  a  Christian  temple. 

t  See  Giraldus,  Topog.  Hibern.  dist.  ii.  cap.  34,  35,  30,  48.  The  Tales  of  Giraldus,  on  this  subject,  are  thus 
rendered  by  a  learned  but  fanciful  writer,  the  author  of  Nimrnd  : — "St.  Bridget  is  certainly  no  other  than 
Vesta,  or  the  deity  of  the  fire- worshippers  in  a  feiriale  form.  The  fire  of  St.  Bridget  was  originally  in  the 
keeping  of  nine  virgins;  but  in  the  lime  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis  there  were  twenty,  who  used  to  watch 
alternate  nights  :  but  on  the  twentieth  night,  the  man  whose  turn  it  was  merely  to  throw  on  the  wood,  crying, 
"  Bridget,  watch  thine  own  fire  !" — in  the  morning  the  wood  was  found  consumed,  but  the  fire  unextinguished. 
Nor,  indeed,  (saith  Giraldus)  hath  it  ever  been  e.\tinguished  during  so  many  ages  since  that  virgin's  time  ; 
nor,  with  such  piles  of  fuel  as  have  been  there  consumed,  did  it  ever  leave  ashes.  The  fire  was  surrounded 
by  a  fence,  of  form  circular,  like  'i'^esta's  temple — •  Virgoo  orbiculari  sepe,' — which  no  male  creature  rould 
enter  and  escape  divine  vengeance.  An  archer  of  the  household  of  Count  Richard  jumped  over  St.  Bridget's 
fence,  and  went  mad;  and  he  would  blow  in  the  face  of  whoever  he  met,  saying,  '  Thus  did  1  blow  St. 
Bridget's  fire  !'    Another  man  put  his  leg  through  a  gap  in  the  fence,  and  was  withered  up." — Vol.  ii. 

t  Britiannorum  inaccessa  Romanisloca,  Christo  vero  subdita — Lib.  adv .  Judwos .  cap.  7. 

§  See  the  authorities  collected  on  this  point  by  Usher,  Eccles.  Primord.  chap.  i.  xvi.  Vincent  de  Beauvais 
thus  asserts  it : — "  Nutu  Dei  Jacobus  Hibernise  oris  appulsus  verbum  Dei  prsedicavit  inlrepidus,  ubi  septeni 
discipulos  eligisse  fertur." — Speculum  HistoriaicWi- 'v'ln.  c.  7.  It  has  been  well  conjectured  by  Usher  that 
this  story  has  arisen  from  a  confusion  of  Hibernia  with  Hiberia;  the  latter  being  one  of  the  names  of  Spain, 
which  country  St.  James  is  said  to  have  visited. 

II  Gamier,  in  his  Dissert,  upon  Pelagianism,  and  Vossius,  in  his  Histor.  Pelag.  The  latter  says :— "  Pela- 
gius professione  monachus,  natione  non  Gallus  Brito,  ut  Dansus  putavit ;  nee  Anglo-Britannus,  ut  scripsit 
Balffius,  sed  Scotus." — Lib.  i.  cap.  3. 

IT  Among  other  reflections  on  the  country  of  Pelagius,  St.  Jerome  throws  in  his  teeth  the  Irish  flummery  :— 
"  Nee  recordatur  stolidissimuset  Scotorum  pultibus  prffigravatus." — In  Hierem.  Prcefat.  lib.  i.  Upon  this,  Vos- 
sius remarks  :—"  Nam  per  Scotorum  pultibus  pragravatum,  non  alium  intelligit  quam  Pelagium  natione 
Scotum."— Lib.  i.  cap.  3. 

**  The  following  are  a  few  of  the  passages,  in  which  this  praise,  so  creditable  to  bolh  parties,  is  conveyed : 
— "Pelagii,  viri,  ut  audio,  sanctit  et  non  parvo  profectu  Christian!. "—/)c  Peccal.  vicrilisac  rciniis.  lib.  iii.cap. 
1.—"  Eum  qui  noverunt  loquuntur  bonum  ac  praedicandum  virum."— 76.  cap.  3.  And  again,  "  Vir  ille  tarn 
egregie  Christianus." 


112  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

The  rank  of  Celestius,  in  public  repute,  though  subordinate,  of  course,  to  that  of  his 
master,  was  not,  in  its  way,  less  distinguished.  So  high  was  the  popular  estimate  of  his 
talents  that  most  of  the  writings  circulated  under  the  name  of  Pelagius,  were  supposed 
to  have  been  in  reality  the  production  of  his  disciple's  pen.  We  are  told  by  St  Augus- 
tine indeed,  that  many  of  the  followers  of  the  heresy  cliose  to  style  themselves,  after  the 
latter,  Celestians;  and  St.  Jerome,  in  one  of  liis  paroxysms  of  vituperation,  goes  so  far  as 
to  cal'l  him  "  the  leader  of  the  whole  Pelagian  army."* 

While  yet  a  youth,  and  before  he  had  adopted  the  Pelagian  doctrines,  Celestius  had 
passed  some  time  in  a  monastery  on  the  continent,  supposed  to  have  been  that  of  St. 
Martin  of  Tours,  and  from  thence  (a.  d.  369)  addressed  to  his  parents,  in  Ireland,  three 
letters,  "  in  the  form,"  as  we  are  told,  "  of  little  books,"  and  full  of  such  piety,  "  as  to 
make  them  necessary  to  all  who  love  God.  Among  his  extant  works  there  is  mentioned 
an  epistle  "On  the  Knowledge  of  Divine  Law;"  which,  by  some,  is  conjectured  to  have 
been  one  of  those  letters  addressed  by  him  to  his  parents.t  But  Vossius  has  shown,  from 
internal  evidence,  that  this  could  not  have  been  the  case;  the  epistle  in  question  being, 
as  he  says,  manifestly  tinged  with  Pelagianism,J  and  therefore  to  be  referred  to  a  later 
date.  The  fact  of  Celestius  thus  sending  letters  to  Ireland,  with  an  implied  persuasion, 
of  course,  that  they  would  be  read,  affords  one  of  those  incidental  proofs  of  the  art  of 
writing  being  then  known  to  the  Irish,  which,  combining  with  other  evidence  more  direct, 
can  leave  but  little  doubt  upon  the  subject.  A  country  that  could  produce,  indeed,  before 
the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  two  such  able  and  distinguished  men  as  Pelagius  and 
Celestius,  could  hardly  have  been  a  novice,  at  that  time,  in  civilization,  however  secluded 
from  the  rest  of  Europe  she  had  hiterto  remained. 

From  some  phrases  of  St.  Jerome,  in  one  of  his  abusive  attacks  on  Pelagius,  importing 
that  the  heresy  professed  by  the  latter  was  common  to  others  of  his  countrymen,  it  hag 
been  fairly  concluded  that  the  opinions  in  question  were  not  confined  to  these  two  Irish- 
men; but,  on  the  contrary,  had  even  spread  to  some  extent  among  that  people.  It  is, 
indeed,  probable,  that  whatever  Christians  Ireland  could  boast  at  this  period,  were  mostly 
followers  of  the  peculiar  tenets  of  their  two  celebrated  countrymen  ;  and  the  fact  that 
Pelagianism  had,  at  some  early  period,  found  its  way  into  this  country,  is  proved  by  a 
letter  from  the  Roman  clergy  to  those  of  Ireland,  in  the  year  640,  wherein,  adverting  to 
Bome  indications  of  a  growth  of  heresy,  at  that  time,  they  pronounce  it  to  be  a  revival  of 
the  old  Pelagian  virus.^ 

Already  in  Britain,  where,  at  the  period  of  which  we  are  treating,  Christianity  had  for 
more  than  a  century,  flourished, ||  the  tenets  of  Pelagius  had  been  rapidly  gaining  ground  ; 
and  the  mission  of  St.  German  and  Lupus  to  that  country,  in  the  year  429,  was  for  the 
express  purpose  of  freeing  it  from  the  infection  of  this  heresy.  Among  the  persons  who 
accompanied  this  mission,  was  the  future  apostle  of  Ireland,  Patrick,  then  in  his  forty- 
second  year.  While  thus  occupied,  the  attention  of  these  missionaries  would  naturally 
be  turned  to  the  state  of  Christianity  in  Ireland;  and  it  was,  doubtless,  the  accounts 
which  they  gave  of  the  increasing  number  of  Christians,  in  that  country,  as  well  as  of 
the  inroads  already  made  upon  them  by  the  Pelagian  doctrines,  that  induced  pope  Celes- 
tine  to  turn  his  attention  to  the  wants  of  the  Irish,  and  to  appoint  a  bishop  for  the  super- 
intendence of  their  infant  church.  The  person  chosen  for  this  mission  "to  the  Scots 
believing  in  Christ"  (for  so  it  is  specified  by  the  chroniclerU)  was  Palladius,  a  deacon  of 
the  Roman  church,  at  whose  instance  St.  German  had  been  sent  by  the  pope  to  reclaim 
the  erring  Britons;  and,  whatever  preachers  of  the  faith,  foreign  or  native,  might  have 
appeared  previously  in  Ireland,  it  seems  certain  that,  before  this  period,  no  hierarchy  had 
been  there  instituted,  but  that  in  Palladius,  the  Irish  Christians  saw  their  first  bishop. 

For  a  short  period,  success  appears  to  have  attended  his  mission ;  and  a  zealous  anti- 
Pelagian  of  that  day,  in  his  haste  to  laud  the  spiritual  triumphs  of  the  pope,  prematurely 

*  "  Pelagii  Ticet  discipuliim  tamen  niagistrum  et  ductoiem  exercitus." — Epist.  ad  Ctesiphon 

t  "  Calcstius  aiitoquam  dogma  Pelagianuin  iiicurreret,  imo  adhuc  adolescens  scripsit  ad  parentes  suos  de 
monasterioepistolasin  modum  libelloriim  tres,  onini  Deiimdesideranti  necessarias."— Oc7(narfias,  Catal  J/lust. 
Vir.  By  Dr.  O'Connor,  Uiis  passage  of  Geniiadiiis  lias  been  rather  nnaccountably  brought  forward,  in  proof 
of  the  early  introduction  of  monastic  institutions  into  Ireland.  "  Monachorun*  instituta  toto  fere  sceculo 
ante  S.  Palricii  ariventum,  invecta  fuisse  in  Hiberniam  patel  ex  supra  allatis  de  C;f  lestio,  qui  ab  ipsa  adoles- 
centia  monasterio  se  dicavit,  ut  scribit  Genadius."  But  the  mere  fact  of  the  Irishman  Celestius  having  been 
in  a  monastery  on  tlie  continent,  is  assuredly  no  proof  of  the  introduction  of  monastic  establishments  into 
Ireland. — See  Prol.  i.  Ix.wiii. 

X  Manifesto,  riexa^^i'^s/. 

6  Et  hoc  quoque  cognovimus,  quod  virus  Pelagiaiia-  ha-reseos  apud  vos  deniio  reviviscit. 

II  British  bi.shops  had  already  been  present  at  some  continental  councils  ;'at  that  of  Aries,  in 
t  the  council  of  Nice,  as  is  shown  to  t 

ir  "  Ad  Scotos  in  Christum  credent! 
Prosper.  Chron.  Sass.  el  Antioch.  Coss. 


„  .,.....,..  .,.,,„,,,,c  .,„,.  u.icuujr  ui^cii  jjieseiii  ai  some  coniineniai  councils;' 
at  the  council  of  Nice,  as  is  shown  to  be  probable,  (Antiq.  of  Churches,  chap",  ii  )  in  the  year  325 
ir  "  Ad  Scotos  in  Christum  credentes  ordinatus  a  Papa  Celesiino  Palladi  ~  ' 


D.  314;  and 
Papa  Celestino  Palladius  primus  Episeopus  mittitus."— 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  U3 

announced  that  the  new  missionary  fo  tlje  British  isles,  "  while  endeavouring'  to  keep 
Britain  Catholic,  had  made  Ireland  Christian."*  The  result,  however,  as  regards  the 
latter  country,  was  by  no  means  so  prosperous.  The  few  believers  Palladius  found  or 
succeeded  in  making  during  his  short  stay,  could  ill  protect  him  against  the  violence  of 
the  numbers  who  opposed  him  ;  and,  after  some  unavailing  efforts  to  obtain  a  hearing  for 
his  doctrine,  he  was  forced  to  fly  from  the  country,  leaving  behind  him  no  other  memorial 
of  his  labours  than  the  adage  traditional  among  the  Irish,  that  "not  to  Palladius  but  to 
Patrick  did  God  grant  the  conversion  of  Ireland."  This  ill-fated  missionary  did  not  live 
to  report  his  failure  at  Rome;  but  being  driven  by  a  storm  on  the  coast  of  North  Britain, 
there  died,  it  is  said,  at  Fordun,  in  the  district  of  Mearns. 

Before  entering  on  an  account  of  St.  Patrick's  mission,  a  brief  sketch  of  his  life,  pre- 
vious to  that  period,  may  be  deemed  requisite.  It  will  be  seen  that  with  him,  as  perhaps 
with  most  men  who  have  achieved  extraordinary  actions,  a  train  of  preparation  appears 
to  have  been  laid,  from  the  very  outset,  for  the  mighty  work  he  was  to  accomplish. 
Respecting  his  birth-place,  there  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion ;  the  prevailing' 
notion  being  that  he  was  born  at  Alcluit,  now  Dunbarton,  in  North  Britain.f  It  is  only, 
liowever,  by  a  very  forced  and  false  construction  of  some  of  the  evidence  on  the  subject, 
that  any  part  of  Great  Britain  can  be  assigned  as  the  birth-place  of  the  Saint;  and  his 
own  Confession,  a  work  of  acknowledged  genuineness,  proves  him  to  have  been  a  native  of 
the  old  Galilean,  or  rather  Armoric  Britain.!  The  country  anciently  known  by  this  name 
comprised  the  whole  of  the  north-west  coasts  of  Gaul ;  and  in  the  territory  now  called 
Boulogne,  St.  Patrick,  it  appears,  was  born.  That  it  was  on  the  Armorican  coast  he  had 
been  made  captive,  in  his  boyhood,  all  the  writers  of  his  life  agree;  and  as  it  is  allowed  also 
by  the  same  authorities  that  his  family  was  resident  there  at  the  time,  there  arose  a  diffi- 
culty as  to  the  cause  of  their  migration  thither  from  the  banks  of  the  Clyde,  which  the 
fact,  apparent  from  his  own  statement,  that  Armorica  was  actually  the  place  of  his  nativity 
disposes  of  satisfactorily.  His  family  was,  as  he  informs  us,  respectable,  his  father  having 
held  the  office  of  Decurio,  or  municipal  senator  ;  though,  as  it  appears,  he  afterwards 
entered  into  holy  orders,  and  was  a  deacon.  From  a  passage  in  the  Letter  of  the  Saint 
to  Coroticus,  it  is  supposed,  and  not  improbably,  that  his  family  may  have  been  of  Roman 
origin;  and  the  opinion  that  his  mother,  Conchessa,  was  a  native  of  some  part  of  the 
Gauls,  is  concurred  in  by  all  the  old  Irish  writers. 

The  year  of  his  birth  has  been  likewise  a  subject  of  much  variance  and  controversy; 
but  the  calculations  most  to  be  relied  upon  assign  it  to  a.  d.  387,  which,  according  to  hia 
own  statement  of  his  having  been,  at  the  time  when  he  was  made  captive,  sixteen  years 
of  age,  brings  this  latter  event  to  the  year  403,  a  period  memorable  in  Irish  history,  when 
the  monarch  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  after  laying  waste  the  coasts  of  Great  Britain, 
extended  his  ravages  to  the  maritime  districts  of  Gaul. 

On  being  carried  by  his  captors  to  Ireland,  the  young  Patrick  was  purchased, 
as  a  slave,  by  a  man  named  Milcho,  who  lived  in  that  part  of  Dalaradia  which  is  '^V^o " 
now  comprised  within  the  county  of  Antrim.     The  occupation  assigned  to  him 
was  the  tending  of  sheep;  and  his  lonely  rambles  over  the  mountain  and  in  the  forest  are 
described  by  himself  as  having  been  devoted  to  constant  prayer  and  thought,  and  to  the 
nursing  of  those  deep  devotional  feelings  which,  even  at  that  time,  he  felt  strongly  stir- 
ring within  him.     The  mountain  alluded  to  by  him,  as  the  scene  of  his  meditations,  is 
supposed  to  have  been  Sliebhmis,  as  it  is  now  called,  in  Antrim.     At  length,  after  six 
years  of  servitude,  the  desire  of  escaping  from  bondage  arose  in  his  heart;  a  voice  in  his 
dreams,  he  says,  told  him  that  he  "  was  soon  to  go  to  his  own  country,"  and  that  a  ship 
was  ready  to  convey  him.     Accordingly,  in  the  seventh  year  of  his  slavery,  he  betook 
himself  to  flight,  and,  making  his  way  to  the  south-western  coast  of  Ireland,  was  there 

*  Etordinato  Scotis  episcopo,  diira  Coraanam  insulam  studet  servare  Catliolicara,  fecit  etiam  Barbaram 
Christianam. — Prosjier.  Lib.  contra  Collat.  cap.  41.  This  sanguine  announcement  was  issued  by  Prosper,  in  a 
work  directed  against  the  semi  Pelagians,  when  the  true  result  of  Palladius's  mission  had  liot  yet  reached 
him.  With  respect  to  the  epithet  "  barbara,"  here  applied  to  Ireland,  it  is  well  known  that  whatever  country 
did  not  form  a  part  of  the  Roman  Empire,  was,  from  ancient  custom,  so  styled. 

t  Dr.  O'Connor,  who  was  of  this  opinion,  takes  also  for  granted  that,  as  a  native  of  Alcluid,  or  Dunbarton, 
St.  Patrick  might  have  been  claimed  as  Scoto-Irish;  Alcluid  having  been,  as  he  asserts,  the  seat  of  the  Irish 
kings  in  Albany.  "  Alcluid,  Rupes  Chidensis,  hodie  Dunbarton,  qiise  fuit  regia  arx  regum  Hibernorum  Alba- 
nice."  He  adds: — "  Natus  est  itaque  S.  Patricius  inter  Hibernos  in  prsecipuo  Hibernorum  propugnaculo  in 
Albania."  Prol.  i.  xcviii.  This  surely,  however,  is  incorrect.  The  city  in  question — the  Rock  of  Clyde,  as 
it  was  called— remained  in  the  hands  of  the  British  so  late  as  the  days  of  Bede  (1.  i.  c.  12.;)  and  it  was,  there- 
fore, not  for  many  centuries  after  the  lime  of  St.  Patrick  that  it  was  taken  possession  of  by  the  Scots. 

_X  Patrem  habui  Calpornium  diaconum,  filiura  quondam  Potiti  presbyteri,  qui  fuit  in  vico  Bonavem  Taber- 
niw:  villulam  Enon  prope  habuit  ubl  capturam  dedi. — Confess.  Doctor  Lanigan  has  shown  clearly  that  the 
place  here  mentioned,  Bonavem,  or  Bonavem  Tabernis,  was  in  Armoric  Gaul,  being  the  same  town  aa  Bou- 
logne-surMer  in  Picardy.— See  Eccles.  Hist.  chap.  2. 

14 


114  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

received,  with  some  reluctance,  on  board  a  merchant  vessel,  which,  after  a  voyage  of 
three  days,  landed  him  on  the  coast  of  Gaul.* 

After  indulging,  for  a  time,  in  the  society  of  his  parents  and  friends,  being  natu- 
aViq'  r^lly  desirous  of  retrieving  the  loss  of  those  years  during  which  he  had  been  left 
without  instruction,  lie  repaired  to  the  celebrated  monastery  or  college  of  St. 
.yi.    Martin,t  near  Tours,  where  he  remained  four  years,  and  was,  it  is  believed, 
initiated  there  in  the  ecclesiastical  state.     That  his  mind  dwelt  much  on  recol- 
lections of  Ireland,  may  be  concluded  from  a  dream  which  lie  represents  himself  to  have 
had  about  this  time,  in  which  a  messenger  appeared  to  him,  coming  as  if  from  Ireland,  and 
bearing  innumerable  letters,  on  .one  of  which  were  written  these  words,  "  The  Voice  of 
the  Irish."     At  the  same  moment,  he  fancied  that  he  could  hear  the  voices  of  persons 
from  the  wood  of  Foclat,  near  the  Western  Sea,  crying  out,  as  if  with  one  voice,  "  We 
entreat  thee,  holy  youth,  to  come  and  walk  still  among  us." — "I  was  greatly  affected  in 
my  heart,"  adds  the  Saint,  in  describing  this  dream,  "and  could  read  no  farther  ;  I  then 
a\voke."J     In  these  natural   workings  of  a  warm   and  pious  imagination,  described   by 
himself  thus  simply, — so  unlike  the  prodigies  and  miracles  with  which  most  of  the  legends 
of  his  life  abound, — we  sec  what  a  hold  the  remembrance  of  Ireland  had  taken  of  his 
youthful  fancy,  and  how  fondly  he  already  contemplated  some  holy  work  in  her  service. 

At  the  time  when  tiiis  vision  occurred,  St.  Patrick  was  about  thirty  years  old,  and  it 
was  shortly  after,  we  are  told,  that  he  placed  himself  under  the  spiritual  direction  of  St. 
German  of  Auxerre,  a  man  of  distinguisiied  reputation,  in  those  times,  both  as  a  civilian 
and  an  ecclesiastic.  From  this  period,  there  is  no  very  accurate  account  of  the  Saint's 
studies  or  transactions,  till,  in  the  year  429,  we  find  him  accompanying  St.  German  and 
Lupus,  in  their  expedition  to  Britain,  for  the  purpose  of  eradicating  from  that  country  the 
growing  errors  of  Pelagianism.  Nine  years  of  this  interval  he  is  said  to  have  passed  in 
an  island,  or  islands,  of  the  Tuscan  Sea  ;  and  the  conjecture  that  Lerins  was  the  place  of 
his  retreat  seems,  notwithstanding  the  slight  geographical  difficulty,  by  no  means  impro- 
bable. Thers  had  been  recently  a  monastery  established  in  tiiat  island,  which  became 
afterwards  celebrated  for  the  number  of  holy  and  learned  persons  whom  it  had  produced; 
nor  could  the  destined  apostle  have  chosen  for  himself  a  retreat  more  calculated  to  nurse 
the  solemn  enthusiasm  which  such  a  mission  required  than  among  the  pious  and  contem- 
plative Solitaries  of  the  small  isle  of  L6rins. 

The  attention  of  Rome  being  at  this  time  directed  to  the  state  of  Christianity  among 
the  Irish, — most  probably  by  the  reports  on  that  subject  received  from  the  British  mission- 
aries,— it  was  resolved  by  Celestine  to  send  a  bishop  to  that  country,  and  Palladius  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  person  appointed.     The  peculiar  circumstances  which   fitted  St. 
Patrick  to  take  part  in  such  a  mission,  and  probably  his  own  expressed  wishes  to  that 
effect,  induced   St.  German  to  send  him  to  Rome  with   recommendations  to  the  Holy 
Father.     But,  before  his  arrival,  Palladius  had  departed  for  Ireland,  and  the  hope- 
/oi "  less  result  of  his  mission  has  already  been  related.     Immediately  on  the  death  of 
■  ■  this  bishop,  two  or  three  of  his  disciples  set  out  to  announce  the  event  to  his  suc- 
cessor St.  Patrick,  who  was  then  on  his  way  through  Gaul.     Having  had  himself  conse- 
crated bisJiop  at  Ivboriaj  a  tov.'n  in  the  north-west  of  that  country,  the  Saint  proceeded  on 
his  course  to  the  scene  of  his  labours;  and,  resting  but  a  short  time  in  Britain,^  arrived  in 
Ireland,  as  the  Irish  Annals  inform  us,  in  the  first  year  of  the  pontificate  of  Sextus  the 
Third. 

His  first  landing  appears  to  have  been  on  the   shore  of  Dublin:   or,  as   it  is  de- 

/.jo'  scribed,  "  the  celebrated  port  of  the  territory  of  the  Evoleni,"  by  which  is  supposed 

to  have  been  meant  the  "portus  Eblanorum"  of  Ptolemy,  the  present  harbour  or 

Publin.     After  meetinnf  with  a  repulse,  at  this  and  some  other  places  in  Leinster,  the 

*  It  is  said  in  snme  of  the  lives  of  St.  Patrick,  that  there  was  a  law  in  frolantl,  acconHna;  to  which  slaves 
should  beeoiiiK  free  i.n  the  seventh  year,  ^nd  that  jt  was  under  this  law  he  gained  his  liberty.  The  same 
writers  arid,  that  this  was  conformable  to  the  [iractice  of  tjie  Hebrews— more  Hebra;oriim.—(Lcvit.  xxv.  40, 
See  on  this  point.  Dr.  Lanigan  chap.  iv.  note  43. 

t  The  monastic  institution,  says  Mabi lion,  was  introduced  "in  Hiberniam  insulara  per  S.  Patricium,  S. 
Martini  di?cipuliim." 

I  The  following  is  the  Saint's  description  of  this  dream  in  his  own  homely  Latin:— Et  ibi  scilicet  vidi  in 
yir-u,  nocte,  virum  venientem  quasi  de  Hiberione,  cui  noinen  Victoricius,  cum  epistulis  innumerabilibus,  et 
dedit  mihi  unam  ex  illis,  et  legi  principium  epistolte  continentem  Vox  Hiberionacum.  Et  dum  recitabani 
principium  epistola;  putabam  ipso  momento  audire  yocem  ipsurum  gui  eiant  juxta  sylvan  Focluti,  quas  est 
prope  mare  occidenlale.  Et  sic  exclamaverunt  quasi  ex  uno  ore,  Rogamus  te,  sancte  piier,  ut  venias  et  adhuc 
ambiiles  inter  nos.     Et  valdo  conpunotus  sum  corde,  et  apiplius  non  potui  legere:  et  sic  cxpergefactus  sum." 

§  During  one  of  St.  Patrick's  visits  to  Britain,  he  is  supposed  tii  have  preached  in  Cornwall.  "  By  peristing 
in  their  Druidism,"  says  Borlase,  "  the  Britons  of  Cornwall  drew  the  attention  of  St.  Patrick  this  way,  who, 
about  the  year  432,  with  twenty  companions,  halted  a  little  on  his  way  to  Ireland  on  the  shores  of  Cornwall, 
where  he  is  said  to  have  built  a  monastery.  Whether  St  German  was  in  Cornwall  at  this  time,  I  cannot 
say;  but  (according  to  Usher)  he  was  either  in  Cornwall  or  Wales,  for  St.  Patrick  is  said,  "  ad  praiceptorem 
suum  beatum  Germanum  divcrtisse,  et  apud  Britannos  in  partibus  Cornubia;  et  Cambria;  aliquandiu  subti- 
tisse." — Borluse,  Antiq.  hook  iv.  chap.  x.  sect.  2. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  115 

Saint,  anxious,  we  are  told,  to  visit  the  haunts  of  his  youth,  to  see  his  old  master  Milcho, 
and  endeavour  to  convert  him  to  the  faith,  steered  his  course  for  East  Ulster,  and  arrived 
with  his  companions  at  a  port  near  Slrangford,  in  the  district  now  called  the  barony  of 
Lecale.  Here,  on  landing  and  proceeding  a  short  way  up  the  country,  they  were  met 
by  a  herdsman,  in  the  service  of  the  lord  of  the  district,  who,  supposing  them  to  be  sea- 
robbers  or  pirates,  hastened  to  alarm  the  whole  household.  In  a  moment,  ihe  master 
himself,  whose  name  was  Diciio,  made  his  appearance,  attended  by  a  number  of  armed 
followers,  and  threatening  the  destruction  to  the  intruders.  But  on  seeing  St.  Patrick, 
so  much  struck  was  the  rude  chief  with  the  calm  sanctity  of  his  aspect,  that  the  uplifted 
weapon  was  suspended,  and  he  at  once  invited  the  whole  of  the  party  to  his  dwelling. — 
The  impression  which  the  looks  of  the  Saint  had  made,  his  Christian  eloquence  but 
served  to  deepen  and  confirm ;  and  not  merely  the  pagan  lord  himself,  but  all  his  family 
became  converts. 

In  an  humble  barn  belonging  to  this  chief,  which  was  ever  after  called  Sabhul  Padruic, 
or  Patricks  Barn,  the  Saint  celebrated  divine  worship:  and  we  shall  find  that  this  spot, 
consecrated  by  his  first  spiritual  triumph,  continued  to  the  last  his  most  favourite  and  most 
frequented  retreat. 

Desirous  of  visiting  his  former  abode,  and  seeing  that  mountain-  where  he  had  so  often 
prayed  in  the  time  of  his  bondage,  he  set  out  for  the  residence  of  his  master  Milcho, 
which  appears  to  have  been  situated  in  the  valley  of  Arcuil,  in  that  district  of  Dalaradia 
inhabited  by  the  Cruthene,  or  Irish  Picts.  Whatever  might  have  been  his  hope  of  efl^ect- 
ing  the  conversion  of  his  old  master,  he  was  doomed  to  meet  with  disappointment;  as 
Milcho,  fixed  and  inveterate  in  his  heathenism,  on  hearing  of  the  approach  of  his  holy 
visiter,  refused  to  receive  or  see  him. 

After  remaining  some  time  in  Down,  to  which  county  he  had  returned  from  Dalaradia, 
St.  Patrick  prepared,  on' the  approach  of  Easter,  to  risk  the  bold,  and  as  it  proved,  politic 
step  of  celebrating  that  great  Christian  festival  in  the  very  neighbourhood  of  Tara,  where 
the  Princes  and  States  of  the  whole  kingdom  were  to  be  about  that  time  assembled. — 
Taking  leave  of  his  new  friend  Dicho,  he  set  sail  with  his  companions,  and  steering 
southwards  arrived  at  the  harbour,  now  called  Colp,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Briyne.  There 
leaving  his  boat,  he  proceeded  with  his  party  to  the  Plain  of  Preg,  in  which  the  ancient 
city  of  Tara  was  situated.  In  the  course  of  his  journey,  a  youth  of  family  whom  he 
baptized,  and  to  whom  on  account  of  the  kindly  qualities  of  his  nature,  he  gave  the  name 
of  Benignus,  conceived  such  an  affection  for  him  as  to  insist  on  being  the  companion  of 
liis  way.  This  enthusiastic  youth  became  afterwards  one  of  his  most  favourite  disciples, 
and,  on  his  death,  succeeded  him  as  bishop  of  Armagh. 

On  their  arrival  at  Slane,  the  Saint  and  his  companions  pitched  their  tents  for  the  night, 
and  as  it  was  the  eve  of  the  festival  of  Easter,  lighted  at  night-fall  the  paschal  fire.*  It  hap- 
pened that,  on  the  same  evening,  the  monarch  Leogaire  and  the  assembled  princes  were, 
according  to  custom,  celebrating  the  pagan  festival  of  La  Bealtinne;tand  as  it  was  a  law  that 
no  fires  should  be  lighted  on  that  niglit,  till  the  great  pile  in  the  palace  of  Tara  was  kindled, 
the  paschal  fire  of  St.  Patrick,  on  being  seen  from  the  heights  of  Tara,  before  that  of 
the  monarch,  excited  the  wonder  of  all  assembled.  To  the  angry  inquiries  of  Leogaire, 
demanding  who  could  have  dared  to  violate  thus  the  law,  his  Magi  or  Druids  are  said  to 
have  made  answer: — "This  fire,  which  has  now  been  kindled  before  our  eyes,  unless 
extinguished  this  very  night,  will  never  be  extinguished  throughout  all  time.  Moreover,  it 
will  tower  above  all  the  fires  of  our  ancient  rites,  and  he  who  lights  it  will  ere  long  scatter 
your  kingdom.''^  Surprised  and  indignant,  the  monarch  instantly  despatched  nrcssengers 
to  summon  the  offender  to  his  presence;  the  princes  seated  themselves  in  a  circle  upon 
the  grass  to  receive  him ;  and,  on  his  arrival,  one  alone  among  them,  Here,  the  son  of  Dego, 
impressed  with  reverence  by  the  stranger's  appearance,  stood  up  to  salute  him. 

That  they  heard  with  complacency,  however,  his  account  of  the  objects  of  his  mission, 
appears  from  his  preaching  at  the  palace  of  Tara,  on  the  following  day,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  king  and  the  States-General,  and  maintaining  an  argument  against  the 
mostlearnedof  the  Druids,  in  which  the  victory  was  on  his  side.   It  is  recorded,  that  the  only 

•  "  According  to  the  ancient,  as  well  as  the  modern  ecclesiastical  liturgy,  fire  was  to  be  struck  and  lighted  up, 
with  solemn  prayers  and  ceremonies,  on  Easter  Eve,  which  nre  was  to  be  kept  burning  in  the  church  lamps 
till  the  eve  of  Good  Friday  in  the  ensuing  year." — Milner's  Inquiry,  &c. 

t  "Anciently,  their  times  of  repast  were  for  the  most  part  in  the  evening;  from  which  custom  that  solemn 
feast  at  which  Laogair,  King  of  Ireland,  entertained  all  the  orders  of  the  kingdom  at  Tarah  ann.  455,  is  in 
the  Ulster  annals  called  the  Coena  Teraray  the  supper  of  Tarah  ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  from  this  supper 
historians  have  fi.ved  aa  era  for  the  latter  part  of  the  limes  of  that  monarch's  administration." — Ware's 
■^nliquitics. 

I  Hie  ignis  queni  videmus,  nisi  c.ttinctus  fuerit  hac  noctc,  non  extinguelur  in  ieturnum  ;  insuperet  omnes 
ifines  nostra  consuetidinis  super  e.\ccllet;  et  il'e  qui  inceiidit  ilium,  regnum  tuum  dissipabit. — Proi«s,  S. 
Patric.  yita,  lib.  i.  c.  35. 


116  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

person  who,  upon  this  occasion,  rose  to  welcome  him  was  the  arch-poet  Dubtach,  who 
became  his  convert  on  that  very  day,  and  devoted,  thenceforth,  his  poetical  talents  to 
religious  subjects  alone.*  The  monarch  himself,  too,  while  listening  to  the  words  of  the 
apostle,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed  to  his  surrounding  nobles,  "It  is  better  that  I  should 
believe  than  die ;" — and  appalled  by  the  awful  denouncements  of  the  preacher,  to  have  at 
once  professed  himself  Christian. 

There  seems  little  doubt  that  the  king  Leogaire,  with  that  spirit  of  tolerance  which 
then  pervaded  all  ranks,  and  so  singularly  smoothed  the  way  to  the  reception  of  the 
Gospel  in  Ireland,  gave  full  leave  to  the  Saint  to  promulgate  his  new  creed  to  the  people, 
on  condition  of  his  not  infringing  the  laws  or  peace  of  the  kingdom.  But  that  either 
himself,  or  his  queen,  had  enlisted  among  the  converts,  there  appears  strong  reason  to 
question.  In  adducing  instances  of  the  great  success  with  which  God  had  blessed  his 
mission,  the  Saint  makes  mention  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men  of  rank,  who,  he 
boasts,  had  embraced  the  faith;  but,  with  respect  to  the  conversion  of  the  king  or  queen, 
he  maintains  a  total  silence.  It  has  been,  indeed,  in  the  higher  regions  of  society  that, 
from  the  very  commencement  of  Christianity,  its  light  has  always  encountered  the  most 
resisting  medium;  and,  it  is  plain,  from  the  narrative  of  St.  Patrick,  that,  while  he  found 
the  people  everywhere  docile  listeners,  his  success  with  the  upper  or  dominant  caste 
was  comparatively  slow  and  limited  ;  nor  does  it  appear  that,  so  late  as  the  time  when  he 
wrote  his  Confession,  the  greater  part  of  the  kings  and  princes  were  yet  converted. 

Among  the  females  however,  even  of  this  highest  class,  the  lessons  of  peace  and 
humility  which  he  inculcated  were  always  hailed  with  welcome;  and  he  describes  one 
noble  young  Scotic  lady,  whom  he  had  baptized,  as  "  blessed  and  most  beautiful."!  To  the 
list  of  his  royal  female  converts  are  to  be  added  the  sisters  Ethnea  and  Fethlimia,  daughters 
of  the  king  Leogaire;  whom  lie  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with,  in  the  course  of  a 
journey  over  the  plain  of  Connaught,  under  circumstances  full  of  what  may  be  called  the 
poesy  of  real  life. 

It  was  natural  that  the  dream  of  "the  Voice  of  the  Irish,"  by  which  his  imagination 
had  many  years  before  been  haunted,  should  now,  in  the  midst  of  events  so  exciting  and 
gratifying,  recur  vividly  to  his  mind;  and  we  are  told,  accordingly,!  that  a  wish  to  visit 
once  more  the  scene  of  that  vision, — to  behold  the  wood,  beside  the  Western  Sea,  from 
whence  the  voices  appeared  to  come, — concurred  with  other  more  important  objects  to 
induce  him  to  undertake  this  journey  westwards.  Resting  for  the  night,  on  his  way,  at  a 
fountain  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  royal  residence,  Cruachan  himself  and  his  com- 
panions had  begun,  at  day-break,  to  chant  their  morning  service,  when  the  two  young 
princesses  coming  to  the  fountain,  at  this  early  hour,  to  bathe,  were  surprised  by  the 
appearance  of  a  group  of  venerable  persons  all  clothed  in  white  garments  and  holding 
books  in  their  hands.  On  their  inquiring  who  the  strangers  were,  and  to  what  class  of 
beinsrs  they  belonged,  whether  celestial,  ajriel,  or  terrestrial,  St.  Patrick  availed  himself  of 
the  opportunity  thus  furnished  of  instructing  them  in  the  nature  of  the  true  God  ;  and 
while  answering  their  simple  and  eager  questions  as  to  where  the  God  he  worshipped 
dwelt,  whether  in  heaven  or  on  the  earth,  on  mountains  or  in  valleys,  in  the  sea  or  in 
rivers,  contrived  to  explain  to  them  the  leading  truths  of  the  Christian  religion.  De- 
lighted with  his  discourse,  the  royal  sisters  declared  their  willingness  to  conform  to  any 
course  of  life  that  would  render  them  acceptable  to  such  a  God  as  he  announced;  and, 
being  then  baptized  by  the  holy  stranger,  at  the  fountain,  became  in  a  short  time  after 
consecrated  virgins  of  the  church.  J 

The  Saint  had,  previously  to  his  leaving  Meath,  attended  the  celebration  of  the  Tal- 
tine  Games,  and  taking  advantage  of  the  vast  multitudes  there  assembled  to  forward  his 
mighty  work  of  conversion.  In  the  course  of  this  journey,  likewise,  to  Connaught,  he 
turned  aside  a  little  from  the  direct  road,  to  visit  that  frightful  haunt  of  cruelty  and  super- 
stition, the  Plain  of  Slaughter,  in  the  county  of  Leitrim,  where,  from  time  immemorial, 
had  stood  the  Druidical  idol  Crom-Cruach,  called  sometimes  also  Cean  Groith,  or  Head 
of  the  Sun.  This  image,  to  which,  as  to  Moloch  of  old,  young  children  were  offered 
up  in  sacrifice,  had  been  an  object  of  worship,  we  are  told,  with  every  successive  colony 
by  which  the  island  had  been  conquered.     For  St.  Patrick,  however,  was  reserved  the 

*  Carmina  quoB  quandam  peregit  in  laudem  falsnrum  deoriim  jam  in  usum  meliorum  raulans  et  linguam 
poemata  clariora  comiK)siiit  in  laudem  Oinnipotentis. — Jocelin. 

Some  writings  under  the  name  of  this  poet  are  to  be  found  in  the  Irish  collections.  "  An  elegant  hymn 
of  his,  (says  Mr.  O'Reilly)  addressed  to  the  Aiinighty,  is  preserved  in  the  Felire  Aenguis,,  or  Account  of  the 
Festivals  of  the  Church,  written  by  Angus  Ceile-De,  in  the  latter  end  of  the  eighih<entury."  There  is  also  in 
the  book  of  Rights  a  very  old  poem  attributed  to  him, in  which  he  thus  asserts  the  supremacy  of  his  art:— "There 
is  no  right  of  visitation  or  headship  (superioritv)  over  the  truly  learned  poet."— 7'rn/is.  Iberno-Cell.  Snciety. 

t  Et  etiam  una  bcnedicta  Scotta,  genitiva,  nubilis,  pulcherriina,  adulta  erat  quam  ego  baptizavi.— C'tf^/bss. 

j  Jocelin,  cap.  iv. 

§  Lives  of  St.  Patrick,  Trobus,  Tripartite,  &,c. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  117 

glory  of  destroying  both  idol  and  worship;  and  a  large  church  was  now  erected  by  him 
in  the  place  where  these  monstrous  rites  had  been  so  long  solemnized.* 

His  spiritual  labours,  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  are  all  detailed  with  a  fond  minuteness 
by  his  biographers,  and  exhibit,  with  little  exception,  the  very  same  flow  of  triumphant 
success  which  marked  his  progress  from  the  beginning.  Baptizing  multitudes  wherever 
he  went,  providing  churches  for  the  congregations  thus  formed,  and  ordaining  priests 
from  among  his  disciples,  to  watch  over  them, — his  only  rest  from  these  various  cares  was 
during  a  part  of  the  Lent  season,  when  retiring  alone  to  the  heights  of  Mount  Eagle,f  or, 
as  it  has  been  since  called,  the  Mountain  of  St.  Patrick,  he  there  devoted  himself,  for  a 
time,  to  fasting  and  solitary  prayer.  While  thus  occupied,  the  various  seafowl  and  birds 
of  prey  ti)at  would  naturally  be  attracted  to  the  spot,  by  the  sight  of  a  living  creature  in 
so  solitary  a  place,|;  were  transformed,  by  the  fancy  of  the  superstitious,  into  flocks  of 
demons  which  came  to  tempt  and  disturb  the  holy  man  from  his  devotions.  After  this 
interval  of  seij^usion,  he  proceeded  northwards  to  the  country  then  called  Tiramalgaidh, 
the  modern  barony  of  Tyrawley. 

He  was  now  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  wood  of  Foclut,  near  the  Ocean,  from  whence 
the  voices  of  the  Irish  had  called  to  him  in  his  dream;  and,  whether  good  fortune  alone 
was  concerned  in  effecting  the  accomplishment  of  the  omen,  or,  as  is  most  likely,  the 
thought  that  he  was  specially  appointed  to  this  place  gave  fresh  impulse  to  his  zeal,  the 
signal  success  which  actually  attended  his  mission  in  this  district  sufficiently  justified  any 
reliance  he  might  have  placed  upon  the  dream.  Arriving  soon  after  the  death  of  the 
king  of  that  territory,and  at  the  moment  when  his  seven  sons,  having  just  terminated  a  dis- 
pute concerning  the  succession,  were,  together  with  a  great  multitude  of  people,  col- 
lected on  the  occasion,  St.  Patrick  repaired  to  the  assembly,  and,  by  his  preaching, 
brought  over  to  the  faith  of  Christ  not  only  the  seven  princes,  including  the  new  king, 
but  also  twelve  thousand  persons  more,  all  of  whom  he  soon  after  baptized.  It  is  supposed 
that  to  these  western  regions  of  Ireland  the  Saint  alludes,  in  his  Confession,  where  he 
stated  that  he  had  visited  remote  districts  where  no  missionary  had  been  before; — an  as- 
sertion important,  as  plainly  implying  that,  in  the  more  accessible  parts  of  the  country, 
Christianity  had,  before  his  time,  been  preached  and  practised. 

From  this  period,  through  the  remainder  of  his  truly  wonder-working  career,  the  re- 
cords of  his  transactions  present  but  little  variety  ;  his  visits  to  Leinster,  Ulster,  and  Mun- 
ter  being  but  repetitions  of  the  course  of  success  we  have  been  contemplating, — a 
continuation  of  tliesame  ardour,  activity,  and  self-devotion  on  the  part  of  the  missionary 
himself,  and  the  same  intelligence,  susceptibility,  and  teachableness  on  the  part  of  most 
of  his  hearers. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  docile  and  devotional  spirit  which  he  found  everywhere, 
among  the  lower  classes,  and  the  singular  forbearance  with  which,  among  the  highest, 
even  the  rejecters  of  his  doctrine  tolerated  his  preaching  it,  yet  that  his  life  was  some- 
times in  danger  appears  from  his  own  statements ;  and  an  instance  or  two  are  mentioned 
by  his  biographers,  where  the  peril  must  have  been  imminent.^  On  one  of  these  occasions 
he  was  indebted  for  his  life  to  the  generosity  of  his  charioteer,  Odran;  who,  hearing  of  the 
intention  of  a  desperate  chieftain,  named  Failge,  to  attack  the  Saint  when  on  his  way  through 
the  King's  County,  contrived,  under  the  pretence  of  being  fatigued,  to  induce  his  master  to 
take  the  driver's  seat,  and  so,  being  mistaken  for  St.  Patrick,  received  the  lance  of  the 
assassin  in  his  stead. |]     The  death  of  this  charioteer  is  made  more  memorable  by  the  re- 

*  When  we  hear  of  Churches  erected  by  St.  Patrick,  very  many  of  which  were  certainly  of  much  later  foun- 
dation, we  are  not  to  understand  such  edifices  as  are  so  called  in  our  days,  but  humble  buildings  made  of 
hurdles  or  wattles,  clay  and  thatch,  according  to  the  ancient  fashion  of  Ireland,  and  which  could  be  put  to- 
gether in  a  very  short  time." — Lanigan.  chap,  v  note  74. 

t  CruacAan-aicAie,  since  called  Crunch  Pliadruic,  (Croagh  Patrick,  in  Mayo)  that  is  the  heap  or  mountain  of 
St.  Patrick. 

X  "  Mullitudo  avium  venit  circa  ilium,  ita  nt  non  posset  videre  faciem  cceli  et  terra  ac  maris  propter  aves. 

"  Jocelin  is  the  only  biographer  of  St.  Patrick  that  has  spoken  of  the  expulsion  by  him  of  serpents  and  other 
venomous  creatures  from  Ireland.  From  his  book  this  story  made  its  way  into  other  tracts,  and  even  into  some 
breviaries.  Had  such  a  wonderful  circumstance  really  occurred,  it  would  have  been  recorded  in  our  Annals 
and  other  works  long  before  Jocelin's  time." — Lanigan,  Ecclesiast.  Hist.  chap.  v.  note  108.  The  learned  Col- 
gan,  in  exposing  the  weakness  of  this  story,  alleges,  that  in  the  most  ancient  documents  of  Irish  history, 
there  is  not  the  least  allusion  to  venomous  animals  having  ever  been  found  in  this  country. 

§  In  his  Confession,  the  Saint  makes  mention  of  the  sufferings  of  himself  and  followers,  and  of  "  the  pre- 
cautions he  took  against  giving  occasion  to  a  general  persecution,  using,  among  other  means,  that  of  making 
presents  to  the  unconverted  kings,  some  of  whom,  however,  while  obstinate  themselves,  allowed  their  sons  to 
follow  him: — "Interim  prsmia,"  lie  says,  "dabam  regibus  proter  quod  dabam  mercedem  filliis  ipsorum  qui 
mecum  ambulant,  et  nihil  comprehenderunt  me  cum  coraitibus  meis." 

II  Among  the  specimens  of  Irish  manuscripts  given  by  Astle,  there  is  one  from  a  tract  relating  to  this  event : — 
"  This  specimen,"  says  the  writer,  "is  taken  from  an  ancient  manuscript  of  two  tracts,  relating  to  the  old 
municipal  laws  of  Ireland.  The  first  contains  the  trial  of  Enna,  brother  of  Laogarius,  chief  king  of  Ireland, 
for  the  murder  of  Oraine  (Odran)  chariot  driver  to  St.  Patrick,  before  Dumpthac,  (Dubtach)  the  king's  chief 
bard,  and  the  sentence  passed  thereon,  about  the  year  430." 


118  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

markable  circumstance,  that  he  is  the  only  martyr  on  record  who,  in  the  course  of  this 
peaceful  crusade  in  Ireland,  fell  a  victim  by  the  hands  of  an  Irishman.  On  another  occa- 
sion, while  visiting  Lecale,  the  scene  of  his  earliest  labours,  a  design  was  formed  against 
his  life  by  the  captain  of  a  band  of  robbers,  which  he  not  only  baffled  by  his  intrepidity 
and  presence  of  mind,  but  succeeded  in  converting  the  repentant  bandit  into  a  believer. 
Full  of  compunction,  this  man,  wiiose  name  was  Maccaldus,  demanded  of  St.  Patrick 
what  form  of  penance  he  ought  to  undergo  for  his  crimes;  and  the  nature  of  the  task 
which  the  Saint  imposed  upon  him  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  enterprising  cast  of  his 
own  mind.  The  penitent  was  to  depart  from  Ireland  immediately ;  to  trust  himself, 
alone,  to  the  waves,  in  a  leatiiern  boat,  and  taking  with  him  nothing  but  a  coarse  garment, 
land  on  the  first  shore  to  which  the  wind  might  bear  him,  and  there  devote  himself  to  the 
service  of  God.  This  command  was  obeyed  ;  and  it  is  added  that,  wafted  by  the  wind  to  the 
Isle  of  Man,  Maccaldus  found  there  two  holy  bishops,  by  whom  he  was  most  kindly  re- 
ceived, and  who  directed  him  in  his  penitential  works  with  so  much  spiritual  ^vantage,  that 
he  succeeded  them  in  the  bishopric  of  the  island,  and  became  renowned  for  his  sanctity. 

The  most  active  foes  St.  Patrick  had  to  encounter  were  to  be  found  naturally  among 
those  Magi  or  Druids,  who  saw  in  the  system  he  was  introducing  the  downfall  of  their 
own  religion  and  power.  An  attempt  made  against  his  life,  shortly  before  his  grand 
work  of  conversion  in  Tyrawley,  is  said  to  have  originated  among  that  priesthood,  and  to 
have  been  averted  only  by  the  interference  of  one  of  the  convert  princes.  Among  the 
civil  class  of  the  Literati,  however,  his  holy  cause  found  some  devoted  allies.  It  has  been 
already  seen  that  the  arch-poet  Dubtatch  became  very  early  a  convert;  and  we  find  the 
Saint,  in  the  course  of  a  journey  through  Leinster,  paying  a  visit  to  this  bard's  residence, 
in  Hy-Kinsellagh,  and  consulting  with  him  upon  matters  relating  to  the  faith.  The  arch- 
poet's  disciple,  too,  Fiech,  was  here  admitted  to  holy  orders  by  St.  Patrick,  and,  becoming 
afterwards  bishop  of  Sletty,  left  behind  him  a  name  as  distinguished  for  piety  as  for 
learning. 

The  event,  in  consequence  of  which  the  Saint  addressed  his  indignant  letter  to  Coroticus, 
the  only  authentic  writing,  besides  the  Confession,  we  have  from  his  hand,  is  supposed  to 
have  taken  place  during  his  stay  on  the  Munster  coast,  about  the  year  450.*  A  British 
prince,  named  Coroticus,  who,  though  professing  to  be  a  Christian,  was  not  the  less,  as 
appears  from  his  conduct,  a  pirate  and  persecutor,  had  landed  with  a  party  of  armed  fol- 
lowers, while  Saint  Patrick  was  on  the  coast,  and  set  about  plundering  a  large  district 
in  which,  on  the  very  day  before,  the  Saint  had  baptized  and  confirmed  a  vast  number  of 
converts.!  Having  murdered  several  of  these  persons,  the  pirates  carried  off  a  considera- 
ble number  of  captives,  and  then  sold  them  as  slaves  to  the  Picts  and  Scots,  who  were  at  that 
time  engaged  in  their  last  joint  excursion  into  Britain.  A  letter  despatched  by  the  Saint  to 
the  marauders,  requesting  them  to  restore  the  baptized  captives,  and  part  of  the  booty, 
having  been  treated  by  them  with  contumely,  he  found  himself  under  the  necessity  of 
forthwith  issuing  the  solemn  epistle  which  has  come  down  to  us,  in  which,  denouncing 
Coroticus  and  his  followers  as  robbers  and  murderers,  he,  in  his  capacity  of  "Bishop  es- 
tablished in  Ireland,"  declares  them  to  be  excommunicated. 

Having  now  preached  through  all  the  provinces,  and  filled  the  greater  part  of  the 
island  with  Christians  and  with  churches,  St.  Patrick  saw  that  the  fit  period  was  now 
arrived  for  the  consolidation  of  the  extensive  hierarchy  he  had  thus  constructed,  by  the 
establishment  of  a  metropolitical  see.  In  selecting  tiie  district  of  Macha  for  the  seat  of 
the  primacy,  he  was  influenced,  doubtless,  by  the  associations  connected  with  that  place, 
as  an  ancient  royal  residence, — the  celebrated  Palace  of  Emania  having  stood  formerly 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  eminence  upon  which  Ardmacha,  or  Armagh,  afterwards  rose. 
The  time  of  the  foundation  of  this  see  by  St.  Patrick  has  been  variously  stated;  but  the 
opinion  of  those  who  place  it  late  in  his  career,  besides  being  equally  borne  out  by 
evidence,  seems  by  far  the  most  consonant  with  reason  ;  as  it  is  not  probable  that  he 
would  have  set  about  establishing  a  metropolitical  see  for  all  Ireland,  until  he  had  visited 
the  various  provinces,  ascertained  the  progress  of  the  Gospel  in  each,  and  regulated 
accordingly  their  ecclesiastical  concerns.  It  may  be  remarked,  that  Ware  and  other 
writers,  who  give  to  this  see  the  designation  of  archiepiscopal,  and  style  St.  Patrick  an 
archbishop,  have  been  guilty  of  a  slight  anachronism  ;  as  it  was  not  till  the  beiginning  of 

*  In  the  chronology  oflhe  events  of  St.  Patrick's  life,  I  have  throughout  followed  Dr.  Lanigan,  than  whom, 
in  all  respects,  there  cannot  be  a  more  industrious  or  trustworthy  guide. 

t  "  De  sanguine  innoceniium  Christainoruni.  quos  ego  innunieros  Deo  genui,  atque  in  Christo  confirmavi, 
postera  H'w  (niachrisma  neophyti  in  veste  Candida  flagrabat  in  frontc  ipsorum."— Con/ess. 

"  We  have  here,  in  a  few  words,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  an  exact  description  of  the  ancient  discipline,  according 
to  which  the  sacrament  of  confirmation  or  chrism  used  to  be  administered  immediately  after  baptism  by  the    . 
bishop,  in  case  he  were  the  baptizer  or  present  on  the  occasion.    We  see  also  the  garment  of  the  newly  bap- 
tized." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  119 

the  eighth  century  that  the  title  of  archbishop  was  known  in  Ireland.  It  was,  indeed,  in 
all  countries  a  term  of  rather  late  adoption, — St.  Athanasius  being,  I  rather  think,  the 
first  writer  in  whose  works  it  is  found. 

The  see  of  Armagh  being  now  established,  and  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  won  over 
to  the  faith,  St.  Patrick,  resting  in  the  midst  of  the  spiritual  creation  he  had  called  up 
round  him,  passed  the  remainder  of  his  days  between  Armagh  and  his  favourite  retreat, 
at  Sabhul,  in  the  barony  of  Lecale, — that  spot  which  had  witnessed  the  first  dawn  of  his 
apostolical  career,  and  now  shared  in  the  calm  glories  which  surrounded  its  setting. 
Among  the  many  obvious  fables  with  which  even  the  best  of  the  ancient  records  of  his 
life  abound,  is  to  be  reckoned  the  account  of  his  journey  to  Rome,  after  the  foundation  of 
Armagh,  with  the  view  of  obtaining,  as  is  alleged,  from  the  pope,  a  confirmation  of  its 
metropolitical  privileges,  and  also  of  procuring  a  supply  of  relics.  This  story,  invented, 
it  is  plain,  to  dignify  and  lend  a  lustre  to  some  relics  shown  in  later  times  at  Armagh,  is 
wholly  at  variance  with  the  Saint's  written  testimony,  which  proves  him  constantly  to 
have  remained  in  Ireland,  from  the  time  when  he  commenced  his  mission  in  the  barony 
of  Lecale,  to  the  last  day  of  his  life.  In  the  document  here  referred  to,  which  was  writ- 
ten after  the  foundation  of  Armagh,  he  declares  expressly  that  the  Lord  "  had  com- 
manded him  to  come  among  the  Irish,  and  to  stay  with  them  for  the  remainder  of  his 
life." 

Among  the  last  proceedings  recorded  of  him,  he  is  said  to  have  held  some  synods  at 
Armagh,  in  which  canons  were  decreed,  and  ecclesiastical  matters  regulated.  Of  the 
canons  attributed  to  these  early  Synods,  there  are  some  pronounced  to  be  of  a  much  later 
date,  while  of  others  the  authenticity  has  been,  by  high  and  critical  authority,  admitted.* 
The  impression  that  his  death  was  too  far  distant,  appears  to  have  been  strong  on  the 
Saint's  mind  when  he  wrote  his  Confession,  the  chief  object  of  which  was,  to  inform  his 
relatives,  and  others  in  foreign  nations,  of  the  redeeming  change  which  God,  through  his 
ministry,  had  worked  in  the  minds  of  the  Irish.  With  this  view  it  was  that  he  wrote  his 
parting  communication  in  Latin,  though  fully  aware,  as  he  himself  acknowledges,  how 
rude  and  imperfect  was  his  mode  of  expressing  himself  in  that  tongue,  from  the  constant 
habit  he  had  been  in,  for  so  many  years,  of  speaking  no  language  but  Irish. 

In  his  retreat  at  Sabhul,  the  venerable  Saint  was  seized  with  his  last  illness. 
Perceiving  that  death  was  near  at  hand,  and  wishing  that  Armagh,  as  the  seat  Z^^* 
of  his  own  peculiar  see,  should  be  the  resting-place  of  his  remains,  he  set  out  to 
reach  that  spot;  but  feeling,  on  his  way,  some  inward  warnings,  which  the  fancy  of  tradi- 
tion has  converted  in  the  voice  of  an  angel,  commanding  him  to  return  to  Sabhul,  as  the 
place  appointed  for  his  last  hour,  he  went  back  to  that  retreat,  and  there,  about  a  week 
after,  died,  on  the  17th  of  JVIarch,  a.  d.  465,  having  then  reached,  according  to  the  most 
consistent  hypothesis  on  the  subject,  his  seventy-eighth  year.  No  sooner  had  the  news 
spread  throughout  Ireland  that  the  great  apostle  was  no  more,  than  the  clergy  flocked 
from  all  quarters  to  Sabhul,  to  assist  in  solemnizing  his  obsequies;  and  as  every  bishop, 
or  priest,  according  as  he  arrived,  felt  naturally  anxious  to  join  in  honouring  the  dead  by 
the  celebration  of  the  holy  mysteries,  the  riles  were  continued  without  interruption 
through  day  and  night.  To  psalmody  and  the  chanting  of  hymns  the  hours  of  the  night 
were  all  devoted;  and  so  great  was  the  pomp,  and  the  profusion  of  torches  kept  constant- 
ly burning,  that,  as  those  who  describe  the  scene  express  it,  darkness  was  dispelled,  and 
the  whole  time  appeared  to  be  one  constant  day. 

In  the  choice  of  a  successor  to  the  see  there  could  be  no  delay  nor  difficulty,  as  the 
eyes  of  the  Saint  himself,  and  of  all  who  were  interested  in  the  appointment,  had  long 
been  fixed  on  his  disciple  Benignus,  as  the  person  destined  to  succeed  him.  It  was 
remembered  that  he  had,  in  speaking  of  this  disciple  when  but  a  boy,  said,  in  the  lan- 
guage rather  of  prophecy  than  of  appointment,  "  He  will  be  the  heir  of  my  power." 
Some  writers  even  assert,  that  the  see  was  resigned  by  him  to  Benignus  soon  after  the 
foundation  ofArmngh.  But  there  appear  little  grounds  for  this  assertion,  and,  accord- 
ing to  the  most  consistent  accounts,  Benignus  did  not  become  bishop  of  Armagh  till  after 
St.  Patrick's  death. 

Besides  the  natives  of  Ireland  contemporary  with  our  Saint,  of  whom,  in  this  sketch  of 
his  life,  some  notice  has  been  taken,  there  were  also  other  distinguished  Irishmen,  of  the 
same  period,  whom  it  would  not  be  right  to  pass  over  in  silence.  Among  the  names, 
next  to  that  of  the  apostle  himself,  illustrious,  are  those  of  Ailbe,  "another  Patrick,"  as 
he  was  fondly  styled,  the  pious  Declan,  and  Ibar;  all  disciples  of  St.  Patrick,  and  all 

*  Several  of  these  canons  appear  to  have  heen  drawn  up  at  a  time  when  Paganism  was  not  yet  extinct  in 
Ireland.  Thus,  among  the  canons  of  the  synod  of  Patrick,  Auxilius,  and  Esserninus,  the  eighth  begins 
thus,— "Clericua  si  pro^cKtiVi  in  Ecclesiam  recipi  non  licet;"  and  in  the  fourteenth,  "  Christianas  qui  .  . 
more  Qentilmm  ad  aruspicem  mcaverit." 


120  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

memorable,  as  primitive  fathers  of  tiie  Irish  church.  To  Secundinus,  the  first  bishop,* 
as  it  is  said,  who  died  in  Ireland  (a.  d.  448,)  is  attributed  a  Latin  poem  or  hymn  in 
honour  of  St.  Patrick,  in  which  the  Saint  is  mentioned  as  still  alive,  and  of  whose 
authenticity  some  able  critics  have  seen  no  reason  whatever  to  doubt.f  There  is  also 
another  hymn,  upon  the  same  subject,  in  the  Irish  language,  said  to  have  been  written 
by  Fiech,  the  disciple  of  the  poet  Dubdacht,  but  which,  though  very  ancient,  is  evidently 
the  production  of  a  somewhat  later  period. 

While  these  pious  persons  were,  in  ways  much  more  effective  than  by  the  composi- 
tion of  such  dry,  metrical  legends,  advancing  the  Christian  cause  in  Ireland,  a  far  loftier 
flight  of  sacred  song  was,  at  the  same  time,  adventured  by  an  Irish  writer  abroad,  the 
poet  Shiel,  or  (as  his  name  is  Latinized)  Sedulius,|  who  flourished  in  tiiis  century, J  and, 
among  other  writings  of  acknowledged  merit,  was  the  author  of  a  spirited  Iambic  poem 
upon  the  life  of  Christ,  from  which  the  Catholic  church  has  selected  some  of  her  most 
beautiful  hymns.|J 


CHAPTER  XL 


STATE    OF    TH"E    SCOTS    IN    BRITAIN — PROGRESS    OP    CHRISTIANITY. 

Ir  has  been  seen,  from  the  letter  of  St.  Patrick  to  Coroticus,  that,  so  late  as  the  middle 
of  the  fifth  century,  the  incursions  of  the  Pictsand  Scots  into  the  territories  of  the  Britons 
had  not  yet  been  discontinued.     About  the  commencement  of  the  same  century, 
A(\Q  '   Britain  had  ceased  to  form  a  portion  of  the  Roman  empire  ;  the  separation  accord- 
ing to  some  opinions,  having  been  voluntary  on  the  part  of  Britain,1[  while  far 
more  obviously  it  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  enfeebled  state  of  the  Roman  power,  which 
rendered  the  occupation  of  so  remote  a  province  no  longer  practicable.     How  little  pre- 
pared  were  the  Britons  themselves  for  independence,  at  this  period,  appears  from  the 
helplessness  of  their  struggle  against  the  agressions  of  their  neighbours,  and  the  piteous 
entreaties  fjr  aid  so  often  addressed  by  them  to  Rome;  while  the  prompt  attention,  as 
far  as  the  resources  of  the  sinking  empire  would  admit,  which  these  appeals  generally 

*  This  bishop  was  sent,  in  the  year  439,  together  with  two  others,  to  aid  St.  Patrick  in  his  mission  ;  as 
we  find  thus  recordeil  in  the  Annals  of  Iiiisfallen  : — "Secundinus  et  Auxiliarius  (Auxilius,)  et  Esserninus 
mittuntur  in  auxilium  Patricii,  nee  lamen  tenuerunt  apostolatum.  nisi  Patricius  solus." 

t  '■  I  find  no  reason,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  for  not  considering  it  a  genuine  work  of  Secundinus." 
The  strophes  of  this  hymn,  consisting  each  of  four  lines,  Ijegin  with  the  letters  of  the  alphatjet ;  the  first 
strophe  commencing,  •'  Audite  omnes  anjantes  Deuin  ;  and  the  last,  "  Zona  Domini  pra^cinctus." 

I  There  has  been  some  controversy  respecting  our  claims  to  this  poet,  who  it  is  alleged,  has  been  con- 
founded with  another  writer,  of  the  same  name,  in  the  ninth  century,  universally  admitted  to  have  been  an 
Irishman.  The  reader  will  find  the  question  sifted,  with  his  usual  industry,  by  Bayle  (art  Sedulius.)  Among 
the  numerous  authorities  cited  by  Usher,  in  favour  of  our  claim  to  this  poet,  the  title  prefixed  to  a  work 
generally  attributed  to  him  (Annotations  on  Paul's  Epistles,)  would  seem  decisive  of  the  question  : — "  Sedulii 
Scoti  Hyberniensis  in  omnes  Epistolas  Pauli  Collectaiieuni."  The  name,  Sedulius,  too,  written  in  Irish 
Siedhuil,  and  said  to  be  the  same  as  Shiel.  is  one  peculiar,  we  are  told,  to  Ireland,  no  instance  of  its  use 
being  found  in  any  other  country.  By  English  scholars,  it  will,  I  fear,  be  thought  another  strong  Irish 
characteristic  of  this  poet,  that  he  sometimes  erred  in  prosody.  "  Dictio  Sedulii,"  says  Borrichius,  "  facilis, 
ingeniosa,  numerosa,  perspicua.sic  satis  munda — si  excipias  prosodica  qucedam  delicta." — Vissertat,  de  Poet. 

In  praising  the  Paschale  Opus  of  Sedulius,  pope  Gelasius  had  described  it  as  written  "  heroicis  versibus  ;" 
but,  by  an  unlucky  clerical  error,  the  word  "  hereticis"  was  in  the  course  of  time,  substituted  for  "heroicis." 
which  brought  our  Irish  poet  into  much  disgrace  at  Rome,  and  led  some  canonists,  it  is  said,  to  the  wise 
decision.    "  Omnia  poemalaesse  heretica." 

§  Not  content  with  the  honour  of  contributing,  thus  early,  so  great  an  ornament  to  foreign  literature, 
some  of  our  writers  have  represented  Sedulius  as  producing  his  poema  in  Ireland  ;  and  referred  to  his 
classical  knowledge  as  evidence  of  the  state  of  literature  in  that  country.  Thus  O'Halloran  :— "  That  poetry 
was  passionately  cultivated  in  our  schools,  and  classical  poetry  too,  I  have  but  to  refer  to  the  writings  of 
the  famous  Sedulius"— Vol.  ill.  chap.  7.  Even  Mr.  D' A  lion  has  allowed  himself  to  be  tempted  by  his  zeal 
for  Ireland  into  an  encouragement  of  the  same  delusion.  "  The  treasures  of  Roman  lore,'  he  says,  "were 
profitably  spread  over  the  country  :  the  writings  of  Sedulius  testify  that  classic  poetry  was  cultivated  at  a 
very  early  period  in  Ireland." 

II  The  Paschale  Opus  of  S(idulius  is  in  heroic  metre,  and  extended  through  five  books.  His  Iambic  Hymn, 
which  has  been  unaccountably  omitted  by  Usher,  in  his  Sylloge,  commences  thus,— 

"  A  solis  ortus  cardine, 
Ad  usque  terriE  limitem." 

*  Dr.  Lingard  has  followed  Gibbon  in  asserting,  on  no  other  authority  than  a  few  words  of  Zosimus,  that 
the  Britons  at  this  time  voluntarily  threw  ofl;"  their  allegiance.  But  the  force  of  evidence,  as  well  as  of  pro- 
bability, is  all  opposed  to  such  a  supposition. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  121 

received,  proves  the  reluctance  witli  vvliich  the  connexion  was  then  severed  to  have  been 
mutual. 

In  consequence  of  their  iirg'ent  solicitations  to  Ilonorius,  that  emperor  despatched  to 
the  aid  of  the  Britons  a  single  legion,  which  for  a  time,  suspended  the  attacks  of  their 
invaders;  but  no  sooner  was  this  legion  withdrawn  for  the  protection  of  Gaul,  than  again 
the  Scots  and  Picts,  breaking  through  the  now  unregarded  wall  of  Severus,  or  else  sail- 
ing around  the  ends,  carried  their  ravages  into  the  very  heart  of  Britain.  Once  more,  the 
interference  of  the  Romans  succeeded  m  turning  aside  this  scourge.  Ambassadors,  sent 
from  the  suffering  province  to  Valentinian,  and  appearing  before  him,  as  is  said,  with 
their  garments  rent,  and  sand  strewed  over  their  heads,*  so  far  excited  the  emperor's 
pity,  that  a  last  effort  was  made  for  them,  and  a  force  under  the  command  of  Gallic  of  Ra- 
vena,  despatched  seasonably  to  their  relief.  As  in  all  the  preceding  cases,  however,  the 
interposition  was  but  temporary.  The  Roman  general,  summoned  away,  with  the  whole  of 
his  force,  to  repress  rebellion  in  Africa,  announced  to  the  Britons  that  they  must  thencefor- 
ward look  to  their  own  defence  ;  and,  from  that  period,  the  imperial  protection  was  entirely 
withdrawn  from  the  island.  No  sooner  had  the  Romans  taken  their  departure  than  the 
work  of  rapine  recommenced  ;  and,  as  the  historian  of  these  Devastations  expresses  it, 
"foul  droves  of  Picts  and  Scots  emerged  from  out  their  currachs,  just  as,  when  the  sun 
is  at  his  burning  height,  dark  battalions  of  reptiles  are  seen  to  crawl  from  out  their  earth- 
holes."!  Both  in  this  writer  and  in  Bede  we  find  the  most  frightful  representations  of 
the  state  of  misery  to  which  the  Britains  were  now  reduced  by  the  "  anniversary"  visita- 
tions of  their  spoilers.| 

From  the  period  of  Gallio's  command,  during  which  was  erected,  between  the 
Solway  and  Tyne,  the  last  and  most  important  of  all  the  Roman  walls,  we  hear  no  ^;^' 
more  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Britons  till  the  time  when   St.  Patrick  addressed  his 
letter  to  Coroticus,  and  when  that  last  great  irruption  of  the  Picts  and  Scots,  took  place, 
which  drove  the  Britons  at  length,  in  their  despair,  to  invoke  the  perilous  protection  of 
the  Saxons.     It  was  in  the  extremity  to  which  they  had  then  found  themselves  reduced, 
that,  looking  again  to  the  Romans,  tiiey  addressed  to  ^tius,  the  popular   captain  of  the 
day,  that  memorable  letter  inscribed  "The  Groans  of  the  Britons."     But  the  standard  of 
Attila  was  then  advancing  towards  Gaul,  and  all  the  force  of  the  empire  was  summoned 
to  oppose  his  progress.     Rome,  prodigal  so  long  of  her  strength  to  others,  now  trembled 
for  her  own  safety ;  and  the  ravagers  of  Britain  were,  accordingly  left  to  enjoy  their 
prey  undisturbed. 

By  the  arrival  of  the  Saxons,  the  balance  of  fortune  was  soon  turned  the  other  way; 
and  the  Scots  and  Picts  became,  in  their  turn,  the  vanquished.  To  the  unhappy  Britons, 
however,  this  success  brought  but  a  change  of  evils;  as  their  treacherous  allies,  having 
first  helped  them  to  expel  the  Scots  and  Picts,  then  made  use  of  the  latter,  as  auxiliaries, 
to  crush  and  subjucate  the  Britons.  In  all  these  transactions  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  under  the  general  name  of  Scots  are  comprehended  not  merely  the  descendants  of 
the  Irish  colony,  long  settled  in  North  Britain,  but  also  the  native  Scots  of  Ireland  them- 
selves, who  were  equally  concerned  in  most  of  these  expeditions;  and  who,  however  con- 
temptuously, as  we  have  seen,  Gildas  has  affected  to  speak  of  their  currachs,  had  already 
fitted  out  two  naval  armaments  sufficiently  notorious  to  be  commemorated  by  the  great 
poet  of  Rome's  latter  days.  The  share  taken  by  the  Irish,  in  these  irruptions  into  Britain, 
is  noticed  frequently  both  by  Gildas  and  Bede: — "  They  emerge  eagerly,"  says  the  former, 
"from  their  currachs,  in  which  they  have  been  wafied  across  the  Scytic  Valley," — the 
name  anciently  given  to  the  sea  between  Britain  and  Ireland.  "  The  impudent  Irish 
plunderers,"  says  Bede,  "  return  to  their  homes,  only  to  come  back  again  shortly."^ 

Of  the  three  groat  "Devastations"  of  Britain,  recorded  by  the  former  of  these  writers, 
tvvo  had  occurred  in  the  reign  of  the  monarch  Loogaire,  who  ruled  over  Ireland  at  the 
time  of  St.  Patrick's  mission.  How  far  this  prince  was  concerned  in  originating,  or 
taking  a  personal  share  in  any  of  these  expeditions,  docs  not  appear  from  the  records  of 
his  long  reign ;  and,  among  the  domestic  transactions  in  which  he  was  engaged,  his  war 
upon  the  Lagenians,  or  people  ofLeinster,  to  enforce  the  payment  of  the  odious  Boromean 

*  "  Itf-mqiie  mittiintur  queruli  Lppati,  scissis,  ut  dicitur,  vestibus,  opertisque  sablone  capitibus.  impc- 
trantes  a  Romanis  auxilia.  &.c.—  Oildas.  ,.^, 

t  "  Itaqiie  illis  ad  sua  reverter) tilms,  emergiint  certatim  de  Ciiricis  qiiibiis  sunt  trans  Scytliicam  vallem- 
vecti,  quasi  in  alto  Titanc,  incalescrnte?que  caiiniale.  rie  arctissimis  foraniinum  cavernulis,  fusci  vermiculo 
rum  cunei,  telri  Scotor;im  Piclorumque  greges,"  &c. — Gildas. 

For  the  purpose  of  representing  his  countrymen,  in  ancient  times,  as  Troglodytes,  the  reverend  antiquary. 
Ledwich,  has  not  hesitated  to  separate  the  simile  in  this  passage  from  the  context,  and  to  produce  it  as  evi- 
dence that  the  Irish  at  that  time  lived  in  earth  holes. 

t  Quia  anniversarias  avide  praedas,  nullo  nbsisteiite,  trans  maria  exaggerabant. — GUdas,  c.  H. 

§  Reverluntur  ergo  impudentes  grassatores  Iliberni  donius,  post  non  louguni  Icinpus  reversuri. 

15 


123  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

tribute,  seems  alone  to  be  worthy  of  any  notice.  Defeated  by  the  troops  of  this  province 
in  a  sanguinary  action,  which  was  called,  from  the  place  where  it  occurred,  the  Battle  of 
the  Ford  of  the  Oaks,  Leogaire  was  himself  made  prisoner,  and  regained  his  freedom  only 
on  consenting  to  swear,  by  the  Sun  and  the  Wind,  that  ho  never  would  again  lay  claim 
to  the  payment  of  the  tribute.  This  solemn  oath,  however,  the  rapacious  monarch  did 
not  hesitate  to  infringe, — his  courtly  Druids  having  conveniently  absolved  him  from  the 
oblio-ation ;  and,  on  his  death  occurring  a  short  time  after,  it  was  said  that,  to  punish  his 
false  appeal  to  their  divinities,  the  Sun  and  the  Wind  had  destroyed  him.*  This  Pagan 
oath,  and  his  continued  commerce  wilh  the  Druids,  to  the  very  year  before  he  died,  shows 
that  Leogaire  had  either  at  no  time  become  a  Christian,  or  else  had  relapsed  into  Pa- 
ganism.f 

The  fervid  eagerness  and  rapidity  with  which  the  new  faith  had  been  embraced  wore 
so  much  the  appearance  of  that  sort  of  enthusiasm  which  mere  novelty  often  excites,  that 
it  would  have  seemed  but  in  the  natural  course  of  affairs  had  there  succeeded  a  lull  to  all 
this  excitement,  and  had  such  a  burst  of  religious  zeal,  throughout  the  great  mass  of  the 
people, — deprived  entirely,  as  it  was,  of  the  fuel  which  persecution  always  ministers, — 
subsided  speedily  into  that  state  of  langour,  if  not  of  dangerous  indifference,  in  which  the 
uncontested  triumph  of  human  desires  almost  invariably  ends.  But  in  this,  as  in  all 
other  respects,  the  course  of  the  change  now  worked  in  the  minds  of  the  people  of  Ireland 
was  peculiar  and  unpreeedt  nted  ;  and,  striking  as  were  their  zeal  and  promptitude  in 
adopting  the  new  faith,  the  steady  fervour  with  which  they  now  devoted  themselves  to 
its  doctrines  and  discipline  was  even  still  more  remarkable.  From  this  period,  indeed, 
the  drama  of  Irish  history  begins  to  assume  an  entirely  different  character.  Instead  of 
the  furious  strife  of  kings  and  chieftains  forming,  as  before,  its  main  action  and  interest, 
this  stormy  spectacle  gives  way  to  the  pure  and  peaceful  triumphs  of  religion.  Illustri- 
ous saints,  of  both  sexes,  pass  in  review  before  our  eyes; — the  cowl  and  the  veil  eclipse 
the  glory  even  of  the  regal  crown  ;  and,  instead  of  the  grand  and  festive  halls  of  Tara 
and  Emania,  the  lonely  cell  of  the  fasting  penitent  becomes  the  scene  of  fame. 

It  is  to  be  recollected,  however,  that,  through  all  this  picture,  the  hands  of  ecclesiastics 
have  chiefly  guided  the  pencil ;  and,  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  change  ef- 
fected in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people,  was,  to  a  great  extent,  as  real  as  it  is  wonder- 
ful, it  was  yet  by  no  means  either  so  deep  or  so  general  as  on  the  face  of  these  monkish 
annals  it  appears.  While  this  peaceful  pageant  of  saints  and  apostles  so  prominently 
occupies  the  foreground,  frequent  glimpses  of  scenes  of  blood  are  caught  dimly  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  the  constant  appeal  to  the  sword,  and  the  frequent  falling  of  kings  suddenly 
from  their  thrones,  prove  the  ancient  political  habits  of  the  people  to  have  experienced 
but  little  change.  In  the  page  of  the  annalist,  however,  all  this  is  kept  subordinate  or 
thrown  into  the  shade;  and  while,  for  two  or  three  centuries  after  the  introduction  of 
Christianity,  the  history  of  the  Kings  of  Ireland  presents  but  a  meager  list  of  names,  the 
acts  of  her  missionaries  and  her  saints,  and  the  pious  labours  of  her  scholars,  afford  ma- 
terials for  detail  as  abundant  and  minute  as  they  are,  in  many  instances,  it  must  be  owned, 
sterile  and  uninteresting. 

The  only  event  of  high  political  importance,  which  occurs  through  the  whole  of 
this  period,  took  place  at  the  commencement  of  the  sixth  century,  not  long  after 
the  death  of  St.  Patrick;  and  this  was  the  establishment,  under  the  sons  of  Erck, 
of  that  Scotic  or  Irish  monarchy  in  North  Britain,  which  not  only  extended  its 
sway,  in  the  course  of  a  few  centuries,  over  the  whole  of  the  modern  Scotland,  but 
transmitted,  through  the  race  of  the  Stuarts,  a  long  succession  of  monarchs  to  Great 
Britain.  The  colony  planted  in  those  regions,  by  Carbre  Rieda,  in  the  middle  of  the 
third  century,  though  constantly  fed  with  supplies  from  the  parent  stock,  the  Dalriadians 
of  Antrim,  had  run  frequent  risks  of  extirpation  from  the  superior  power  of  their  neigh- 
bours and  rivals,  the  Picts.  In  the  year  503,  however,  the  Dalriadian  Princes  of  Ireland, 
aided  by  the  then  all-powerful  influence  of  the  Hy-Nial  family,  were  enabled  to  trans- 
plant a  new  colony  into  North  Britain,  which,  extending  the  limits  of  the  former  settle- 
ment, set  up  for  the  first  time  a  regal  authority,  and   became,  in  less  than  a  century, 

*  Thus  recorded  in  the  annals  of  the  Four  Masters :— "  A.  D.  457,  anno  20,  rcgni  Laogarii  filii  Nialli  Brselium 
Vadi  Cluerciiiim  gestum  a  Lageniensibus  contra  Laogariiiin  filium  Nialli.  Captus  est  Laogarius  in  prslio 
isto,  etjuravit  jusjiirandura  Solis  et  Venti,  et  Elementorum,  Lageniensibiis,  non  venturum  se  contra  eos, 
durante  vita.ob  intentum  istum. 

"A.  D.  458,  postqnain  fuisset  HOannis  in  Reginiinc  HiberniiE  Laogarius  tilius  Ninlli  Noviobsidum,  occisus 
est  prope  Cassiam  inter  Erin  ot  Albanian)  (i.e.  duos  colics  qui  sunt  in  regione  Faolan,)et  Sol  et  Ventus  oc- 
ciderunt  euni  quia  tcnieravit  eos." 

t  The  Tripartite  Life  of  St.  Patrick  stales  that  Leogaire  was  not  a  sincere  Iwjliever,  and  that  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  say  his  father  Ni.al  liad  laid  an  injunction  on  Iiini  never  to  embrace  the  Christian  faith,  but  to 
adhere  to  tlie  gods  of  his  ancestors.— Sec  Lanigan,  chap,  5.  note  53, 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  123 

sufficiently  powerful  to  shake  off  all  dependence  npon  Ireland.*  The  territory  possessed 
by  these  orig-jnal  Scots  appears  to  have  included,  in  addition  to  the  Western  Isles,  the 
whole  of  the  mountainous  district  now  called  Argyloshire;  and  from  the  time  of  the 
erection  of  this  Irish  sovereignty,  North  Britain  continued,  for  some  centuries,  to  be 
divided  between  two  distinct  monarchies,  the  Scotish  and  the  Pictish;  till,  at  length,  in 
the  reign  of  Keneth  Mac- Alpine,  after  a  long  and  fierce  struggle,  the  people  of  the  Picts 
were  entirely  vanquished,  and  the  Scots  left  sole  masters  of  the  country. 

The  memorable  migration  of  the  sons  of  Erck  is  marked  by  the  Irish  annalists  as  having 
occurred  twenty  years  after  the  great  battle  of  Ocha,  in  which  Olill  Molt,  the  successor 
of  Leogaire  in  the  monarchy  of  Ireland,  was  slain.  This  battle  itself,  too,  constituted  an 
era  in  Irish  history,  as  the  race  of  the  Nials,  on  whose  side  victory  then  declared,  were, 
by  the  fortune  of  that  day's  combat,  rendered  masters  of  all  Ireland.  The  law  established 
in  the  reign  of  Tuathal  confining  the  succession  to  his  own  family,  and  excluding  the 
princes  of  the  other  lines  from  the  monarchy,  was  now  wholly  set  aside;  and  the  Hy- 
Nials,  taking  possession  of  the  supreme  government,  held  it  uninterruptedly  through  a 
course  of  more  than  five  hundred  years. 

Of  the  two  kings  who  succeeded  Olill  Molt,  namely,  Lugad  and  Murcertach,  the  reign 
of  one  extended  to  twenty-five  years,  and  that  of  the  other  to  twenty-one;  and  yet  of  the 
former  reign  all  that  we  find  recorded  is  the  names  of  some  battles  which  signalized  its 
course;  while  of  the  grandson  of  Erck,  nothing  farther  is  commemorated  than  that,  in 
A.  D.  534,  he  fought  five  battles,  and,  in  the  following  year,  was  drowned  in  a  hogshead 
of  wine.f  It  is,  however,  but  just  to  add,  that  he  is  represented  as  a  good  and  pious 
sovereign,  and  was  the  first  of  tlie  Irish  monarchs  who  can,  with  any  degree  of  certainty, 
be  pronounced  Christian. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  sixth  century,  Christianity  had  become  almost  universal 
throughout  Ireland;  and  before  its  close  her  church  could  boast  of  a  considerable  number 
of  holy  persons,  whose  fame  for  sanctity  and  learning  has  not  been  confined  to  their  own 
country,  but  is  still  cherished  and  held  in  reverence  by  the  great  majority  of  the  Christian 
world.  Among  these  ornaments  of  a  period  whose  general  want  of  intellectual  illumina- 
tion rendered  its  few  shining  lights  the  more  conspicuous,  stands  pre-eminently  the 
Apostle  of  the  Western  Isles,  Columbkill,  who  was  born  in  the  reign  of  Murcertach, 
about  the  year  521,  and  who,  from  the  great  activity  and  variety  of  his  spiritual  enter- 
prises, was  so  mixed  up  with  the  public  transactions  of  his  limes,  that  an  account  of  his 
life  and  acts  would  be  found  to  include  within  its  range  all  that  is  most  remarkable  in 
the  contemporary  history  of  his  country. 

In  citing  for  historical  purposes  the  Lives  of  Saints,  of  whatever  age  or  country,  con- 
siderable caution  ought,  of  course,  to  be  observed.  But  there  are  writers,  and  those  not 
among  the  highest,  who,  in  the  pride  of  fancied  wisdom,  afl^ect  a  contempt  for  this  species 
of  evidence,  which  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  shallow.  Both  Montesquieu  and  Gibbon| 
knew  far  better  how  to  appreciate  the  true  value  of  such  works,  as  sources  of  historical 
information;  being  well  aware  that,  in  times  when  personages  renowned  for  sanctity 
held  such  influence  over  all  ranks  and  classes,  and  were  even  controllers  of  the  thoughts 


*  The  facts  of  the  history  of  this  colony  have  been  thus  well  summed  up  by  Roy  (Military  Antiq.):— 

"There  is  incontrovertible  authority  to  join  the  Irish  with  the  Picts  in  their  martial  exploits  against  the 
Romans,  as  well  from  the  Latin,  as  from  the  ancient  British  and  Saxon,  writers.  It  is  clear,  not  only  from 
all  the  Scotch  history  we  have  of  the  limes,  but  from  Bede.  from  the  most  authentic  writers  for  an  age  or  two 
before  and  after  him,  and  from  the  Roman  writers,  that  Scotland,  during  the  Roman  domination  in  Britain, 
subsisted  under  two  difTerenl  monarchies,  Irish  and  Pictish."  I  have  given  this  passage  as  I  tind  it  cited  by 
Dr.  O'Connor,  having  searched  in  vain  for  it  in  the  folio  edition  of  Roys  works,  1793. 

t  This  royal  event,  as  appears  by  the  fragments  on  the  subject  remaining,  was  commemorated  by  many  of 
the  poets  of  that  period— See  the  .Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  ad  ann  534.  It  is  supposed,  from  the  men- 
lion  in  most  of  the  Lives  of  St.  Columbanus,  of  the  circumstance  of  an  Irish  ship  trading  to  Nantes,  in  the 
sixth  century,  that  wine  was  imported  into  Ireland  from  that  city.  ,    .    .^  ■  , 

X  "  The  ancient  legendaries,"  says  Gibbon,  "  deserve  some  regard,  as  they  are  obliged  to  connect  their  fablea 
with  the  leal  history  of  theii  own  times"  Montesquieu  acknowledges  still  more  strongly  the  use  to  be 
derived  from  such  works : —  ,  ^  j   ,  j 

"  Quoiqu'on  puisse  reprocher  aux  auteurs  do  ces  Vies  ri'avoir  ete  quelquefois  un  pen  trop  credules  sur  des 
choses  que  Dieu  a  certainement  faites,  si  olles  ont  ete  dans  I'oidre  de  ses  desseins,  on  ne  laisse  pas  den  tirer 
de  grandes  lumieres  sur  les  mceurs  et  les  usages  de  ces  tempsla."— Liv.  xxx.  chap.  2. 

Sir  James  Mackintosh  follows  eloquently  in  the  same  track  :— 

"  The  vast  collections  of  the  Lives  of  Saints  often  throws  light  on  public  events,  and  opens  glimpses  into 
the  habits  of  men  in   those  times;  nor  are  they  wanting  in  sources  of  interest,  though  poetical  and  moral 

rather  than  historical The  whole  force  of  this  noble  attempt  to  exalt  human  nature  was  at  this 

period  spent  on  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,— a  sort  of  moral  heroes  or  demigods,  without  some  acquaintance 
with  whom  it  is  hard  to  comprehend  an  age  when  the  commemoration  of  the  virtues  then  most  veneratea, 
as  they  were  embodied  in  these  holy  men,  was  the  principal  theme  of  the  genius  of  Christendom,  —vol.  i. 

sTe,  on  the  same  subject,  the  remarks  of  the  Benedictines  (Hist.  Literaire  de  la  France,)  in  speaking  of  the 
writers  of  the  seventh  century. 


124  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and  actions  of  kings,  it  is  often  the  private  lives  of  these  spiritual  heroes  alone  that  the 
true  moving  springs  of  the  history  of  their  age  is  to  be  sought. 

Previously  to  entering,  however,  on  any  personal  details  respecting  either  Columba  or 
any  other  of  those  distinguished  Irishmen  whose  zeal  contributed  so  much  at  this  period, 
not  merely  in  their  own  country,  but  throughout  all  the  British  Isles,  to  the  general 
diffusion  of  Christianity,  it  may  not  be  irrelevant  to  inquire  briefly  into  the  peculiar 
nature  of  the  doctrines  which  these  spiritual  successors  of  our  great  apostle  taught.  An 
attempt  has  been  made,  enforced  by  the  learning  of  the  admirable  Usher,  to  prove  that 
the  church  founded  by  St.  Patrick  in  Ireland  held  itself  independent  of  Rome,  and,  on 
most  of  the  leading  points  of  Christian  doctrine,  professed  the  opinions  maintained  at 
present  by  Protestants.  But  rarely,  even  in  the  warfare  of  religious  controversy,  has 
there  been  iiazarded  an  assertion  so  little  grounded  upon  fact.  In  addition  to  the  original 
link  formed  with  Rome,  from  her  having  appointed  the  first  Irish  missionaries,  we  find  in 
a  canon  of  one  of  the  earliest  Synods  Jjeld  in  Ireland  a  clear  acknowledgment  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  Roman  See.  Nor  was  this  recognition  confined  merely  to  words;  as, 
on  the  very  first  serious  occasion  of  controversy  which  presented  itself, — the  dispute 
relative  to  the  time  of  celebrating  Easter, — it  was  resolved,  conformably  to  the  words  of 
this  canon,  that  "  the  question  should  be  referred  to  the  Head  of  Cities,"  and,  a  deputation 
being  accordingly  despatched  to  Rome  for  the  purpose,  the^Roman  practice,  on  this  point, 
was  ascertained  and  adopted. 

Respecting  the  nature  of  the  religious  doctrines  and  observances  taught  by  the  earliest 
Christian  preachers  in  Ireland,  we  have,  both  in  the  accounts  of  their  devotional  practices 
and  in  their  v/ritings,  the  most  satisfactory  as  well  as  ample  information.  That  they 
celebrated  mass  under  the  ancient  traditional  names  of  the  Holy  Mysteries  of  the  Eucha- 
rist, the  Sacrifice  of  Salvation,*  the  Immolation  of  the  Host,  is  admitted  by  Usher  him- 
self. But  he  might  have  found  language  even  still  stronger  employed  by  them  to  express 
the  mystery  their  faith  acknowledged  in  that  rite.f  The  ancient  practice  of  offering  up 
prayers  for  the  dead,]:  and  the  belief  of  a  middle  state  of  existence,  after  this  life,  upon 
which  that  practice  is  founded,  formed  also  parts  of  their  creed  ;5  though  of  the  locality 
of  the  purgatorial  fire  their  notions  were,  like  those  of  the  ancient  Fathers,  vague  and 
undefined.  In  an  old  Life  of  St.  Brendan,  who  lived  in  the  sixth  century,  it  is  stated, 
"the  prayer  of  the  living  doth  much  profit  the  dead  ;"  and,  among  the  canons  of  a  very 
early  Irish  Synod,  there  is  one  entitled,  "  Of  the  Oblation  of  the  Dead."  Of  the  frequent 
practice,  indeed,  of  prayer  and  alms-giving  for  the  relief  of  departed  souls,  there  are  to 
be  found  throughout  the  records  of  those  times  abundant  proofs.  In  a  tract  attributed  to 
Cununian,  who  lived  in  the  seventh  century,  and  of  whose  talents  and  learning  we  shall 
hereafter  have  occasion  to  speak,  propitiatory  masses  for  the  dead  are  mentioned.  The 
habit  of  invoking  and  praying  to  saints  was,  it  is  evident,  general  among  the  ancient  Irish 
Christians;  and  a  Life  of  St.  Brigid,  written,  according  to  Ware,  in  the  seventh  century, 
concludes  with  the  following  words: — "There  are  two  holy  virgins  in  heaven  who  may 
undertake  my  protection,  Mary  and  St.  Brigid,  on  whose  patronage  let  each  of  us  de- 
pefld."[| 

*  The  phrase  used  by  Si.  Chrysostoni,  in  speaking  of  the  progress  of  the  faith  in  the  British  Isles,  )mplie.<i 
in  itself  that  ilie  belief  held  in  those  regions  respecting  the  Eucharist  was  the  very  same  wliich  he  himself 
eitforced  in  his  writings,  and  which  the  Catholic  church  maintains  to  the  present  day.  "They  liave  erected 
«Jiuvches  (says  the  saint.)  and  Altars  of  Sacrifice." 

t  Following  the  belief  of  the  ancient  Ciiristian  church,  as  to  a  Ri-al  Presence  in  the  sacrament,  they 
adapted  llie  language  also  by  which  this  mystery  was  expressed;  and  the  phrase  of  "making  the  body  of 
Christ"  which  occurs  so  frequently  in  the  Liiurgies  of  the  primitive  Church,  is  found  likewise  in  the  writings 
of  the  first  Irish  Christians.  Thus  Adaninan,  in  his  Life  of  St.  Columba,  tells  of  that  Saint  ordering  the 
Uishop,  Cronan,  "Christi  corpus  ex  more  conflcere." — Lib.  i.  c.  44.  In  later  Irish  writers,  numerous  pa.ssageu 
to  the  same  purport  may  be  found  ;  but,  confining  myself  to  those  only  of  the  earlier  period,  I  shall  add  but 
llie  iollowjng  strong  testimony  from  Sedulius:— 

(Corpus,  sanguis,  aqua,  tria  vitro  numera  nostra; ; 
Fonte  lenascentes,  menibris  et  sanguine  Christi 
Vesciniur,  alque  ideo  templum  Deitatis  habemur, 
■Q.uo(l  servare  Deus  nos  annual  immaculatum, 
Et  facial  tenues  lanto  Mansore  capaces. 

Carmen  Paschale,  lib.  iv. 
t   Oblationes  pro  defunctis  annua  die  racimus.—  Tcrtull. 

§  It  is  acknowledged  by  Usher  that  llequiem  masses  were  among  the  religious  practices  of  the  Irish 
Christians  in  those  days;  but  he  denies  that  they  were  any  thing  more  than  "an  honourable  commenioratioii 
of  the  dead,  and  a  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  for  their  salvation."  It  has  been  shown  clearly,  however,  that 
these  masses  were  meant  to  be  also,  in  the  strongest  sense  of  the  word,  propitiary.  In  an  old  Irish  missal, 
found  at  Bobbio,  of  which  an  account  lias  been  given  in  the  Rer.  Iljbern.  Script.  (Ep.  Nunc.  cx.T.xviii.,)  there 
is  contained  a  mass  for  the  dead,  entitled  "  Pro  Defunctis,"  in  which  the  following  prayer,  and  others  no  less 
Catholic,  are  to  be  found  :— "Concede  propitius,  ut  haec  sacra  oblatio  mortuis  prosit  ad  veniani,  et  vivis  pro- 
/iciat  ad  salutem." 
Ij  See  Lanigan,  Eccleaiast.  Ilist.  vol.  iii.  chap.  20,  note  J07. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  125 

The  penitential  discipline  established  in  their  monasteries  was  of  the  most  severe  de- 
scription. The  weekly  fast-days  observed  by  the  whole  Irish  church  were,  according  to 
the  practice  of  the  primitive  times,  Wednesdays  and  Fridays:  and  the  abstinence  of  the 
monks,  and  of  the  more  pious  among  tiie  laity,  was  carried  to  an  extreme  unknown  in  later 
days.  The  benefit  of  pilgrimages  was  also  inculcated  ;  and  we  find  mention  occasionally, 
in  the  Annals,  of  princes  dying  in  pilgrimage.*  The  practice  of  auricular  confefsion,  and 
their  belief  in  the  power  of  the  priest  to  absolve  from  sin,  is  proved  by  the  old  penitential 
canons,  and  by  innumerable  passages  in  the  Lives  of  their  Saints.f 

The  only  point,  indeed,  either  of  doctrine  or  discipline, — and  under  this  latter  head 
alone  the  exception  falls, — in  which  tiie  least  difference,  of  any  moment,  can  be  detected 
between  tiie  religion  professed  by  the  first  Irish  Christians  and  that  of  the  Catholics  of  the 
present  day,  is  with  respect  to  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  which,  as  appears  from  the 
same  sources  of  evidence  that  have  furnished  uU  the  foregoing  proofs,  was,  though  cer- 
tainly not  approved  of,  yet  permitted  and  practised.  Besides  a  number- of  incidental 
proofs  of  this  fact,  the  sixtli  Canon  of  the  Synod  attributed  to  St.  Patrick  enjoins  that 
"the  clerk's  wife  shall  not  walk  out  without  having  her  head  veiled."}: 

The  evidence  which  Usher  has  adduced  to  prove,  that  communion  in  both  kinds  was 
permitted  to  the  laity  among  the  Irish,  is  by  no  means  conclusive  or  satisfactory  ;^ — 
thougii  it  would  certainly  appear,  from  one  of  the  Canons  of  the  Penitential  of  St.  Co- 
lumbanus,||  that,  before  the  introduction  of  his  rule,  novices  had  been  admitted  to  the 
cup.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that  any  difference  of  practice,  in  this  respect, 
has  been  always  considered  as  a  mere  point  of  discipline,  and  accordingly  subject  to  such 
alteration  as  the  change  of  time  and  circumstances  may  require. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

EMINENT    RELIGIOUS    PERSONS,    COLUMBA,    COLUMBANUS,    BRIGID. 

Among  the  signs  of  the  religious  enthusiasm  of  that  period,  not  the  least  striking  ia 
the  number  of  persons  of  both  sexes,  who,  in  the  midst  of  so  many  competitors  for  the  palm  of 
holiness,  became  sufficiently  eminent  to  attain  the  title  of  Saints.  These  holy  persons,  are 
by  our  ecclesiastical  writers,  distinguished  into  two  classes,  the  first  of  which,  consisting 
partly  of  foreigners,  and  partly  of  natives,  e.xtended  down  from  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick  to 
the  latter  years  of  Tuathal's  reign,  about  a.  d.  542.  To  this  class,  which  was  accounted  the 
holiest,  as  including  in  it  the  friends  and  disciples  of  St.  Patrick,  succeeded  another  series, 
reaching  to  the  very  close  of  the  sixth  century  ;  and  to  this  second  class  of  Saints,  Columba, 
or,  as  he  is  more  commonly  called,  Columbkill,  belonged.  In  a  country  where  the  pride  of 
blood  has  been  at  all  times  so  predominant,  it  formed  no  inconsiderable  part  of  this  Saint's 
personal  advantages,  that  he  was  of  royal  extraction;  being,  by  the  paternal  side,  de- 
scended from  that  "father  of  many  kings,"  Nial,  while  his  mother,  iEthena,  was  of  an 

*  See  Tigernach,  >.  d.  610,  and  also  723.  Tn  ihe  Annals  of  the  Pour  Masters,  a.  d.  777,  the  pilgrimage  of 
a  Bon  of  the  king  of  Connaughl  to  the  Isle  of  Hyona  is  recorded. 

t  On  this  point  Usher  acknowledges  that  "  they  did  (no  douht)  both  publicly  and  privately  make  confession 
of  their  faults,  (chap.  5,)  and  adds,  in  proof  of  this  fact,  what  follows: — 'One  old  penitential  canon  we  find 
laid  down  in  a  synod  held  in  this  country,  about  the  year  of  our  Lord  450,  by  St.  Patrick,  Auxilius  and  Isser- 
ninus,  which  is  as  followeth : — '  A  Christian  who  hath  killed  a  man,  or  committed  fornication,  or  gone  unto 
a  soothsayer,  after  the  manner  of  the  Gentiles,  for  every  of  those  crimes  shall  do  a  year  of  penance  ;  when 
his  year  of  penance  is  accomplished,  he  shall  come  with  witnesses,  and  afterward  he  shall  be  absolved  by 
the  priest.'"  Uslier  contends,  however,  for  their  having  in  so  farditfered  from  the  belief  of  the  present  Catho- 
lics, that  they  did  not  attribute  to  the  priest  any  more  than  a  ministerial  power  in  the  remission  of  sins. 

I  If  the  term  clerk  here  be  understood  to  comprise  all  the  members  of  the  clerical  orders,  the  permission  to 
marry  extended  also,  of  course,  to  priests;  but  it  is  thought  by  some  that  the  words  of  the  canon  apply  only 
to  the  inferior  ranks  of  the  clergy.  "  With  respect  to  our  English  church  (says  Dr.  Milner,)  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century,  we  gather  from  St.  Gregory's  permission  for  the  clerks  in  minor  orders  to  take  wives,  that  this 
was  unlawful  for  the  clergy  in  holy  orders,  namely,  for  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons,  agreeably  to  a  well- 
known  rule  of  reasoning,  '  Exceptio  confirmat  regulam  ;'  and  we  aie  justified  in  inferring  the  same  with  re- 
spect to  the  Irish  clergy  in  St.  Patrick's  time." — Inquiry  into  certain  vulgar  opinions,  ^-c.  ^-c.     Letter  14. 

§  He  founds  his  conclusion  chiefly  on  their  use  of  such  phrases  as '' tfie  communion  of  the  Lord's  body  and 
blood:"  whereas  the  Catholics  of  the  present  day,  among  whom  the  laity  receive  the  sacrament  under  one 
kind  only,  use  the  very  same  language. 

II  Coluraban.  in  Posnitent.,  as  I  find  it  thus  cited  by  Ceillier:— "  Novi  quia  indocti  et  quicunque  tales  fue- 
rint,  adcalicein  non  accedant." 


126  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

illustrious  and  princely  house  of  Leinster.  We  are  told  of  a  dream  which  his  mother 
had,  before  she  was  delivered  of  him,  which  prefigures  so  fancifully  the  future  spread  of 
his  spiritual  influence  and  fame,  that,  though  but  a  dream,  it,  may  perhaps,  briefly  be 
mentioned.  An  Angel,  it  is  said,  appeared  to  her,  bringing  a  veil  in  his  hand,  of  wonder- 
ful beauty,  seemingly  painted  over  with  a  variety  of  flowers,  which,  having  presented  it 
to  her,  he  almost  instantly  again  took  away,  and  spreading  it  out,  allowed  it  to  fly  through 
the  air.  On  her  asking  sadly  why  he  had  deprived  her  of  this  treasure,  the  Angel  an- 
swered that  it  was  far  too  precious  to  be  left  with  her ;  and  she  then  observed  it,  far  and 
wide,  expanding  itself  over  the  distant  mountains,  forests,  and  plains.* 

This  Saint  was  born  about  the  year  521,  in  the  barony  of  Kilmacrenan;  and  his  name, 
originally  Crimthan,  was,  by  reason,  it  is  said,  of  the  dove-like  simplicity  of  his  cha- 
racter, changed  afterwards  into  Columba.  To  this  was  added,  in  the  course  of  lime, 
the  surname  of  Cille  or  Kille,  making  the  title  by  which  he  was  from  thenceforth  dis- 
tinguished Columbkill,  or  Columba  of  the  Churches.  Of  the  difl^erent  schools  where  he 
pursued  his  studies,  the  most  celebrated  was  that  of  Finnian  at  Clonard.  There  had 
already,  in  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  or  immediately  after,  sprung  up  a  number  of  ecclesi- 
astical seminaries  throughout  Ireland;  and,  besides  those  of  Ailbe,  of  Ibar,  of  the  poet 
Fiech,  at  Sletty,  there  appears  to  have  been  also  a  school  at  Armagh,  established  by  the 
apostle  himself,  and  entrusted,  during  his  lifetime,  to  the  care  of  his  disciple  Benignus. 
At  the  period  we  have  now  reached,  such  institutions  had  multiplied  in  every  direction; 
but  by  far  the  most  distinguished  of  them  all,  as  well  for  the  number  as  the  superior 
character  of  its  scholars,  was  the  long-renowned  seminary  o."  St,  Finnian,  at  Clonard.f 
Having  completed  his  course  of  studies  under  this  master,  Columba  early  commenced 
those  labours  by  which  his  fame  was  acquired  ;  being  but  in  his  twenty-fifth  year  when 
he  founded  that  monastery  called  Doire  Calgach,  near  Lough  Foyle,  from  whence  the 
name  of  the  town,  or  city,  of  Derry  was  derived.  Not  long  after,  proceeding  to  the 
southern  parts  of  the  ancient  Meath,  he  erected  another  monastery,  equally  famous,  on  a 
site  then  called  Dairmagh,  or  the  Plain  of  the  Oaks;  and  which  had  been  given,  as  an 
offering  "  to  God  and  St.  Columba,"  by  a  pious  chieftain  named  Brendan. t 

But  the  Saint  perceived  that  it  was  not  in  Ireland  he  could  hope  to  reap  the  full  har- 
vest of  his  toils.  Thwarted,  as  he  was,  in  his  spiritual  labours,  by  the  eternal  feuds  of 
the  Irish  princes,  among  whom  his  own  relatives,  the  Nials  of  the  North  and  South, 
were,  at  all  times,  the  most  unmanageable,  he  resolved  to  seek  elsewhere  some  more 
promising  field  of  exertion ;  and  the  condition  of  the  northern  Picts  in  Britain,  who  were 
still  sunk  in  all  the  darkness  of  Paganism,  seemed  to  present  the  scene  of  action  his  holy 
ambition  desired. J  He  had  in  view  also,  it  is  plain,  the  better  instruction  and  guidance 
of  that  great  body  of  his  countrymen  who  had  now  settled  in  North  Britain ;  nor  was  his 
relationship  to  the  princely  house  which  had  founded  that  new  kingdom  without  some 
share,  it  may  be  presumed,  in  stimulating  his  anxiety  for  its  welfare.  There  is,  in  some 
of  the  various  accounts  of  his  life,  a  story  attributing  his  departure  from  Ireland  to  some 
fierce  and  revengeful  conduct,  on  his  part,  towards  the  monarch  Diarmid;  of  which  he 
afterwards,  it  is  added,  so  bitterly  repented,  as  to  impose  upon  himself  perpetual  exile 
in  penance  of  the  wrong.  It  has  been  shown  satisfactorily,  however,  that  there  are  no 
grounds  for  this  story;  and  that  though,  for  some  venial  and  unimportant  proceedings, 
an  attempt  had  been  made  to  excommunicate  him  before  his  departure  from  Ireland, 
the  account  of  his  quarrel  with  this  monarch  is  but  an  ill-constructed  fable,  which,  from 
the  internal  evidence  of  its  inconsistencies,  falls  to  pieces  of  itself.|| 

Having  obtained  from  his  relative,  Conal,  who  was  then  King  of  the  Albanian  Scots, 

*  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Columba,  lib.  iii.  cap.  i.  Of  this  remarkable  piece  of  biography,  written  by  an 
Irishman  in  the  seventh  century,  the  reader  may  not  disJike  to  see  some  specimens.  The  following  is  the 
passage  describing  this  dream:—"  Angelus  Domini  in  somnis  genetrici  venerabilis  viri,  quiidam  nocte  inter 
conceptum  et  partiun  apparuit,  eique  quasi  quoddam  mine  pulchritudinis  peplum  assistens  detulit :  in  quo 
veluti  universorum  decorose  florum  depicti  videbantur;  quodque  post  aliquod  breve  intervallum,  ejus  de 
manibus  reposcens,  abstulit;  elevansque  et  e.xpan  lens,  in  aere  diniisit  vacuo.  Ilia  verode  illo  tristilicata 
sublato,  sic  ad  ilium  venerandi  habitus  virum  :  Cur  a  me,  ait,  hoc  lajtificum  tum  cito  abstrahis  pallium  ?  Hie 
consequenter;  Idcirco,  inquit,  quia  hocsagum  alicujus  est  tam  magriitici  honoris,  quod  apud  te  diutius  re- 
tinere  non  poteris.  His  dictis,  supra  memoratum  peplum  mnlier  paulatim  a  se  elongari  volando  videbat, 
camporumque  latitudinem  in  majes  crescendo  excedere,  montesque  et  saltus  niajore  sui  mensura  superare." 

t  In  this  school  of  Finnian  at  Clonard,  there  are  said  to  have  been,  at  one  time,  three  thousand  scholars. 
"  Finianus  Abbas  de  Cluain-eraird,  magister  sanctorum  Hiberniae,  habuitenim  in  sua  scholade  Cluain-eraird 
iria  millia  sanctorum."— JtfoWi/r.  Dungal.  ad  12  Deccmb. 

J  See  Camden,  1011,  where  he  is  guilty  of  the  double  error  of  confounding  Dearrnagh  with  Armagh,  and  St. 
Colurabanus  with  St.  Columba. 

§  Venit  do  Hybernia  Britanniam  praedicaturus  verbium  Dei  provinciis  Septentrionalium  Pictorum  —Bede, 
lib.  III.  C.4. 

II  This  long  story  may  be  found,  in  its  most  abridged  shape,  in  Usher,  De  Britann.  Eccles.  Primord.  902. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  127 

a  grant  of  the  small  island  of  Hy,  or  lona,  which  was  an  appendage  to  the  new 
Scotish  kingdom,  Columba,  in  the  year  563,  together  with  twelve  of  his  disci-  rpo' 
pies,  set  sail  for  that  sequestered  spot.  In  the  same  year,  a  sanguinary  battle  was 
foutrht  in  Ireland,  between  the  Nials  of  the  North  and  the  Irish  Picts,  in  which  the  latter 
were,  with  immense  slaughter,  defeated ;  and  it  is  evident,  from  a  passage  in  Adamnan's  Life 
of  Columba,  wliich  represents  the  Saint  as  conversing  with  Conal  at  the  time  of  that  bat- 
tle, that  he  must  liave  visited  the  court  of  the  Scotish  king  soon  after  his  arrival  at  Hy. 
One  of  his  first  tasks,  on  entering  upon  the  management  of  his  island,  was  to  expel  from 
thence  some  Druids  who  had  there  established  their  abode;  this  secluded  island  having 
been  early  one  of  the  haunts  of  this  priesthood,  as  the  remains  of  circular  temples,  and 
other  such  monuments,  still  existing  among  its  ruins,  seem  to  prove.  Having  erected 
there  a  monastery  and  a  church,  and  arranged  such  matters  as  were  connected  with  his 
establishment,  he  now  directed  his  attention  to  the  main  object  of  his  great  Christian 
enterprise — that  of  exploring  the  wild  regions  beyond  the  Grampian  hills,  where  no 
missionary  before  himself  had  ever  yet  ventured,  and  endeavouring  to  subdue  to  the 
mild  yoke  of  the  Gospel  the  hardy  race  who  were  there  entrenched.  The  territory  of 
the  northern  Picts,  at  this  period,  included  all  that  part  of  modern  Scotland  which  lies 
to  the  north  of  the  great  range  of  the  Grampian  mountains;*  and  the  residence  of  their 
king,  Brude,  at  the  time  of  Columba's  mission,  was  somewhere  on  the  borders  of  Loch 
Ness.f  Hither  the  courageous  Saint  first  directed  his  steps;  and  the  fame  of  his  coming 
having,  no  doubt,  preceded  him,  on  arriving  with  his  companions  at  the  royal  castle,  he 
found  the  gates  closed  against  him.  His  exclusion,  however,  was  but  of  short  duration. 
By  one  of  those  miracles  to  which,  in  the  records  of  that  all-believing  age,  every  event 
in  favour  of  the  church  is  attributed,  Columba,  advancing,  made  the  sign  of  the  cross 
upon  the  gates,  and  instantly,  at  the  touch  of  his  hand  they  flew  open.t  Apprized  of 
this  prodigy,  the  king  came  forward,  with  his  whole  council,  to  give  him  welcome; 
and  from  thenceforth  treated  his  holy  visiter  with  every  mark  of  reverence.  Notwith- 
standing the  efforts  made  by  the  Magi — more  especially  by  the  king's  tutor,  Broichan — 
to  prevent  the  preaching  of  the  missionaries,  and  uphold  the  Pagan  creed,  their  opposi- 
tion proved  entirely  fruitless;  and  the  conversion  of  the  king  himself,  which  had  been 
early  effected, ^  was  gradually  followed,  in  the  course  of  this  and  other  visits  of  the  Saint, 
by  the  propagation  of  the  Christian  faith  throughout  the  whole  of  North  Pictland.|| 

His  apostolical  labours  were  next  extended  to  the  Western  Isles,  throughout  the  whole 
of  which  the  enlightening  efl^ects  of  his  presence  and  influence  were  felt.  Wherever  he 
directed  his  steps,  churches  were  erected,  religious  teachers  supplied,  and  holy  commu- 
nities formed.  Among  the  islands  which  he  most  favoured  with  his  visits  are  mentioned 
Hymba  and  Ethica;1[  in  the  latter  of  which  a  monastery  had  been  founded  by  a  priest 
named  Findchan,  who  incurred  the  displeasure  of  the  Saint  by  an  act  strongly  characte- 
ristic of  those  times.  Aldus  the  Black,  a  prince  of  the  royal  blood  of  the  Irish  Cruthens 
or  Picts,  having  murdered,  besides  other  victims,  Diermit,  the  monarch  of  Ireland,  took 
refuge  in  the  monastery  of  Ethica,  and  was  there,  notwithstanding  these  crimes,  raised 
to  the  priesthood.** 

*  Hoc  est,  eis  qui  arduis  atque  horrentibus  montium  jugis  ab  Australibus  eorum  sunt  regionibus  seques- 
trati. — Beds,  lib.  3,  cap.  4. 

t  Ubi  vero  munitio  ejus,  vel  urbs  regia  fiierit,  nullibi  satis  certo  reperio. — Adamnan.  He  mentions,  how- 
ever, that  it  was  near  Loch  Ness, — "  Nesa;  fluminis  lacum." 

I  Alio  in  tempore,  hoc  est  in  prima  Sancli  fatigatione  itineris  ad  Regem  Briidium,  casu  contigit,  ut  idem 
Rex  fastii  relatus  regio,  sueb  munitionis,  superbe  agens,  in  prime  beati  adventu  viri,  non  aperiret  portas.  Quod 
ut  cognovit  homo  Dei,  cum  comitibus,  ad  valvas  portarum  accedens,  primiira  Dominies  Crucis  iniprimens  sig- 
nuni,  turn  deinde  manum  pulsans  contra  ostia  ponit ;  quiE  continue  sponte,  retro  retrusis  forliter  seris,  cum 
omni  celeritate  aperta  sunt;  quibus  statim  apertis,  Sanctus  consequenter  cum  sociis  intrat. — Adamnan,  lib. 
ii.  cap.  3. 

§  Thus,  it  is  said,  in  some  verses  quoted  by  Usher  from  an  Irish  Breviary,— 

"  Relinquens  patriam  caram  Hiberniam, 
Per  Christi  gratiam  venit  ad  Scotiam; 
Per  quern  idonea  vits  primordia 

Rex  gentis  sumpsit  Pictiniffi." 

II  In  an  article  of  the  Ed.  Review,  No.  ]5,  art.  7,  it  is  erroneously  said,  "St  Columba,  who  was  an  Irish 
Celt,  and  the  Apostle  of  the  Highlands,  is  not  stated  to  have  used  an  interpreter,  when  he  addressed  the 
Pictish  kings,  or  when  he  preached  the  gospel  to  vast  multitudes  of  their  people."  It  appears,  on  the  con- 
trary from  Adammanus,  that  the  saint  did  use  an  interpreter  on  some  of  these  occasions, — "  per  interpretato- 
rem,  sancto  predicante  viro  :"  and  the  conclusion  that  the  Picts  were  not  a  Celtic  people  seems  not  a  little 
confirmed  by  this  circumstance. 

ir  It  is  not  known  by  what  names  these  two  islands  are  called  at  present.  Pinkorton  supposes  that  Ethica 
may  have  been  tlie  island  now  named  Lewi.s;  but  Dr.  Lanigan  thinks  it  was  no  other  than  Eig,  or  Egg,  an 
island  about  thirty-six  miles  to  the  north  of  Hy. 

**  Alio  in  tempore  supra  memoratiis  Presbyter  Finchanus,  Christi  miles,  Aiduni  cognomento  Nigrum,  re- 
gio genere  orlum,  Cruthinium  gentc,  de  Scotia  ad  Britanniam  sub  Clericatus  habitu  sccuni  adduxit,  ut  in  suo 


128  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

He  superintended  also  the  spiritual  affairs  of  the  Scotish  kingdom  ;  founding  there,  as 
elsewhere,  religious  establishments.  From  the  mention,  too,  by  his  biographer  Adamnan, 
of  some  Saxon  converts  at  Hy,  it  seems  not  improbable  that  his  fame  had  attracted  thither 
some  of  those  Anglo-Saxons  who  had  now  got  footing  in  North  Britain;  and  that  even  thus 
early  had  commenced  the  course  of  Christian  kindliness  towards  that  people,  for  which 
the  Irish  are  so  warmly  commended  by  Bede; — forming  a  contrast,  as  it  did,  to  the  un- 
charitable conduct  which  the  same  writer  complains  of  in  the  Britons,  who  were,  he  says, 
guilty  of  the  sin  of  neglecting  to  announce  the  Gospel  to  the  Anglo-Saxons.*  As,  at  this 
time,  Augustine  and  his  brother  missionaries  had  not  yet  arrived  in  Britain,  there  can 
hardly  be  a  doubt  that  by  St.  Columba  and  his  companions  the  work  of  converting  the 
Anglo-Saxons  was  begun  ;  and  the  Christians  of  that  nation,  mentioned  by  Adamnan  as 
among  the  converts  at  Hy,  were,  it  is  most  probable,  some  of  the  first-fruits  of  the  Saint's 
apostolical  labours.  While  engaged  in  his  beneficent  ministry  among  the  inhabitants  of 
the  isles,  Columba,  more  than  once,  found  himself  called  upon  to  defend  this  peaceful 
people  against  the  inroads  of  a  band  of  plunderers  from  the  Albanian  shores,  who,  though 
themselves  professing  to  be  Christians,  and,  some  of  them,  relatives  of  the  Saint,  took 
every  opportunity  of  making  incursions  upon  the  Christians  of  the  Isles.f  With  the 
same  spirit  which  St.  Patrick  evinced  in  denouncing  the  pirate  Prince  Coroticus,  Columba 
pronounced  the  solemn  sentence  of  excommunication  against  the  chief  of  these  ma- 
rauders. 

On  the  death  of  Conal,  King  of  the  British  Scots,  in  the  year  572-3,  Aidan,  the  son  of 
Gauran,  succeeded  to  the  throne;  and  it  is  mentioned  as  a  proof  of  the  general 
r~2_Q  veneration  in  which  Columba  was  then  held,  as  well  by  sovereigns  as  by  the  clergy 
■  and  the  people,  that  he  was  the  person  selected  to  perform  the  ceremony  of  inau- 
guration on  the  accession  of  the  new  king.|  Though  occupied  so  zealously  with  the 
spiritual  interests  of  North  Britain,  he  did  not  neglfct  to  inform  himself  constantly  of  the 
state  of  the  religious  houses  founded  by  him  in  Ireland,  and  even,  occasionally,  we  are 
told,  repaired  thither  in  person,  when  affairs  of  moment  required  his  presence.  An  exi- 
gence of  this  nature,  highly  important  in  a  political  point  of  view,  occurred  soon  after 
the  accession  of  Aidan  to  the  throne  of  the  British  Scots.  A  claim  put  forth  by  this 
sovereign,  as  descendant  of  the  ancient  princes  of  Dalriada,  having  been  contested  by  the 
Irish  monarch  Aldus,  it  was  agreed  that  the  difference  between  them  should  be  submitted 
to  the  states-general  of  Ireland,  convoked  at  Drumceat ;  and  the  attendance  of  King 
Aidan  at  this  assembly  being  indispensable,  he  was  accompanied  thither  by  his  friend  St. 
Columba.  Setting  out  in  a  small  vessel,  attended  by  a  few  monks,  the  Saint  and  the 
king  directed  their  course  to  the  north;  and,  after  encountering  a  violent  storm  in  the 
open  sea,  landed  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  which  runs  into  Lough  Foyle,  and  from  thence 
proceeded  to  Drumceat.  They  found  this  national  assembly,  which  consisted  not  only  of 
the  kinirs  and  nobles,  but  likewise  of  the  heads  of  clerical  bodies,  engaged  in  a  discussion, 
the  subject  of  which,  shows  the  singular  tenacity  with  which  old  customs  and  institutions 
still  held  their  ground  among  this  people,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  new  light  by  which 
they  were  now  surrounded.  We  have  seen  how  powerful,  in  the  times  of  Paganism, 
was  the  influence  of  the  Bardic  or  Literary  Order;  insomuch  that  strong  measures  had 
been  found  necessary,  by  some  of  the  early  kings,  to  repress  or  at  least,  reirulate,  the 
pretensions  of  that  body.  At  the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  the  two  classes  com- 
posing this  Order,  namely,  the  Fileas,  or  poets,  and  the  Seanachies,  or  antiquaries,  had 
become  so  burdensome  from  their  numbers,  and  so  unpopular  from  their  insolence,  that 
some  vigorous  steps  were  meditated  against  them  by  this  assembly;  and  their  suppression, 
and  even  banishment  from  the  country,  were  on  the  point  of  being  decided,  when  St. 

apiid  so  monasterio  ppr  aliquoil  p^ingrinnrftiu-  aniios  ;  qui  scilicet  Aidus  niger  valile  saneiiinarius  homo  et 
multorum  fuerat  tnicidatnr;  qui  m  Iteimitium  lilium  CVrbuill,  lotius  Scotia-  regnaloreni  Deo  auctore  ordina- 
tutn  inlerfecerat — Mamnan,  ciip.  4. 

*  "To  the  end  that  by  reason  the  same  nation  (the  Scots,  or  Irish)  had  taken  care  willingly  and  without 
envy  to  communicate  to  the  Knglish  pnople  the  knowledge  thev  have  of  the  true  Deity  .  .  .  even  as.  on  the 
contrary,  the  Britons  would  not  acquaint  the  English  with  the  knowledge  they  had  of  the  Christian  faith."— 
Ecclesiast.  Hist.  lib.  v.  cap  23. 

t  Adamnan,  lib  ii.  cap.  2i.     "  Ecrlesiarum  per.«ecutores,"  ihe  biographer  calls  Ihrm. 

\  Columba  had  been,  at  first,  unwilling  to  perform  this  ceremonv ;  but  an  angel,  as  his  biographers  say, 
appeared  to  him  during  the  night,  holding  a  book  called  "  The  GlassBook  of  the  (Jrriination  of  Kings,"  which 
he  put  into  the  haruls  of  the  Saint,  and  ordered  him  to  ordain  Aidan  king,  according  to  the  directions  of 
that  book.  'J'his  Liber  Vilreus  is  supposed  to  have  been  so  called  from  having  its  cover  encrusted  with  glass 
or  crystal.  It  is  rather  remarkable,  that  a  learned  writer  on  church  antiquities.  Martene,  refers  to  this  in- 
auguration of  Aidan  by  St  Columba.  as  the  most  ancient  instance  he  had  met  with,  in  the  course  of  his  read- 
ing, of  the  benediction  of  kings  in  Christian  times.  "  Quorum  (regum)  benedictio  haud  minoris  antiquitatis 
est  quam  imperalorinn  Antiquissimn  omnium  quas  inter  legenduin  inihi  reperire  liciiit,  ea  est  qua  a  Co- 
lumba Abbale  Ilicnsi  facta  ett,  juseu  Angoli,  m  Aidanum  Scotoruni  regem,"— />c  .Intiq.  Eccles.  HiL  lib.  ii. 
cap.  10. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  129 

Columba  arrived.  Whether  actuated  by  his  general  feeling  of  benevolence,  or  havino- 
some  leaning  in  favour  of  the  professors  of  an  art  whicli  he  himself  practised,*  the  Sainl 
interfered  in  behalf  of  the  threatened  Burds;  and  prevailed  so  far  as  that,  under  certain 
lin)itations  and  restrictions,  their  order  should  still  be  permitted  to  exist-f 

The  important  question,  respecting  the  poets,  being  thus  disposed  of,  the  Assembly 
had  next  to  pronounce  their  judgment  upon  the  question  at  issue  between  the  two  kings. 
On  the  ground  of  his  descent  from  Carbre  Rieda,  to  whom,  as  we  have  seen,  a  grant  had 
been  made,  in  tlie  middle  of  the  third  century,  of  all  those  parts  of  the  county  of  Antrim 
which  formed  the  territory  called,  from  thenceforth,  Dalriada,  King  Aidan  asserted  his 
hereditary  right  to  the  sovereignty  of  that  territory,  and  maintained  that,  as  belonging  to 
his  family,  it  should  be  exempt,  if  not  in  the  whole,  at  least  in  part,  from  the  payment  of 
tribute  to  the  King  of  Ireland,  and  from  all  such  burdens  as  affected  the  rest  of  the  king- 
dom. The  Irish  monarch,  on  the  other  hand,  contended  that  the  territory  in  question 
formed  a  portion  of  his  dominions,  and  had  always,  equally  with  the  rest,  been  subject  to 
imposts  and  contributions;  that,  before  the  Dalriadians  became  sovereigns  in  Britain, 
such  tribute  had  been  always  paid  by  that  principality,  nor  could  the  elevation  of  its 
princes  to  a  throne  in  North  Britain  make  any  difference  in  its  relations  to  the  Irish  mo- 
narchy. Notwithstanding  his  known  attachment  to  King  Aidan,  so  great  was  the  gene- 
ral trust  in  Columba's  sense  of  justice,  that  to  him  alone  the  decision  of  the  question  was 
first  referred.  On  his  declining,  however,  to  pronounce  any  opinion  respecting  it,  the 
task  of  arbitration  was  committed  to  St.  Cohnan, — a  man  deeply  versed,  as  we  are  told, 
in  the  legal  and  ecclesiastical  learning, —  who,  on  the  obvious  grounds,  that  Dalriada, 
being  an  Irish  province,  could  not  but  be  subject,  in  every  respect,  to  the  monarch  of  all 
Ireland,  gave  his  decision  against  the  claim  of  King  Aidan. 

During  this,  his  last,  sojourn  in  Ireland,  Columba  visited  all  the  various  religious  esta- 
blishments which  he  had  founded ;  passing  some  time  at  his  favourite  monastery  at  Diar- 
magh,  and  there  devoting  himself  to  the  arrangement  of  matters  connected  with  the 
discipline  of  the  church.  After  accomplishing,  to  the  best  of  his  power,  all  the  objects 
he  had  in  view  in  visiting  Ireland,  he  returned  to  his  home  in  North  Britain, — to  that 
"  Isle  of  his  heart,"  as,  in  some  prophetic  verses  attributed  to  him,  lona  is  called,]; — and 
there,  assiduous  to  the  last  in  attending  to  the  care  of  hia  monasteries  and  numerous 
churches,  remained  till  death  closed  his  active  and  beneficent  course.  The  description 
given  of  his  last  moments  by  one  who  received  the  details  from  an  eye-witness,  presents 
a  picture  at  once  so  calm  and  so  vivid,  that  I  shall  venture,  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the 
words  of  his  biographer,  to  relate  some  particulars  of  the  scene.^  Having  been  fore- 
warned, it  is  said,  in  his  dreams  of  the  time  when  his  death  was  to  take  place,  he  rose,  on 
the  morning  of  the  day  before,  and  ascending  a  small  eminence,  lifted  up  his  hands  and 

*  According  to  Mr.  O'Reilly,  Columba  "  wrote  sRveral  pieces,  both  in  Tiish  and  Latin.  Upwards  of  thirty 
poems  in  the  Irish  language,  ascribed  to  him,  have  come  down  to  our  times,  of  which  copies  are  in  possession 
of  the  assistant  secretary."  There  is,  however,  little  or  no  reliance  to  be  placed  on  the  authenticity  of  the 
pieces  attributed  to  this  Saint;  which  had  probably  their  origin  in  that  favourite  practice  of  the  Irish  writers 
of  the  middle  ages,  of  introducing  their  own  productions  to  public  notice  under  the  sanction  of  long  cele- 
brated names. 

t  The  whole  of  this  account  of  the  proceedings  at  Drumccat,  respecting  the  Bards,  is  represented  by  Mr. 
Whitty  (Popular  Hist,  of  Ireland)  as  an  invention  of  the  poets  of  subsequent  times,  who,  he  says,  "  knew 
well  the  value  of  dignified  associations,  and  accordingly  did  not  fail  to  connrct  their  order  with  the  names  of 
Si.  Patrick  and  St.  Columb-cille."  But  the  perfect  consistency  of  the  acts  of  the  council  at  Drumceat,  as  well 
as  of  some  others  at  a  still  earlier  period,  with  all  that  is  known  of  the  political  importance  of  the  Irish  bards 
in  later  times,  is  such  as  to  confirm  the  historical  truth  of  the  curious  circumstance  above  related.  In  a  par- 
liament held  by  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  at  Kilkenny,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  it  was  made  penal  to  enter- 
tain any  of  the  Irish  minstrels,  rhymers,  or  news  tellers.  {Davieg's  Discovery.)  Under  Henry  VIII.,  some  of 
the  coercive  measures  proposed  by  Baron  Finglas  were  directed  against  "  Irish  minstrals,  rhymers,  shannaghs 
(genealogists,)  and  bards;"  and.  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  acts  were  passed  against  this  order  of  men.  which 
show  how  dangerous,  as  political  engines,  they  wi  re  even  at  that  period  considered.  "  For  that  those  rhymers 
do  by  their  ditties  and  rhymes  made  to  divers  lords  and  gentlemen  in  Ireland,  in  the  commendation  and  high 
praise  of  extortion,  rebellion,  rape,  raven,  and  other  injustice,  encourage  those  lords  and  gentlemen  rather  to 
follow  those  vices  than  to  leave,"  &c.  &c.  So  late,  indeed,  as  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  we  find  "wandering 
poets,"  who  sought  to  gain  their  ends,  "  under  threat  of  some  scandalous  rhyme,'' made  liable  to  imprison- 
ment. 

\  "  In  the  Isle  of  my  heart,  the  Isle  of  my  love,  instead  of  a  monk's  voice  there  shall  be  lowing  of  cattle. 
But,  ere  the  world  comes  to  an  end,  lona  shall  flourish  as  before." — Cited  in  Mrmstrong''s  Gaelic  Dictionary. 
Dr.  Johnson  appears  to  have  been  animated  with  a  similar  spirit  of  prophecy  respecting  this  island.  "  Per- 
haps," says  the  moralist,  "  in  the  revolutions  of  the  world,  lona  may  be,  some  time  again,  the  instructress  of 
the  western  regions."    {Journey  to  the  IVestern  Islands.) 

§  Post  hsec  verba  de  illo  dicens  (descendens)  rnonticellulo,  et  ad  monasterium  revertens,  sedebat  in  tueurio 
Psalterium  scribens;  et  ad  ilium  lertii  Psalmi  versiculum  perveniens,  ubi  scribitur,  Inquirentcs  autem  Domi- 
num  non  deficient  omni  bono.  Hie,  ait,  in  tine  cessanduin  est  paginae ;  quae  vero  sequuntur  Baitheneus  scribat. 
.  .  .  Interim  caetus  monachorum  cum  luminaribus  accurrens,  Patre  viso  moriente,  cspit  plangere;  et  ut  ab 
aliquibus  qui  prffisentes  inerant  didicimus,  Sanctus  necdum  egrediente  anima,  apertis  sursum  oculis,  ad 
utrumque  latus  cum  mira  hilaritate  et  Istitia  circumspiciebat.  .  .  .  Diermitius  turn  Sancti  sanctum  sublevat, 
ad  benediciendum  monachorum  chorum,  dexterain  manum:  sed  et  ipse  venerabilis  Pater  in  quantum  poterat, 
Buam  simul  movebat  manum, — Adamnan,  lib.  iii.  cap.  3. 

16 


130  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

solemnly  bleesed  the  monastery.  Returning  from  thence,  be  sat  down  in  a  hut  adjoining-, 
and  there  occupied  himself  in  copying  part  of  the  Psalter,  till,  having  finished  a  page 
with  a  passage  of  the  thirty-third  Psalm,  he  stopped  and  said,  "  Let  Baithen  write  the 
remainder."  °This  Baithen,  who  was  one  of  the  twelve  disciples  that  originally  accom- 
panied him  to  Hy,  had  been  named  by  him  as  his  successor.  After  attending  the  evening 
service  in  the  church,  the  Saint  returned  to  his  cell,  and,  reclinin^g  on  his  bed  of  stone, 
delivered  some  instructions  to  his  favourite  attendant,  to  be  communicated  to  the  brethren. 
When  the  bell  rang  for  midnight  prayer,  he  hastened  to  the  church,  and  was  the  first  to 
enter  it.  Throwing  himself  upon  his  knees,  be  began  to  pray — but  his  strength  failed 
him;  and  his  brethren,  arriving  soon  after,  found  their  beloved  master  reclining  before 
the  altar,  and  on  the  point  of  death.  Assembling  all  around  him,  these  holy  men  stood 
silent  and  weeping,  while  the  Saint,  opening  his  eyes,  with  an  expression  full  of  cheer- 
fulness, made  a  slight  movement  of  his  hand,  as  if  to  give  them  his  parting  benediction, 
and  in  that  effort  breathed  his  last,  being  then  in  the  seventy-sixth  year  of  his  age. 

The  name  of  this  eminent  man,  though  not  so  well  known  throughout  the  Latm  church 
as  that  of  another  Irish  Saint,  Columbanus,  with  whom  be  is  frequently  confounded,* 
holds  a  distinguished  place  among  ihe  Roman  and  other  martyrologies,  and  in  the  Bri- 
tish Isles  will  long  be  remembered  with  traditional  veneration.  In  Ireland,  rich  as 
have  been  her  annals  in  names  of  saintly  renown,  for  i>one  has  she  continued  to  cherish 
so  fond  a  reverence,  through  all  ages,  as  for  her  great  Columbkill ;  while  that  Isle  of  the 
Waves,ir  with  which  his  name  is  now  inseparably  connected,  and  which,  through  his  mi- 
nistry, became  "  the  luminary  of  the  Caledonian  regions,"|  has  far  less  reason  to  boasi 
of  her  numerous  Tombs  of  Kings,  than  of  those  heaps  of  votive  pebbles  left  by  pilgrims 
on  her  shore,  marking  the  path  that  once  led  to  the  honoured  Shrine  of  her  Saint.^  So 
great  was  the  reverence  paid  to  his  remains  in  North  Britain,  that,  at  the  time  when  the 
island  of  Hy  began  to  be  infested  by  the  Danes,  Kenneth  IIL  had  his  bones  removed  to 
Dunkeld  on  the  river  Tay,  and  there  founded  a  church,  dedicated  it  to  his  memory; 
while  the  Saint's  crosier,  and  a  kw  other  relics,  were  all  that  fell  to  the  share  of  the 
land  of  his  birth. |i 

In  the  annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  for  the  year  1006,  we  find  mention  made  of  a 
splendid  copy  of  the  Four  Gospels,  said  to  have  been  written  by  St.  Columba's  own 
band,  and  preserved  at  Kells  in  a  cover,  richly  ornamented  with  gold. IT  In  the  time  of 
Usher,  this  precious  manuscript  was  still  numbered  among  the  treasures  of  Kells;**  and 
if  not  written  by  Columba  himself,  is  little  doubted  to  have  been  the  work  of  one  of  his 
disciples. 

The  reigns  of  those  monarcha  who  filled,  in  succession,  the  Irish  throne,  during  the  in- 
terval which  the  acts  of  this  eminent  man  occupied,  possess  little  interest  except  what  is 
imparted  to  them  by  their  connexion  with  the  great  Saints  of  those  times.     Uninterest- 

*  Among  the  writers  who  have  been  led  into  this  conlusion  is  M.  Thierry,  (Hist,  de  la  Conqnete  de  I'An- 
gleterre,)  who,  in  pursuance  of  his  piofessed  object, — that  of  making  his  history  picturesque, — has  jumbled 
together  the  lives  of  the  two  saints  most  graphically. 

t  Such,  according  to  some  writers,  is  llie  meaning  of  the  term  lona. — See  QarnetVs  Tour  in  the  Highlands, 
vol.  i. 

X  "  We  were  now  treading  that  illustrious  island,  which  was  once  the  luminary  of  the  Caledonian  regions. 
That  man  is  little  to  be  envied,  whose  patriotism  would  not  gain  force  upnn  the  plain  of  Marathon,  or 
whose  piety  would  not  grow  warmer  upon  the  ruins  of  lona." — Dr.  Johnson's  Journey  to  the  Western  Islands. 

§  "  The  Port  na  Curachan,  where  Columba  is  said  to  have  first  landed ;— a  bay  towards  the  west,  wliich  is 
marked  by  large  conical  heaps  of  pebbles,  the  penitentiary  labours,  as  tradition  says,  of  pilgrims  to  his 
shrine." — JUacculloch's  IVcstern  Isles. 

y  Among  the  various  prophecies  attributed  to  St.  Columba,  the  arrival  of  the  English  and  their  conquest  of 
the  country  were,  it  is  said,  foretold  by  him.  "  Then,"  says  Giraldus,  "  was  fulfilled  the  alleged  prophecy  of 
Columba,  of  Hibernia,  who  long  since  foretold  that,  in  this  war,  there  should  be  so  great  a  slaughter  of  the 
inhabitants,  that  their  enemies  would  swim  up  to  the  knees  in  their  blood." — (Hibern.  Eipugnat.  lib.  ii  cap. 
16.)  There  is  yet  another  remarkable  passage  of  this  prophecy,  which  adjourned  its  fulfilment  to  a  very  remote 
period. — "The  Irish  are  said  to  have  four  prophets.  Moling,  Braccan,  Patrick,  and  Columbkill.  whose  books, 
written  in  the  Irish  language,  are  still  extant;  and  speaking  of  this  conquest  vby  the  English.)  Iliey  all  bear 
witness  that  in  after  times  the  island  of  Ireland  will  be  polluted  with  many  conflicts,  loiig  strife,  and  much 
slaughter.  But  they  all  pronounce  that  the  English  shall  not  have  a  complete  victory  till  but  a  very  little 
before  the  day  of  judgment."  "  Omnes  testamur  earn  crebris  conflictibus,  longoque  certamine  multa  in  pos- 
terum  tempora  multis  caedibus  fcedaturam.  Sed  vix  parum  ante  diem  jiidicii  plenam  Anglorum  populo  victo- 
riam  compomittunt."— (76.  cap  33.) 

IT  Usher  mentions  also  another  copy  of  the  Gospels,  said  to  have  been  written  by  Columba's  own  hand, 
which  had  been  preserved  at  the  monastery  founded  by  that  Saint  at  Durrow.  "  Inter  cujus  niifAMXirt  Evan- 
geliorum  codex  vetustissimus  asservabatur,  quem  ipsius  Columbffi  fuisse  monachi  dictitabant :  ex  quo,  et  non 
niinoris  antiquitatis  altero,  eidem  Columba;  assignato(quem  in  urbe  Kells  sive  Kenlisdictii  Midenses  sacrum 
habent)  diligentfi  cum  editione  vulgata  Latina  coUatione  facta,  in  nostros  usus  variantium  lectionum  binos 
libellosconcinnavimus."— £cf/es.  Primord.  691. 

**  This  Kells  manuscript  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  same  now  preserved  in  the  library  of  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Dublin,  on  the  margin  of  which  are  the  following  words,  wiiitcn  by  O'FlaheMy,  in  the  year  1677.— 
"  liibcr  autem  hie  ecriplus  est  manu  ipsius  B.  Coluinb«." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  131 

ing,  however,  as  are  the  events  of  these  reigns,  the  historian  is  bound  not  to  pass  them 
wholly  in  silence,  but  at  least  to  number  the  royal  links  as  they  pass,  however 
void  they  may  be  of  lustre  or  value.     To  Murkertach,  the  last  occupant  of  the    r'oj 
throne  whom  we  have  noticed,  succeeded  Tuathal  Maogarb,  great-grandson  of 
Nial  the  Great,  during  whose  reign  of  eleven  years  the  only  events  that  stand  out  pro- 
minently in  his  annals,  are  the  death  of  the  aged  bishop  Moctheus,  the  last  surviving 
disciple  of  St.  Patrick,  and  the  foundation  of  Columba's  favourite  establishment,  the  mo- 
nastery of  Daire-Calgaich,  or  Derry.     His  successor  Diarmid's  life  and  reign  are  some- 
what more  fertile  in  events.     With  the  fate  common  to  most  Roydamnas,  or  sue- 
cessors  apparent,  he  had  been,  throughout  the  reign  of  Tuathal,  an  object  of   Jo  * 
jealousy  and  suspicion ;  and  was  even,  for  some  time,  through  fear  of  persecution, 
obliged  to  conceal  himself  among  the  islets  of  Lough  Rie.     It  was  here,  doubtless,  that 
his  friendship  with  St.  Kieran,  the  eminent  founder  of  Clonmacnois,  commenced;  and 
either  then,  or  on  his  accession  to  the  monarchy,  he  made  a  grant  of  one  of  the  islands 
to  this  Saint,  who,  building  a  monastery  upon  the  spot,  was  soon  joined  by  a  numerous 
company  of  monks,  and  called  up  around  him,  in  those  solitudes,  the  voice  of  psalmody 
and  prayer.     By  the  same  royal  patronage,  he  was  enabled,  not  many  years  after,  to 
accomplish  a  still  greater  design;  for,  a  site  being  granted  to  him,  by  the  monarch, 
on  the  western  bank  of  the  Shannon,*  St.  Kieran  founded  there  that  great  monastery 
of  Clonmacnois,  which  became  in  after-times  so  celebrated  for  its  nine  Royal  Churches, 
and  all  those  luxuries  of  ecclesiastical  architecture  which  gathered  around  its  site.f 

In  the  reign  of  this  monarch,  the  Ancient  Hall  or  Court  of  Tara,  in  which, 
for  so  many  centuries,  the  Triennial  Councils  of  the  nation  had  been  held,  saw,    ^^g^' 
for  the  last  time,  her  kings  and  nobles  assembled  within  its  precincts;  and  the 
cause  of  the  desertion  of  this  long-honoured    seat  of  legislation    shows  to  what  an 
enormous  height  the  power  of  the  ecclesiastical  order  had  then  risen.     Some  fugitive 
criminal,  who  had  fled  for  sanctuary  to  the  monastery  of  St.  Ruan,  having  been  dragged 
forcibly  from  thence  to  Tara,  and  there  put  to  death,  the  holy  abbot  and  his  monks 
cried  aloud  against  the  sacrilegious  violation;  and  proceeding  in  solemn  procession  to 
the  Palace,  pronounced  a  curse  upon  its  walls.     "From  that  day,"  say  the  annalistg, 
"no  king  ever  sat  again  at  Tara;"  and  a  poet  who  wrote  about  that  period,   while 
mourning  evidently  over  the  fall  of  this  seat  of  grandeur,  ventures  but  to  say,  "  It  is 
not  with  my  will  that  Teamor  is  deserted."t     A  striking  memorial  of  the  church's  tri- 
umph dn  the  occasion,  was  preserved  in  the  name  of  distinction  given  to  the  monas- 
tery,} which  was,  ever  after,  in  memory  of  this  malediction,  called  "  The  Monastery  of 
the  Curses  of  Ireland." 

On  the  death  of  Diarmid,  who,  after  a  reign  of  twenty-one  years,  was  killed  by  ^  ^ 
Aldus,  a  Dalriadian  prince,  surnamed  the  Black,  the  crown  reverted  to  the  Euge-  ggg' 
nian  branch  of  the  northern  Nials;  and  two  brothers,  Donald  and  Furgus,  who  had 
fought  with  success  against  the  Nials  of  the  South,  in  the  great  battle  of  Culdremni, 
were  elevated  to  the  sovereignty.  The  joint  reign  of  these  royal  brothers  lasted  but 
for  a  year,||  during  which  an  invasion  of  the  province  of  Leinster  for  the  enforcement 
of  the  odious  tribute,  and  a  furious  battle  in  consequence,  on  the  banks  of  the  Liffey, 
in  which  the  Lagenians  were  defeated,  marked  with  the  accustomed  track  of  blood 
the  short  term  of  their  copartnership.  To  these  succeeded  another  pair  of  associates  in  the 
throne,  named  Boetan  and  Eochad ;  and  after  them,  at  an  interval  of  but  two  years,  An- 
tnerius,  or  Anmery,  a  prince,  remarkable,  it  is  said,  for  learning,  who,  after  reigning  lit- 
tle more  than  the  same  period,  was  cut  off  by  a  violent  death;  as  was  also  his  suc- 
cessor, Boetan  the  Second,  in  the  course  of  less  than  a  year.  The  prince  raised  to  the 
sovereignty  after  this  last-named  monarch  was  that  Adius,  of  whom  we  have  already 
spoken, — memorable  for  the  great  convention  which  he  held  at  Drumceat, — and  whose 
reign,  far  more  fortunate  than  the  passing  pageants  which  had  gone  before  him,  lasted 
for  the  Jong  space  of  six-and-twenty  years. 

To  give  an  account  of  all  the  numerous  Saints,  male  and  female,  whom  the  fervent 
zeal  of  this  period  quickened  into  existence  and  celebrity,  would  be  a  task  so  extensive 
as  to  require  a  distinct  historian  to  itself;  and,  luckily,  this  important  part  of  Ireland's 
history,  during  her  first  Christian  ages,  has  been  treated  fully,  and  with  the  most  sifting 

*  Amon?  the  lands  bestowed  for  this  purpose,  were  some  contiguous  to  Mount  Usneach,  which  had  been 
formerly  occupied  by  the  Druids. 

t  See,  for  an  account  of  these  churches,  Ware,  vol.  1.  ,.     „     .      .    .,     j    „,..:„„ 

t  Irish  Hymn,  attributed  to  Fiech,  a  disciple  of  St.  Patrick,  but  evidently  from  this  allusion  to  the  deseition 
of  Tara,  written  at  least  as  late  as  the  time  of  King  Diarmid. 

§  Annal.  Ulton.  ad  ann.  564,  note. 

II  O'Flaherty.    The  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  prolong  it  to  three  years. 


132  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

zeal  and  industry,  by  a  writer  in  every  respect  qualified  for  such  a  tasl<,  and  who  has 
left  no  part  of  his  ample  subject  untouched  or  unexplored.*  Referring,  therefore,  to 
this  learned  historian  for  a  detailed  account  of  the  early  Irish  Church,  I  shall  notice 
Buch  only  of  its  most  distinguislied  ornaments  as  became  properly  known  throughout 
Europe,  and  regained  for  the  "Sacred  Island"  of  other  days,  all  its  ancient  fame,  under 
the  new  Christian  designation  of  "the  Island  of  Saints." 

The  institution  of  female  monasteries,  or  nunneries,  such  as,  in  the  fourth  century, 
were  established  abroad  by  Melania,  and  other  pious  women,  was  introduced  into  Ireland, 
towards  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  by  St.  Brigid;  and  so  general  was  the  enthusiasm 
her  example  excited,  that  the  religious  order  which  she  instituted  spread  its  branches 
through  every  part  of  the  country.  Taking  the  veil  herself  at  a  very  early  age,  when, 
as  we  are  told,  she  was  clothed  in  the  white  garment,  and  the  white  veil  placed  upon 
her  head,  she  was  immediately  followed,  in  this  step,  by  seven  or  eight  other  young 
maidens,  who,  attaching  themselves  to  her  fortunes,  formed,  at  the  first,  her  small  reli- 
gious community.+  The  pure  sanctity  of  this  virgin's  life,  and  the  supernatural  gifts 
attributed  to  her,  spread  the  fame  she  had  acquired  more  widely  every  day,  and  crowds 
of  young  women  and  widows  applied  for  admission  into  her  institution.  At  first  she 
contented  herself  with  founding  establishments  for  her  followers  in  the  respective  dis- 
tricts of  which  they  were  natives;  and  in  this  task  the  bishops  of  the  different  diocesses 
appear  to  have  concurred  with,  and  assisted  her.  But  the  increasing  number  of  those 
who  required  her  own  immediate  superintendence  rendered  it  necessary  to  form  some 
one  great  establishment,  over  which  she  should  herself  preside;  and  the  people  of 
Leinster,  who  claimed  to  be  peculiarly  entitled  to  her  presence,  from  the  illustrious 
family  to  which  she  belonged  h  iving  been  natives  of  their  province,  sent  a  deputation  to 
her,  to  entreat  that  she  would  fix  among  them  her  residence.  To  this  request  the  Saint 
assented;  and  a  habitation  was  immediately  provided  for  herself  and  her  sister  nuns, 
which  formed  the  commencement  both  of  her  great  monastery  and  of  the  town  or  city 
of  Kildare.  The  name  of  Kill-dara,X  or  Cell  of  the  Oak,  was  given  to  the  monastery, 
from  a  very  high  oak-tree  which  grew  near  the  spot,  and  of  which  the  trunk  was  still 
remaining  in  the  twelfth  century; — no  one  daring,  as  we  are  told  by  Giraldus,  to  touch 
it  with  a  knife.  The  extraordinary  veneration  in  which  St.  Brigid  was  held,  caused 
such  a  resort  of  persons  of  all  ranks  to  this  place — such  crowds  of  penitents,  pilgrims, 
and  mendicants — that  a  new  town  sprang  up  rapidly  around  her,  which  kept  pace  with 
the  growing  prosperity  of  the  establishment.  The  necessity  of  providing  spiritual 
direction,  as  well  for  the  institution  itself,  as  for  the  numerous  settlers  in  the  new  town, 
led  to  the  appointment  of  a  bishop  of  Kildare,  with  the  then  usual  privilege  of  presiding 
over  all  the  churches  and  communities  belonging  to  the  order  of  St.  Brigid,  throughout 
the  kingdom. 

Among  the  eminent  persons  who  were  in  the  habit  of  visiting  or  corresponding  with 
this  remarkable  woman,  are  mentioned  St,  Ailbe,  or  Emiy,  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  Irish 
church,  and  the  Welsh  author,  Gildas,  who  is  said  to  have  sent  to  St.  Brigid,  as  a  token 
of  his  regard,  a  small  bell  cast  by  liimselfj  By  one  of  those  violations  of  chronology 
not  unfrequpntly  hazarded  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  extraordinary  personages  together, 
an  intimate  friendship  is  supposed  to  have  existed  between  St,  Brigid  and  St.  Patrick, 
and  she  is  even  said  to  have  woven,  at  the  apostle's  own  request,  the  shroud  in  which  he 
was  buried.  But  with  this  imasrined  intercourse  between  the  two  Saints,  the  dates  of 
their  respective  lives  are  inconsistent;  and  it  is  but  just  possible  that  Brigid  might  have 
seen  the  great  apostle  of  her  country,  as  she  was  a  child  of  about  twelve  years  old  when 
he  died. 

Among  the  miracles  and  gifts  by  which,  no  less  than  by  her  works  of  charity  and  holi- 

*  Ecclesiastical  Ili^lnry  of  Iiolanrl,  by  the  Rev.  John  Lanigan.  D.  D. 

t  The  bishop  who  admitted  lier  into  the  number  of  Sacred  Virgins,  was  named  Maccaile.  or  Maccaleus; 
nnd  the  ceremony  is  tlins  descrihed  by  her  biograplier,  Cogitosus:— "  Qni  (IMaccaleiis)  cnMesle  intuens  deside- 
rum  et  piidicitiam  et  taniiim  tastitatis  ainoremin  tali  virgine,  pallium  album  et  vesteni  candidani  superipsius 
venerabile  caput  impnsnit."— Cap  .3 

J  Ilia  jam  cella  Scoiice  dicitur  Jii'iZMara,  Latine  vero  sonat  Cclla  Quercus.  Qiiercus  enim  altissima  ibi 
erat,  ciijus  stipes  adhuc  manet.— S.  BricrjU.  yUa. 

§  A  veneration  for  small  portable  bells,  as  well  as  for  staves,  wliich  had  once  belonged  to  holy  persons, 
was,  in  the  time  of  Giraldus,  common  hnth  among  the  laity  and  clergy.  •'  Campanus  baiulas,  haculosquoque 
in  superiori  pane  cameratos,  auro  et  argento  vertere  roiitectos,  aliasque  hujusmodi  sanctorum  reliquias,  in 
magna  reverentia  tarn  Ilybornia-  et  Scoti;v,  quam  et  Walli.-c  populus  et  clerus  habere  snlcnir—Itiner.  Camb. 
lib.  1.  cap  2.  The  same  writer  mentions  the  Campana  Fugitiva  of  OToole,  the  chieftain  of  Wicklow;  and 
we  are  informed  by  Oolgan  (in  Triad.)  that  whenever  St  Patrick's  portable  bell  tolled,  as  a  preservative 
against  evil  spirits  and  magicians,  it  was  heard  from  the  Giant's  Causeway  to  Caps  Clear,  from  the  Hill  of 
Ilowth  to  the  western  shores  of  Conneinata.  •■  per  totam  Iliberniam."  See  note  on  this  subject  in  llardman's 
Iri,sh  Minstrel,  vol.  i. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  133 

ness,  the  fame  of  St.  Brigid  and  Iier  numerous  altars  was  extended,  has  always  been 
mentioned,  though  on  the  sole  authority  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  that  perpetual  Fire,  at 
Kildare,  over  which,  through  successive  ages,  the  holy  virgins  are  said  to  have  kept  con- 
stant watch;  and  which,  so  late  as  the  time  of  Giraldus,  about  six  hundred  years  from 
the  date  of  St.  Brigid,  was,  as  he  tells  us,  still,  unextinguished.  Whether  this  rite 
formed  any  part  of  the  Saint's  original  institution,*  or  it  is  to  be  considered  but  as  an 
innovation  of  later  times,  it  is,  at  all  events,  certain  that  at  the  time  when  Kildare  was 
founded,  the  policy  of  converting  to  the  purposes  of  the  new  faith  those  ancient  forms 
and  usages  which  had  so  long  been  made  to  serve  as  instruments  of  error,  was  very  ge- 
nerally acted  upon;  and,  in  the  very  choice  of  a  site  for  St.  Brigid's  monastery,  the 
same  principle  is  manifest;  the  old  venerable  oak,  already  invested  with  the  solemnity 
of  Druidical  associations,  having,  in  this,  as  in  most  other  instances  of  religious  founda- 
tions, suggested  the  selection  of  the  spot  where  tlie  Christian  temple  was  to  rise. 

Having  lived  to  reap  the  reward  of  her  self  devotion  and  zeal,  in  the  perfect  success 
and  even  ascendancy  of  the  institution  which  she  had  founded,  St.  Brigid  closed  her 
mortal  course  at  Kildare,  about  a.  d.  525,  four  years,  it  is  calculated,  after  the  birth  of 
the  great  Culumbkill,t  being  herself,  at  the  time  of  her  death,  about  74  years  of  age. 
The  honour  of  possessing  the  remains  of  this  holy  woman  was,  for  many  centuries,  con- 
tested not  only  by  different  parts  of  Ireland,  but  likewise  by  North  Britain  ;  the  Irish  of 
Ulster  contending  strenuously  that  she  had  been  buried,  not  at  Kildare,  but  in  Down  ;J: 
while  the  Picts  as  strongly  insisted  that  Abernethy  was  her  resting-place ;  and  the 
British  Scots,  after  annexing  the  Pictish  territories  to  their  own,  paid  the  most  fervent 
homage  to  her  supposed  relics  in  that  city.  But  in  no  place,  except  at  Kildare,  was  her 
memory  cherished  with  such  affectionate  reverence  as  in  that  seat  of  all  saintly  worship, 
the  Western  Isles;  where  to  the  patronage  of  St.  Briiiid  most  of  the  churches  were  dedi- 
cated :  by  her  name,  one  of  the  most  solemn  oaths  of  the  islanders  was  sworn ;  and  the 
first  of  February,  every  year,  was  held  as  a  festival  in  her  honour.^ 

It  has  been  already  observed  that  the  eminent  Irish  Saint,  Columbkill,  has  been  often 
confounded,  more  especially  by  foreign  writers,  with  his  namesake,  Columba,  or 
Columbanus,  whose  fame,  from  the  theatre  of  his  holy  labours  having  been  chiefly 
France  and  Italy,  has,  among  the  people  of  the  Continent,  obscured  or  rather  ■^Vq' 
absorbed  within  its  own  light  that  of  the  apostle  of  the  Western  Isles.  The  time 
of  the  birth  of  St.  Columbanus  is  placed  about  forty  years  later  than  that  of  Columbkill, 
A.  D.  559;  and  though  not  of  royal  extraction,  like  his  distinguished  precursor,  he  appears 
to  have  been  of  a  noble  family,  and  also  endowed  by  nature  with  what  he  himself  con- 
sidered to  be  a  perilous  gift,  personal  beauty.  In  order  to  escape  the  dangerous  allure- 
ments of  the  world,  he  withdrew  from  his  native  province,  Leinster  ;  and,  after  some 
time  passed  in  sacred  studies,  resolved  to  devote  himself  to  a  monastic  life.  The  mo- 
nastery of  Bangor,  in  Ulster,  already  celebrated  in  Ireland,  but  by  the  subsequent  career 
of  St.  Columbanus,  rendered  famous  throughout  all  Europe,  was  the  retreat  chosen  by 
this  future  antagonist  of  pontifl^s  and  kings;  and  at  that  school  he  remained,  under  the 
discipline  of  the  pious  St.  Congall,  for  many  years.  At  length,  longing  fur  a  more  ex- 
tended sphere  of  action,  he  resolved  to  betake  himself  to  some  foreign  land ;  and  havino-, 
at  the  desire  of  the  abbot,  selected  from  among  his  brethren,  twelve  worthy  companions, 
turned  his  eyes  to  the  state  of  the  Gauls,  or  France,  as  requiring  especially  such  a  mis- 
sion as  he  meditated.  By  the  successive  irruptions  of  the  northern  barbarians  into  that 
country,  all  the  elements  of  civilized  life  had  been  dispersed,  and  a  frightful  process  of 
demorilization  was  now  rapidly  taking  place,  to  which  a  clergy,  indolent  and  torpid, 

*  Dr.  Lanigan  repels  indignantly  the  notion  of  Ledwicli  and  others,  that  5t.  Brigid,  and  her  sister  nuns  of 
Kildare,  were  "  but  a  continuation  of  heathen  Druidesses,  who  preserved  from  remotest  ages  an  inextinguish- 
able fire."  There  is,  however,  an  ordinance  of  Scriptural  authority,  in  which  St.  Brigid  may  have  found  a 
sanction  for  her  shrines.  "  The  tire  upon  the  altar  (of  the  tabsrnacle)  shall  be  burning  in  it,  and  shall  not  be 
put  nut."— Leviticus,  ch.  vi.  ver.  I-3.  It  was  for  contemning  this  inextinguishable  fiie,  and  using  a  profane 
lire  in  its  stead,  that  the  Levites  Nadab  and  Abiliu  were  miraculously  put  to  death.  See  Dr.  MUner's  Inquiry 
letter  11. 

t  According  to  other  accounts,  he  was  born  abo'it  53D,— "  A  date  much  earlier,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  than 
that  of  Mabillon  and  others,  but  much  more  probable." 

X  The  claims  of  Down  to  the  possession  of  her  remains,  as  well  as  of  those  of  St.  Patrick  and  St  Columba, 
are  commemorated  in  the  following  couplet,  cited  by  Camden  : — 

"Hi  tres  in  Duno  tumulo  tumulantur  in  nno 
Brigida,  Patricius  atque  Columba  plus." 

§  "  Prom  these  considerations,"  says  Macpherson,  "we  have  reason  to  suspnct  that  the  Western  Isles  of 
Scotland  were,  in  some  one  period  or  other,  during  the  reign  of  popery,  and  perhaps  in  a  great  measure  appro- 
priated to  St.  Brigid."— Cni.  Dissert. 

In  Gaelic,  the  name  of  Brigid  is,  according  to  this  writer,  Bride;  and  by  Hebrides,  or  Ky  brides,  is  meant, 
lie  says,  the  Islands  of  Brigid. 


134  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and  often  even  interested  in  the  success  of  the  spoilers,  could  oppose  but  a  feeble 
check.*  For  a  missionary,  therefore,  like  Columbanus,  full  of  courage  in  the  cause  of 
Christ,  there  could  not  have  been  selected  a  more  inviting  or  productive  field  of  enter- 
prise. 

Proceeding  to  the  province  which  has  been  since  called  Franche  Comte,  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  his  ministry  was  to  erect  a  monastery  on  a  spot  named  Luxeuil,  in  a  thick 
part  of  the  forest,  at  the  foot  of  the  Vosges.  From  hence  so  widely  was  the  fame  of  his 
sanctity  diffused,  and  so  great  the  concourse  of  persons,  of  all  ranks,  but  more  especially, 
as  we  are  told,  of  young  nobles,  who  came  to  profit  by  his  instructions,  and  devote  them- 
selves to  a  religious  life,  that  he  found  it  necessary  to  establish  a  second  monastery  in  the 
neighbourhood,  to  which,  on  account  of  the  abundance  of  its  springs,  he  gave  the  name 
of  Fontaines-f  In  times,  however,  when  the  priest  alone  could  present  any  effectual 
countercheck  to  the  soldier,  so  active  and  daring  a  mind  as  that  of  the  Abbot  of  Luxeuil 
could  not  long  remain  uninvolved  in  public  strife;  and  his  courageous  frankness  in 
reproving  the  vices  of  the  young  Thierry,  King  of  Burgundy,  drew  upon  him  the  enmity 
as  well  of  that  prince  as  of  the  fierce  vindictive  queen-dowager,  Bruenehaut.  The  de- 
tails of  the  scenes  and  transactions  in  which,  so  perilously  to  his  own  safety,  the  Irish 
Saint  was  brought  into  collision  with  these  barbarian  potentates,  besides  that  they  belong 
more  properly  to  foreign  history,  would  usurp  a  space,  perhaps,  disproportionate  to  their 
interest.  They  will  be  found  worthy,  however,  of  a  brief,  passing  notice,  less  as  history, 
than  as  pictures  for  the  imagination,  in  which  the  figure  of  the  stern  but  simple  and 
accomplished  missionary  stands  out  to  the  eye  with  the  more  force  and  dignity  from  the 
barbaric  glare  and  pomp  of  the  scenes  and  personages  around  him. 

Thus,  on  one  occasion,  when  the  queen-dowager,  seeing  him  enter  the  royal  courts, 
brought  forth  the  four  illegitimate  children  of  King  Thierry  to  meet  him,  the  saint  em- 
phatically demanded  what  they  wanted.  "They  are  the  king's  children,"  answered 
Brunehaut,  "  and  are  come  to  ask  your  blessing." — "  These  children,"  replied  Columbanus, 
"  will  never  reign :  they  are  the  offspring  of  debauchery."  Such  insulting  opposition  to 
her  designs  for  her  grand-children  roused  all  the  rage  of  this  Jezebel,  and  orders  were 
issued  withdrawing  some  privileges  which  the  saint's  monasteries  had  hitherto  enjoyed. 
For  the  purpose  of  remonstrating  against  this  wrong,  he  sought  the  palace  of  the  king; 
and,  while  waiting  the  royal  audience,  rich  viands  and  wines  were  served  up  for  his 
refreshment.  But  the  saint  sternly  refused  to  partake  of  them,  saying,  "  It  is  written, 
'the  Most  High  rejects  the  gifts  of  the  impious;'  nor  is  it  fitting  that  the  mouths  of  the 
servants  of  God  should  be  defiled  with  the  viands  of  one  who  inflicts  on  them  such  indig- 
nities." 

Another  scene  of  the  same  description  occurred  subsequently  at  Luxeuil.  The  monastic 
Rule  introduced  into  France  by  Columbanus,  though  afterwards  incorporated,  or  rather 
confounded  with  that  of  St.  Benedict,^  was  derived  originally  from  the  discipline  esta- 
blished at  the  monastery  of  Bangor,  in  Ireland;  and  one  of  the  regulations  most  objected 
to,  in  the  system  followed  both  at  Luxeuil  and  Fontaines,  was  that  by  which  access  to 
the  interior  of  these  monasteries  was  restricted.  On  this  point,  as  on  many  others,  an 
attempt  was  made,  by  the  revengeful  Brunehaut,  to  excite  a  persecution  against  the 
saint;  and  the  king,  envenomed  by  her  representations,  was  induced  to  join  in  her  plans. 
Resolved  to  try  the  right  of  entrance  in  person,  he  proceeded,  accompanied  by  a  train  of 
nobles,  to  the  monastery;  and  finding  Columbanus  himself  at  the  gate,  said,  as  he  forced 
his  way  in,  "If  you  desire  to  derive  any  benefit  from  our  bounty,  these  places  must  be 
thrown  open  to  every  comer."  He  had  already  got  as  far  as  the  Refectory,  when,  with 
a  courage  worthy  of  a  St.  Ambrose,  Columbanus  thus  addressed  him: — "If  you  endeavour 
to  violate  the  discipline  here  established,  know  that  I  dispense  with  your  presents,  and 

*  This  state  of  things  is  acknowledged  by  the  saint's  biographer,  Jonas :— "  Ubi  tunc  vel  oh  frequentiam 
hostium  externorutn,  vel  negligentiam  priEsulum,  religionis  virtus  pune  abolita  habebatur;  fides  tantum 
remainebat  Christiana.  Nam  pcenitentia;  medicamentum  et  niortiflcationis  amor  vix  vel  paucis  in  illis 
reperiebatur  locis  " — S.  Columban.  Vita. 

"The  clergy  of  the  Roman  church,"  says  Mr.  James,  (Hist,  of  Charlemange,  Introduct.)  "  thickly  spread  over 
every  part  of  Gaul,  without  excepting  the  dominions  of  Aquitaine  and  Burgundy,  had  already  courted  the 
Franks,  even  when  governed  by  a  heathen  monarch;  but  now  that  he  professed  the  same  faitli  with  them- 
selves, they  spared  neither  exertions  nor  intrigues  to  facilitate  the  progress  of  his  conquests." 

t  In  speaking  of  this  monastery,  the  Benedictines  say,  "  Fontaines  n'est  plus  aujourdhui  qu'uu  Prieure 
dependant  de  Luxeu."  On  the  latter  establishment  they  pronounce  the  following  eulogium: — "Les  grands 
hommes  qui  en  sortirent  en  bon  nombre,  tant  pour  gouvevner  des  eglises  entieres  que  de  simples  monasteres, 
r6pandirent  en  tant  d'endroits  les  maximessalutaires  de  ce  sacr6  desert  que  plusieursde  nos  provinces  paru- 
rent  avoir  chang6  de  face.  Et  .i  qui  doit  revenir  la  principale  gloire  de  tous  ces  avantages,  sinon  a  leur 
premier  Institeur  le  B.  Columban  ?" 

X  See,  for  several  instances  in  which  the  two  rules  are  thus  confounded.  Usher's  Ecclesiar.  Primord.  1050. 
"  Non  quod  una  eademque  esset  utriusque  Regula;  sed  quod  Columbani  sectatores,  majoris  profectus  ergo, 
duas  illas  celleberrimas  asceticoe  vitiE  normas  conjunxissent,  qute  mediis  hisce  temporibus  in  Italia,  Gallia, 
«t  Germania  solec  enitebant  et  apparebant."— Cs.str. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  135 

with  every  aid  that  it  is  in  your  power  to  lend  ;  and,  if  you  now  come  hither  to  disturb 
the  monasteries  of  the  servants  of  God,  I  tell  you  that  your  kingdom  shall  be  destroyed, 
and  with  it  all  your  royal  race."  The  king,  terrified,  it  is  said,  by  this  denunciation, 
immediately  withdrew. 

A  speech  attributed  to  the  Burgundian  monarch,  on  this  occasion,  betrays  no  want 
either  of  tolerance  or  of  the  good  sense  from  which  that  virtue  springs.  "I  perceive  you 
hope,"  said  he  to  Columbanus,  "that  I  shall  give  you  the  crown  of  martyrdom  ;  but  I  am 
not  so  unwise  as  to  commit  so  heinous  a  crime.  As  your  system,  however,  differs  from 
that  of  all  other  times,  it  is  but  right  that  you  should  return  to  the  place  from  whence 
you  came."  Such  a  suggestion,  from  royal  lips,  was  a  command;  but  the  noble  Scot 
was  not  so  easily  to  be  separated  either  from  the  companions  who  had  followed  his  for- 
tunes from  home,  or  those  friendships  he  had  formed  in  a  strange  land.  "If  they  would 
have  me  depart,"  said  he,  "they  must  drag  me  from  the  cloister  by  force:" — and  to  these 
violent  means  it  was  found  necessary,  at  last,  to  have  recourse;  a  party  of  soldiers  having 
been  ordered  by  his  royal  persecutors  to  proceed  to  Luxeuil,  and  drive  him  from  the 
monastery.  The  whole  of  the  brotherhood  expressed  their  readiness  to  follow  their  abbot 
to  any  part  of  the  world;  but  none  were  allowed  to  accompany  him  except  his  own 
countrymen,  and  such  few  Britons  as  had  attached  themselves  to  the  community. 
A  corps  of  guards  was  sent  to  escort  them  on  their  route  towards  Ireland,  and  it  was 
to  the  commander  of  this  escort  that,  on  their  arrival  at  Auxerre,  Columbanus  pro-  V,^.' 
nounced  that  terrible  prediction,  as  it  has  been  called,  of  the  union  of  all  the 
crowns  of  France  on  the  single  head  of  Clotaire : — "  Remember  what  I  now  tell  you,"  said 
the  intrepid  monk;  "that  very  Clotaire  whom  ye  now  despise  will,  in  three  years'  time, 
be  your  master." 

On  the  arrival  of  the  saint  and  his  companions  at  Nantes,  where  it  was  meant  to  em- 
bark them  for  Ireland,  a  fortunate  accident  occurred  to  prevent  the  voyage ;  and  he  was 
still  reserved  for  those  farther  toils  in  foreign  lands  to  which  he  had  felt  himself  called. 
Being  now  free  to  pursue  his  own  course,  he  visited  successively  the  courts  of  ClotaJre 
and  Theodobert,  by  both  of  whom  he  was  received  with  marked  distinction,  and  even 
consulted  on  matters  vital  to  the  interests  of  his  kingdom  by  Clotaire.  After  an  active 
course  of  missionary  labours  throughout  various  parts  of  France  and  Germany,  the  saint, 
fearful  of  again  falling  into  the  hands  of  his  persecutors,  Brunehaut  and  Thierry,  whose 
powers  of  mischief  their  late  successes  had  much  strengthened,  resolved  to  pass  with  his 
faithful  companions  into  Italy;  and,  arriving  at  Milan,  at  the  court  of  Agilulph,  King  of 
the  Lombards,  received  from  that  sovereign  and  his  distinguished  queen,  Theodelinda, 
the  most  cordial  attentions. 

It  is  supposed  to  have  been  during  his  stay  at  Milan  that  Columbanus  addressed  that 
spirited  letter  to  Boniface  IV.,  respecting  the  question  of  the  Three  Chapters,  in  which, 
distinguishing  between  the  Chair  of  Rome  and  the  individual  who  may,  for  the  moment, 
occupy  it,  he  shows  how  compatible  may  be  the  most  profound  and  implicit  reverence 
towards  the  papacy,  with  a  tone  of  stern  and  uncompromising  reprehension  towards  the 
pope.  The  decision  of  the  Fifth  General  Council,  held  in  the  year  553,  which  con- 
demned the  writings  known  by  the  name  of  the  Three  Chapters,  as  heterodox,  had  met 
with  considerable  opposition  from  many  of  the  Western  bishops;  and  those  of  Histria 
and  Liguria  were  tlie  most  obstinate  in  their  schism.  The  Queen  Theodelinda,  who 
had  so  much  distinguished  herself  in  the  earlier  part  of  her  reign  by  the  vigour  with 
which  she  had  freed  her  kingdom  from  the  inroads  of  Arianism,  had,  not  many  years 
before  the  arrival  of  Columbanus  at  Milan,  awakened  the  alarm  of  the  Roman  court  by 
treating  with  marked  favour  and  encouragement  the  schismatic  Bishops  of  Histria;  and 
it  was  only  by  a  course  of  skilful  management  that  St.  Gregory  averted  the  danger,  or 
succeeded  in  drawing  back  this  princess  to  her  former  union  with  the  church.  It  would 
appear,  however,  that,  after  the  death  of  that  great  pope,  the  Lombard  court  had  again 
fallen  off  into  schism; — for  it  was  confessedly  at  the  strong  instance  of  Agilulph  himself, 
that  Columbanus  addressed  his  expostulatory  letter  to  Pope  Boniface  ;*  and  the  views 
which  he  takes  of  the  question  in  that  remarkable  document,  are  for  the  most  part,  those 
of  the  schismatics  or  defenders  of  the  Three  Chapters.  Setting  aside,  however,  all  con- 
sideration of  the  saint's  orthodoxy  on  this  point,t  his  letter  cannot  but  be  allowed  the 

*  Among  other  passages,  to  this  purport,  in  his  letter,  is  the  following: — "  A  rege  cogor  ut  sigillatim  sng- 
geram  tiijs  piis  auribus  sui  negotium  doloris.  Dolor  nanique  suus  est  schisnia  populi  pro  regina,  pro  folio, 
forte  et  pro  se  ipso." 

t  The  Benedictines  thus  account  for  the  part  which  he  took  on  this  rjuestion  :— "  St.  Coluraban,  au  restc, 
ne  parle  do  la  sorte  dans  cette  lettre  que  parcequ'il  etait  tnal  instruit  de  la  grande  aff)iire  des  Trois  Chapitres  ; 
et  qu'il  avail  ete  sans  doute  prevenu  i  ce  suget  par  Agilulfe,  qui  s'en  etait  declare  le  fauteur,  et  peutetre  par 
quelques  uns  des  schismatiques  de  Loinbardie." — Hist.  Lilt,  de  la  France,  torn.  iv. 

A  letter  of  I'ope  Gregory,  on  the  subject  of  this  now-forgotten  controversy,  has  been  erroneously  suppoica 


136  IJISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

praise  of  iinslirinking  manliness  and  vigour.  Addressing  Boniface  himself  fn  no  very 
complaisant  terme,  lie  speaks  of  his  predecessor,  Pope  Vigilius,  with  bitter  and,  in  some 
respects,  deserved  reproach;  declaring  that  pope  to  have  been  the  prime  mover  of  all  the 
scandal  that  had  occurred.*  With  national  warmth,  too,  he  boldly  vindicates  the  perfect 
orthodoxy  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  the  Irish,  assuring  Boniface  that  they  had  never  yet 
swerved  from  the  apostolic  doctrines  delivered  to  them  by  Rome;  and  that  there  had 
never  been  among  them  any  heretics,  Jews,  or  schismatics.f 

Having  received  permission  from  King  Agiiulpli  to  fix  himself  in  whatever  part  of  the 

Lombard  dominions  he  should  think  fit,  Columbanus  selected  a  retired  spot  amidst 

■^■,?'   the  Appennines;  and,  founding  there  the  monastery  of  Bubbio,  passed   in  that 

retreat  the  brief  remainder  of  his  davs;   dying  on  the  21st  of  November,  a.  d. 

6L5.| 

The  various  countries  and  places  with  which  the  name  of  this  great  saint  is  connected, 
have  multiplied  his  lasting  titles  to  fame.  While  Ireland  boasts  of  his  birth,  and  of 
having  sent  forth,  before  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  so  accomplished  a  writer  from  her 
schools,  France  remembers  him  by  her  ancient  abbeys  of  Luxeuil  and  Fontaines;  and  his 
fame  in  Italy  still  lives,  not  only  in  the  cherished  relics  at  Bobbio, — in  the  coffin,  the 
chalice,  the  holly  staff  of  the  founder,  and  the  strange  sight  of  an  Irish  missal  in  a  foreign 
land,^ — but  in  the  yet  fresher  and  more  every  day  remembrance  bestowed  upon  his  name 
by  its  association  with  the  beautifully  situated  town  of  San  Columbano,  in  the  territory  of 
Lodi. 

The  writings  of  this  eminent  man  that  have  come  down  to  us  display  an  extensive  and 
varied  acquaintance,  not  merely  with  ecclesiastical,  but  with  classical  literature.  From 
a  passage  in  his  letter  to  Boniface,  it  appears  that  he  was  acquainted  both  with  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew  languages;  and  when  it  is  recollected  that  he  did  not  leave  Ireland  till  he 
was  nearly  fifty  years  of  age,  and  that  his  life  afterwards  was  one  of  constant  activity  and 
adventure,  the  conclusion  is  obvious,  that  all  this  knowledge  of  elegant  literature  must 
have  been  acquired  in  the  schools  of  his  own  country.  Such  a  result  from  a  purely  Irish 
education,  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,  is,  it  must  be  owned,  not  a  little  remarka- 
ble.ll  Among  his  extant  works  are  some  Latin  poems,  which,  though  not  admissible,  of 
course,  to  the  honours  of  comparison  with  any  of  the  writings  of  a  classic  age,  shine  out 
in  this  twilight  period  of  Latin  literature  with  no  ordinary  distinction. IF  Though  wanting 
the  free  and  fluent  versification  of  his  contemporary  Fortunatus,  he  displays  more  energy 
both  of  thought  and  style;  and,  in  the  becoming  gravity  of  his  subjects,  is  distinguished 
honourably  from  the  episcopal  poet.**     In  his  prose  writings,  the  style  of  Columbanus  is 


to  have  been  addressed  to  thu  Irish  : — "  Gregorius  universis  Episcopis  ad  Hibfirniam,"  as  the  epistle  is  headed 
in  some  old  editions  of  Gregory's  works.  But  it  is  plain  ihat  "  Hiberniam"  has  been  substituted,  by  mistake, 
for  "  Histriam,"  in  which  latter  country  the  schism  on  this  point  chiefly  raged.  See  Dr.  Lanigan,  chap.  13, 
note  57. 

♦  Vigila,  quia  forte  non  bene  vigilavit  Vigilius,  quern  caput  fcandali  ipsi  clamant. 

t  Nullus  iiffreticus,  nullus  Juda's,  nuUus  schisiuaticus  fuit:  sed  tides  catliolica,  siciit  a  vobis  primum, 
sanctorum  scilicet  apostolorum  successoribus,  tradita  est,  inconcussa  tenctiir. 

I  Among  the  poetical  remains  of  Columbanus  are  some  verses,  of  no  inconsiderable  merit,  in  which  he 
mentions  his  having  then  reached  the  years  of  an  eighteenth  Olympiad.  The  poem  is  addressed  to  his  friend 
Fedolius,  and  concludes  as  fullows : — 

"  Heec  libi  dictaram  ninrbis  nppressus  acerbis 
Corpore  quos  fragili  patior,  tristique  senecta! 
Nam  dum  pra;cipili  labuntiir  tempura  cursu, 
Nunc  ad  Olympiadis  ter  senos  venimiis  annns. 
Oiiuiia  prEtereunt,  fugit  irreparabile  tempus. 
Vive,  vale  Uctus,  trislisquc  memento  senecta;." 

§  Dr.  O'Connor  supposes  this  ini.«sal  to  have  been  brouglit  from  Luxeuil  to  Bobhio  liy  some  followers  of  St. 
Columbanus: — "  Ad  horuni  vagantium  (epi^copor^lm)  usum,  codicem  de  quo  aginius  e.\aratum  fuisse  vel  inde 
patet,  quod  fuerit  Misale  portabile,  quod  allatum  fuerit  seculo  viimo,  e.x  Ilihertiorum  nioiiasterio  Lmoviense 
in  Gallia,  ad  Hibernorum  monaslerium  Hnbiense  in  Alpibus  Cottiis.— £p.  JSTunc. 

II  La  Lumiere  que  S.  Coluniban  repandit  par  son  sgavoir  et  sa  doctrine  dans  tons  les  lieu.v  oii  il  se  niontra 
I'a  fait  comparer  par  un  ecrivain  du  nieme  sifcle  au  soleil  dans  sa  course  de  I'orient  a  I'occident.  II  con- 
linua,  apres  sa  mort,  de  briller  dans  plusieurs  disciples  qu'il  avait  formes  aux  lettrcs  et  a  la  piet6."— //ist. 
Liu.  dc  la  France. 

The  same  learned  writers,  in  speaking  of  the  letters  of  St.  Columbanus  still  extant,  say,— "  On  a  peu  de 
monuments  des  vi.  et  vii.  siccles  ou  Ion  trouvc  plus  d'tirudilion  eccliisiastique  qu'il  y  en  a  dans  les  cinque 
Jettres  dont  on  vient  de  rendre  compte." 

IT  "  On  voit  effectiveinent  par  la  lecture  de  son  pncme  a  Fedolius  en  particulier,  qu'il  possodait  I'histoire  et 
la  fable.  Quoique  sa  versification  soit  bien  tloiguce  de  la  perfection  de  celle  des  anciens,  elle  ne  laisse  pas 
neanmoins  d'avoir  son  niCrite;  et  Ton  pent  assurer  qu'il  y  a  peu  de  poctes  de  son  temps  qui  aient  mieux 
r6ussi  a  faire  des  vera."— /list.  Liu.,  ^c,  par  des  Keligieux  Beiiedictins. 

**  Those  who  are  at  all  acquainled  with  the  verses  of  this  bishop,  written,  most  of  them,  "  inter  pocula,"— 
as  he  himself  avows,  in  his  Dedicatory  Epistle  to  Pope  Gregory,— will  be  inclined  to  agree  that  it  was  not 
difficult  to  surpass  him  in  decorum. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  137 

somewhat  stiff  and  inflated;  more  especially  in  the  letters  addressed  by  him  to  high  dig- 
nitaries of  the  church,  where  the  effort  to  elevate  and  give  force  to  his  diction  is  often 
too  visible  to  be  effective.  In  the  moral  instructions,  however,  written  for  his  monks,  the 
tone  both  of  style  and  thought  is,  for  the  most  part,  easy  and  unpretending. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


DISPUTES  RESPECTING  THE  PASCHAL  COMPUTATION. LEARNED  IRISH  MISSIONARIES 

OF  THE  SEVENTH,  EIGHTH,  AND  NINTH  CENTURIES. 

On  the  question  respecting  the  time  of  keeping  Easter,  which,  about  the  beginning  of 
the  seventh  century,  produced  such  a  contest  between  the  British  and  Irish  clergy  on  one 
side,  and  the  church  of  Rome  and  her  new  missionaries  in  Britain  upon  the  other,  some 
letters  were  addressed  by  Columbanus  to  the  Galilean  bishops  and  the  pope;  in  which, 
defending  the  Pasciial  system,  as  it  had  been  always  observed  by  his  countrymen,  he 
requests  "  to  be  allowed  to  follow  the  tradition  of  his  elders,  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  contrary 
to  faith."  Though  upon  a  point  by  no  means  essential  as  regarded  either  faith  or  disci- 
pline, yet  so  eagerly  was  this  controversy  entered  into  by  the  learned  Irish  of  that  day, 
and  with  so  much  of  that  attachment  to  old  laws  and  usages  which  has  at  all  periods  dis- 
tinguished them,  that  a  brief  account  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  dispute  forms  a  ne- 
cessary part  of  the  history  of  those  times. 

Very  early  in  the  annals  of  the  Christian  church,  a  difference  of  opinion  with  respect 
to  the  time  of  celebrating  Easter  had  arisen ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  great  Council  of  Nice, 
A.  D.  325,  had  prescribed  a  rule  by  which  the  day  of  this  festival  was  to  be  fixed,  that, 
throughout  the  Asiatic  and  Western  churches,  a  uniformity  of  practice  in  the  time  of 
celebrating  it  was  observed.  Owing  to  the  difference,  however,  of  the  cycles,  used  by 
different  churches,  in  making  their  calculations,  it  was  soon  found,  that  to  preserve  this 
desired  uniformity  would  be  a  matter  of  much  difficulty.  By  the  decree  of  the  Council 
of  Nice  it  was  fixed,  that  the  Paschal  festival  should  be  held  on  the  Sunday  next  after 
the  fourteenth  day  of  the  first  lunar  month.  In  determining  this  time,  however,  the 
church  of  Rome  and  the  church  of  Alexandria  differed  materially;  the  former  continuing 
to  compute  by  the  old  Jewish  cycle  of  eigfhty-four  years,  while  the  latter  substituted  the 
cycle  of  nineteen  years,  as  corrected  by  Eusebius;  and  the  consequence  was  a  difference, 
sometimes  of  nearly  a  month,  betv.-een  the  Alexandrian  and  Roman  calculations. 

When  St.  Patrick  came  on  his  mission  to  Ireland,  he  introduced  the  same  method  of 
Paschal  computation,  namely,  by  the  cycle  of  eighty-four  years,  which  was  then  prac- 
tised at  Rome,  and  which  the  apostle  taught  as  he  had  learned  it  in  Gaul  from  Sulpicius 
Severus,  by  whom  a  change  only  of  the  mode  of  reckoning  the  days  of  the  moon  was 
introduced  into  it.  To  this  method  the  Irish  as  well  as  the  British  churches  continued 
to  adhere,  until  subsequently  to  the  arrival  of  Augustine  upon  his  mission  to  Britain.  In 
the  mean  time,  the  Romans,  having  in  vain  endeavoured,  by  conference  and  concession, 
to  adjust  the  differences  between  the  Alexandrian  calculations  and  their  own,  thought  it 
advisable,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  to  try  a  new  method  ;  and  the  cycle  of  Dionysius  Exiguus, 
framed  about  525,  being  in  agreement  with  the  Alexandrian  method  and  rules,  was 
adopted  by  them  about  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century. 

From  the  little  communication  that  took  place  between  the  churches  of  the  British 
Isles  and  Rome — owing  to  the  troubled  state  of  the  intervening  nations,  and  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  coasts  of  Britain  by  the  Saxons — nothing  was  known  in  these  countries  of  the 
adoption  of  a  new  cycle  by  Rome;  and,  accordingly,  when  Augustine  and  his  brethren 
arrived,  they  found  both  the  British  and  the  Irish  in  perfect  ignorance  of  the  reforma- 
tion which  had,  in  the  interim,  been  made,  and  computing  their  Easter  by  the  old  cycle 
of  eighty-four  years,  as  formerly  practised  at  Rome.  In  one  particular  alone,  the  change 
introduced  by  Sulpicius,  did  the  Irish  church — to  which  my  remarks  shall  henceforward 
be  confined — differ  from  the  system  originally  pursued  by  the  Romans ;  and  this  difference, 
which  was,  in  reality,  rather  a  correction  of  the  old  Roman  cycle  than  a  departure  from 
17 


138  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

it,*  consisted  in  their  admission  of  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month,  as  fit  for  the  cele- 
bration of  Easter,  if  falling  on  a  Sunday.  The  fourteenth  day  had  long  been  in  disrepute 
throughout  Christendom,  both  as  being  the  day  on  which  the  Jews  always  celebrate  their 
Pasch,  and  as  having  been  also  the  time  chosen  for  that  festival  by  the  Quartodeciman 
heretics.  But  there  was  this  material  difference  between  their  practice  and  that  of  the 
Irish,  that,  while  the  Jews  and  Asiatic  heretics  celebrated  Easter  always  on  the  fourteenth 
day  of  the  moon,  let  it  fall  on  whatever  day  of  the  week  it  might,  the  Irish  never  held 
that  festival  on  the  fourteenth,  unless  it  were  a  Sunday.  The  Roman  missionaries, 
however,  chose  to  keep  this  essential  difference  out  of  sigiit;  and  unjustly  confound- 
ing the  Easter  of  the  Irish  with  that  of  the  Judaising  Quartodecimans,  involved  in 
one  common  charge  of  heresy  all  who  still  adhered  to  the  old  Roman  rule.t 

With  their  usual   fondness  for  ancient  usages,  the  Irish  persisted  in  following  the  for- 
mer rule;  and,  in  the  spirit  with  which  Columbanus,  as  we  have  seen,  took  up  the 
^V.q'  question  against  the  Gallican  bishops,  he  faithfully  represented  and  anticipated  the 
feelings  of  his  fellow-countrymen.     The  first  we  hear,  however,  of  the  dispute,  in 
Ireland,  occurs  on  the  occasion  of  a  letter  addressed,  in  609,  by  Laurence,  the  successor 
of  Augustine  and  his  brother  missionaries,  to  the  Irish  bishops  or  abbots.     In  this  Exhor- 
tatory  Epistle,  as  Bede  styles  it,  Laurence  expresses  the  disappointment  felt  by  himself 
and  his  fellow  bishops  on  finding  that  the  Scots,  equally  with  the  Britons,  had  departed 
from  the  universal  custom  of  the  church.     The  warmth  with  which  the  dispute  was,  at 
this  time,  entered  into  by  some  of  the  clergy  of  Ireland,  appears,  from  a  circumstance 
mentioned  in  this  letter,  of  an  Irish  bishop,  Dagan,  who,  on  visiting  the  Roman  mission- 
aries, refused  not  only  to  eat  in  company  with  them,  but  even  under  the  same  roof. 
From  this  period  the  question  seems  to  have  been  left  open  for  more  than  twenty  years : 
some  few  among  the  clergy  of  Ireland  being  not  unwilling,  as  it  seems,  to  adopt 
R'W  ^'^^  "^^^  Roman  discipline;   while  others  thought  it  sufficient  to  conform  so  far  to 
■   Rome,  as  to  substitute  the  16th  day  of  the  moon,  in  their  Paschal  Canon,  for  the  I4th; 
and  the  great  bulk  of  the  clergy  and  people  continued  attached  to  their  old  traditional 
mode.     At  length,  the  attention  of  the  Roman  See  was,  in  the  year  630,  drawn  to  the 
dispute;  and  a  letter  was  addressed  by  Honorius  to  the  nation  of  the  Scots,  in  which  he 
earnestly  exhorts  them  "  not  to  consider  their  own  small  number,  placed  in  the  utmost 
borders  of  the  earth,  as  wiser  than  all  the  ancient  and  modern  churches  of  Christ  through- 
out the  world;  nor  to  continue  to  celebrate  an  Easter  contrary  to  the  Paschal  calculation 
and  to  the  synodical  decrees  of  all  the  bishops  upon  earth."     In  consequence  of  this 
admonitory  letter,  a  Synod  was  held  in  Campo-lene,  near  Old  Leighlin,  where  it  was 
agreed,  after  some  strenuous  opposition  from  St.  Fintan  Munnu,  of  Taghmon,  that  Easter 
should,  in  future,  be  celebrated  at  the  same  time  with  the  universal  church.     This  decree, 
however,  having  been  rendered  abortive  by  some  subsequent  intrigue,  it  was  resolved  by 
the  elders  of  the  church,  that,  in  pursuance  of  an  ancient  canon,  by  which  it  was  directed 
that  every  important  ecclesiastical  afl^air  should  be  referred  to  the  Head  of  Cities,  some 
wise  and  humble  persons  should  be,  on  the  present  occasion,  sent  to  Rome,  "  as  children 
to  their  mother."     A  deputation  was  accordingly  despatched  to  that  city,  who,  on  their 
return  within  three  years  after,  declared  that  they  had  seen,  in  the  see  of  St. 
^oo'   Peter,  the  Greek,  the  Hebrew,  the  Scythian,  and  the  Egyptian,  all  celebrating 
the  same  Easter  Day,  in  common  with  the  whole  catholic  world,  and  dififering 
from  that  of  the  Irish  by  an  entire  month. J     In  consequence  of  this  report  of  the  depu- 
ties, which  must  have  been  received  about  the  year  633,  the  new  Roman  cycle  and  rules 
were,  from  that  period,  universally  adopted  throughout  the  southern  division  of  Ireland. 

However  disproportioned  to  the  amount  of  discussion  which  it  occasioned  was  the  real 
importance  of  the  point  of  discipline  now  at  issue,  the  efl^ects  of  the  controversy,  in  as 

*  Usher  thus  explains  this  correction : — "  Quum  autem  Sulpitiiis  Severus  bit!ui  ilium  inter  Cycli  Alexan- 
drini  et  Roninni  neomenias  observavisset  discrepantinm,  vidisselque  Romanis  decimamsextam  lunam  nume- 
ratam  qua;  Alexandrinis,  cceIo  etiain  demonstr.inte  (uti  ex  C.vrillo  retulimus)  erat  tantum  decimaquaria,  hunc 
Roniani  calculi  errorem  ita  emeiidandiim  censuit,  ut  non  juiii  amplius  a  svi.  ad  xxii.,  sed  a  xiv.  luna  ad  xx. 
ex  antique  illo  annorum  84  la^erculo  Dominicee  Paschales  excerperentur. 

t  Thus,  in  the  letter  of  the  clergy  of  Rome,  cited  by  Bede  (1.  ii.  r.  19  ,)— "  Reperimns  quosdam  provincia; 
vestrse,  contra  orthodoxam  fideni  novam  ex  veteri  hfcresim  reiiovare  conanles,  Pascha  nostrum  in  quo  immo- 
latus  est  ChriBtus  nebiilosa  caligine  refutantes,  et  quartndecima  luna  cum  Hebripis  celebrare  nitenles." 
Either  ignorantly  or  wilfully,  Dr.  Ledwicli  has  fallen  into  the  fame  misrepresentation,  and,  unmindful  of  tho 
important  ditTerence  above  stated,  accuses  the  Irish  church,  at  this  period,  of  quartodecimanism. 

I  "  Misimus  quos  uovimus  sapieutes  et  huniiles  esse,  velut  natos  ad  matrem  ;  et  prosperutn  iler  in  volun- 
tale  Dei  habentes.  el  nd  Komaiii  urbem  aliqui  ex  eis  venientes,  tertio  anno  ad  nos  usque  pervenerunt;  et  sic 
omnia  viderunt  sicut  audierunt :  sed  et  valde  certiora,  utpole  visa  quam  audita  invenerunt ;  et  in  uno  hospi- 
tio  cum  Gricco  et  Hebrjeo.  Scytha  et  .lEgyptiaco,  in  Ecclesia  sancti  Petri  simul  in  Pascha  (in  quo  niense  inte- 

trodisjuncti  sumus)  fuerunt."— £pis«.  Cummian.  Ilibcrn.  ad  ScgienumHiiensem,  .ibbat.de  Controvcrs.  Paschal. 
ee  Ushor's  Vet.  Epist.  Hibttnic.  Svllog. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  139 

far  as  it  promoted  scientific  inquiry,  and  afforded  a  stimulant  to  the  wits  of  the  disputants, 
on  both  sides,  could  not  be  otherwise  than  highly  favourable  to  the  advancement  of  the 
public  mind.  The  reference  to  the  usages  of  other  countries  to  which  it  accustomed 
the  Irish  scholars,  tended,  in  itself,  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  their  observation  and  propor= 
tionally  liberalize  their  views;  nor  was  it  possible  to  engage  in  the  discussion  of  a  ques- 
tion so  closely  connected  both  with  astronomy  and  arithmetic,  without  some  proficiency 
in  those  branches  of  knowledge  by  which  alone  it  could  be  properly  sifted  or  judged. 
Accordingly,  while,  on  one  side  of  the  dispute,  St.  Columbanus  supported  eloquently  the 
cause  of  his  countrymen,  abroad,  adducing,  in  defence  of  their  practice,  no  less  learned 
authority  than  that  of  Anatolius,  Bishop  of  Laodicea;  at  home,  another  ingenious  Irish- 
man, St.  Cummian,  still  more  versed  in  the  studies  connected  with  this  subject,  produced, 
on  the  Roman  side  of  the  question,  such  an  array  of  learning  and  proofs  as  would,  in  any 
age,  have  entitled  his  performance  to  respect,  if  not  admiration.  Enforcing  the  great 
argument  derived  from  the  unity  of  the  church,*  which  he  supports  by  the  authority  of 
all  the  most  ancient  fathers,  Greek  as  well  as  Latin,  he  passes  in  review  the  various 
cyclical  systems  that  had  previously  been  in  use,  pointing  out  their  construction  and 
defects,  and  showing  himself  acquainted  with  the  chronological  characters,  both  natural 
and  artificial.  The  various  learning,  indeed,  which  this  curious  tract  displays,  implies 
such  a  facility  and  range  of  access  to  books  as  proves  the  libraries  of  the  Irish  students, 
at  that  period,  to  have  been,  for  the  times  in  which  they  lived,  extraordinarily  well  fur- 
nished. 

This  eminent  man,  St.  Cummian,  who  had  been  one  of  those  most  active  and  instru- 
mental in  procuring  the  adoption  of  the  Roman  system  by  the  Irish  of  the  south,  and 
thereby  incurred  the  serious  displeasure  of  the  Abbot  and  Monks  of  Hy,  under  whose 
jurisdiction,  as  a  monk  ot  their  order,  he  was  placed,  and  who  continued  longer  than  any 
other  of  their  monastic  brethren  to  adhere  to  the  old  Irish  method,  in  consequence  of  ita 
having  been  observed  by  their  venerable  founder,  St.  Columba.  In  defence  of  himself 
and  those  who  agreed  with  him  in  opinion,  St.  Cummian  wrote  the  famous  treatise  just 
alluded  to,  in  the  form  of  an  Epistle  addressed  to  Segienus,  Abbot  of  Hy;  and  the  learn- 
ing, ability,  and  industry  with  which  he  has  executed  his  task,  must,  even  by  those  most 
inclined  to  sneer  at  the  literature  of  that  period,  be  regarded  as  highly  remarkable. 

Though  the  southern  half  of  Ireland  had  now  received  the  new  Roman  method,  the 
question  continued  to  be  still  agitated  in  the  northern  division,  where  a  great  portion  of 
the  clergy  persisted  in  the  old  Irish  rule;  and  to  the  influence  exercised  over  that  part 
of  the  kingdom  by  the  successors  of  St.  Columba  this  perseverance  is,  in  a  great  measure, 
to  be  attributed.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  however,  that  notwithstanding  the  intense 
eagerness  of  the  contest,  not  merely  in  Ireland,  but  wherever,  in  Britain,  the  Irish  clergy 
preached,  a  spirit  of  fairness  and  tolerance  was  mutually  exercised  by  both  parties;  nor 
was  the  schism  of  any  of  those  venerable  persons  who  continued  to  oppose  themselves  to 
the  Roman  system  allowed  to  interfere  with  or  at  all  diminish  the  reverence  which  their 
general  character  for  sanctity  inspired.  Among  other  instances  of  this  tolerant  spirit 
may  be  mentioned  the  tribute  of  respect  paid  publicly  to  St.  Fiutin  Munnu,  by  his  zealous 
adversary,  Laserian,  in  the  course  of  their  contest  respecting  the  new  Paschal  rule.  A 
yet  more  historical  instance  is  presented  in  the  case  of  Aidan,  the  great  apostle  of  the 
Northumbrians,  who,  though  a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  Roman  Paschal  system,  con- 
tinued to  be  honoured  no  less  in  life  and  after  death,  by  even  those  persons  who  had  the 
most  vehemently  differed  with  him. 

The  connexion  of  this  venerable  Irishman,  St.  Aidan,  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  King 
Oswald,  illustrates  too  aptly  the  mutual  relations  of  their  respective  countries,  at  this 
period,  to  be  passed  over  without  some  particular  notice.  During  the  reign  of  his  uncle 
Edwin,  the  young  Oswald  had  lived,  an  exile,  in  Ireland,  and  having  been  instructed, 
while  there,  in  the  doctrines  of  Christianity,  resolved,  on  his  accession  to  the  throne,  to 
disseminate  the  same  blessing  among  his  subjects.  With  this  view  he  applied  to  the 
Elders  of  the  Scots,  among  whom  he  had  himself  been  taught,  desiring  that  they  would 
furnish  him  with  a  bishop,  through  whose  instruction  and  ministry  the  nation  of  the 
English  he  had  been  called  to  govern  might  receive  the  Christian  faith.  In  compliance 
with  the  royal  desire,  a  monk  of  Hy,  named  Aidan,  was  sent;  to  whom,  on  his  arrival, 
the  king  gave,  as  the  seat  of  his  see,  the  small  Island  of  Lindisfarne,  or,  as  it  has  been 
since  called.  Holy  Isle.  In  the  spiritual  labours  of  the  Saint's  mission  the  pious  Oswald 
took  constantly  a  share ;  and  it  was  often,  says  Bede,  a  delightful  spectacle  to  witness, 

*  Quid  autera  pravius  sentiri  potest  de  Ecclesia  matre  quatn  si  dicamus,  Roma  errat,  Hievosolyma  errat. 
Alexandria  errat,  Antiocha  errat,  totus  mundus  errat:  soli  tantiira  Scoti  et  Britones  rectum  sapiunl.— Bpwt. 
Cummian. 


140  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

that  when  the  bishop,  who  knew  but  imperfectly  the  English  tongue,  preached  the  truths 
of  the  Gospel,  the  king  himself,  who  had  become  master  of  the  Scotic  language  during 
his  long  banishment  in  Ireland,  acted  as  interpreter  of  the  word  of  God  to  his  com- 
manders and  ministers.*  From  that  time,  continues  the  same  authority,  numbers  of 
Scotish,  or  Irish,  poured  daily  into  Britain,  preaching  the  faith,  and  administering  bap- 
tism through  all  the  provinces  over  which  King  Oswald  reigned.  In  every  direction 
churches  were  erected,  to  which  the  people  flocked  with  joy  to  hear  the  word.  Posses- 
sions were  granted,  by  royal  bounty,  for  the  endowment  of  monasteries  and  schools,  and 
the  English,  old  and  young,  were  instructed  by  their  Irish  masters  in  all  religious  ob- 
servances.f 

Having  now  allowed  so  long  a  period  of  Irish  history  to  elapse,  without  any  reference 
whatever  to  the  civil  transactions  of  the  country,  it  may  naturally  be  expected  that  I 
should  for  a  while  digress  from  ecclesiastical  topics,  and,  leaving  the  lives  of  ascetic 
students  and  the  dull  controversies  of  the  cloister,  seek  relief  from  the  tame  and  mono- 
tonous level  of  such  details  in  the  stirring  achievements  of  the  camp,  the  feuds  of  rival 
chieftains,  or  even  in  the  pomps  and  follies  of  a  barbaric  court.  But  the  truth  is,  there 
exist  in  the  Irish  annals  no  materials  for  such  digression, — the  Church  forming,  through- 
out these  records,  not  merely,  as  in  the  history  of  most  other  countries,  a  branch  or 
episode  of  the  narrative,  but  its  sole  object  and  tlieme.  In  so  far,  indeed,  as  a  quick 
succession  of  kings  may  be  thought  to  enliven  history,  there  occurs  no  want  of  such 
variety  in  the  annals  of  Ireland;  the  lists  of  her  kings,  throughout  the  whole  course  of 
the  Milesian  monarchy,  exhibiting  but  too  strongly  that  unerring  mark  of  a  low  state  of 
civilization.  The  time  of  duration  allowed  by  Newton,  in  his  Chronology,  to  the  reigns 
of  monarchs  in  settled  and  civilized  kingdoms  is,  at  a  medium,  as  much  as  eighteen  years 
for  each  reign.  In  small,  uncivilized  kingdoms,  however,  the  medium  allowed  is  not 
more  than  ten  or  eleven  years;  and  at  this  average  were  the  reigns  of  the  Kings  of 
Northumbria  under  the  Saxon  heptarchy.J  What  then  must  be  our  estimate  of  the 
political  state  of  Ireland  at  this  period,  when  we  find  that,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
reign  of  Tuathal,  a.  d.  533,  to  the  time  of  the  great  plague,  664,  no  less  than  fifteen 
monarchs  had  successively  filled  the  Irish  throne,  making  the  average  of  their  reigns, 
during  that  period,  little  more  than  eight  years  each.  With  the  names  of  such  of  these 
princes  as  wielded  the  sceptre  since  my  last  notice  of  the  succession,  which  brought  its 
series  down  to  a.  d.  599,  it  is  altogether  unnecessary  to  encumber  these  pages;  not  one 
of  them  having  left  more  than  a  mere  name  behind,  and,  in  general,  the  record  of  their 
violent  deaths  being  the  only  memorial  that  tells  of  their  ever  having  lived. 

In  order  to  convey  to  the  reader  any  adequate  notion  of  the  apostolical  labours  of  that 
crowd  of  learned  missionaries  whom  Ireland  sent  forth,  in  the  course  of  this  century,  to 
all  parts  of  Europe,  it  would  be  necessary  to  transport  him  to  the  scenes  of  their  respective 
missions;  to  point  out  the  difficulties  they  had  to  encounter,  and  the  admirable  patience 
and  courage  with  which  they  surmounted  them  ;  to  show  how  inestimable  was  the  ser- 
vice they  rendered,  during  that  dark  period,  by  keeping  the  dying  embers  of  learning 
awake,  and  how  gratefully  their  names  are  enshrined  in  the  records  of  foreign  lands, 
though  but  faintly,  if  at  all,  remembered  in  their  own.  It  was,  indeed,  then,  as  it  has 
been  ever  since,  the  peculiar  fate  of  Ireland,  that  both  in  talent,  and  the  fame  that 
honourably  rewards  it,  her  sons  prospered  far  more  triumphantly  abroad  than  at  home; 
for  while,  of  the  many  who  confined  their  labours  to  their  native  land,  but  few  have  left 
those  remembrances  behind  which  constitute  fame,  those  who  carried  the  light  of  their 
talent  and  zeal  to  other  lands,  not  only  founded  a  lasting  name  for  themselves,  but  made 
their  country  also  a  partaker  of  their  renown,  winning  for  her  that  noble  title  of  the 

*  Ubi  pulcherrimo  saepe  spectaciilo  contigit,  ut  evangelizante  antistite,  qui  Anglorum  linguam  pfifecte  now 
noverat,  ipse  Rex  suis  dncibiis  ac  ministris  interpres  verbi  existeret  coeleslis,  quia  nimirum  lam  longo  exilii 
Bui  tempore  linguam  Scotorum  jam  plena  didicerat.— Lib.  iii.  cap.  3. 

t  Exin'  ctEpere  plurea  per  dies  de  Scotorum  regionc  venire  Britanniam  atque  illis  Anglorum  provinciis, 
quibus  regnavit  rex  Osvald,  magna  devnijone  verhum  Dei  prsedicare.— Bede,  lib.  iii.  cap.  3  '•  As  these 
preachers  (says  Dr.  Lanigan)  came  over  from  the  land  of  the  Scots  to  Britain,  it  is  plain  that  they  came  frnrej 
Ireland;  for  the  land  of  British  Scots  was  itself  in  Britain  ;  and  accordingly  Lloyd  states  (chap.  v.  §  5.,)  that 
these  auxiliaries  of  Aidan  'came  out  of  Ireland.'  Thus  also  Fleury  (lib.  xxxviii.  §  19.)  calls  them  '  Mis- 
Sionaires  Irlandois.'  "—Elccesiast  Hist.  chap.  xv.  note  103. 

It  was  hardly  worthy  of  Doctor  Lingard's  known  character  for  fairness,  to  follow  the  example  so  far  of 
Dempster,  and  other  such  writers,  as  to  call  our  eminent  Irish  missionaries,  at  this  period,  by  the  ambiguoua 
name  of  Scotiah  monks,  without  at  the  same  time  informing  his  readers  that  these  distinguished  men  were 
Scots  of  Ireland  The  care  with  which  the  ecclesiastical  historians  of  France  and  Italy  have  in  general 
marked  this  distinction,  is  creditable  alike  to  their  fairness  and  their  accuracy. 

1  To  judge  from  the  following  picture,  however,  their  state  was  little  better  than  that  of  the  Irish:— 
"During  the  last  century  (the  eighth,)  Northumbria  had  exhibited  successive  instances  of  treachery  and 
murder  to  which  no  other  country  perhaps  can  furnish  a  parallel.  Within  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years, 
fourteen  kings  had  assumed  the  sceptre,  and  yet  of  all  these  one  only,  if  one,  died  in  the  peaceable  possession 
of  royalty :  seven  had  been  slain,  six  had  been  driven  from  the  throne  by  their  rebellious  subjects. " 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  141 

Island  of  the  Holy  and  the  Learned,  which,  throughout  the  night  that  overhung  all  the 
rest  of  Europe,  she  so  long  and  proudly  wore.  Thus,  the  labours  of  the  great  missionary, 
St.  Columbanus,  were,  after  his  death,  still  vigorously  carried  on,  both  in  France  and 
Italy,  by  those  disciples  who  had  accompanied  or  joined  him  from  Ireland;  and  his 
favourite  Gallus,  to  whom,  in  dying,  he  bequeathed  his  pastoral  staff,  became  the  founder 
of  an  abbey  in  Switzerland,  which  was  in  the  thirteenth  century  erected  into  a  prince- 
dom, while  the  territory  belonging  to  it  has,  through  all  changes,  borne  the  name  of  St. 
Gall.*  From  his  great  assiduity  in  promulgating  the  Gospel,  and  training  up  disciples 
capable  of  succeedmg  him  in  the  task,  this  pious  Irishman  has  been  called,  by  a  foreign 
martyrologist,  the  Apostle  of  the  Allemanian  nation.  Another  disciple  and  countryman 
of  St.  Columbanus,  named  Deicola,  or  in  Irish  Dichuill,  enjoyed,  like  his  master,  the 
patronage  and  friendship  of  the  monarch  Clotaire  II.,  who  endowed  the  monastic  esta- 
blishment formed  by  him  at  Luthra,  with  considerable  grants  of  land. 

In  various  other  parts  of  France,  similar  memorials  of  Irish  sanctity  may  be  traced.f 
At  the  celebrated  monastery  of  Centula,  in  Ponthied,  was  seen  a  tomb,  engraved  with 
golden  letters,  telling  that  there  lay  the  remains  of  the  venerable  priest,  Caidoc, 
"to  whom  Ireland  gave  birth,  and  the  Gallic  land  a  grave."!     The  site  of  the  ■^V^" 
hermitage  of  St.  Fiacre,  another  Irish  Saint,  was  deemed  so  consecrated  a  spot, 
that  to  go  on   a  pilgrimage  thither  was,  to  a  late  period,  a  frequent  practice  among 
the  devout;  and  we  are  told  of  the  pious  Anne  of  Austria,  that  when,  in  1641,  she  visited 
the  shrine  of  this  saint,  so  great  was  the  humility  of  her  devotion,  that  she  went  the 
whole  of  the  way,  from  Monceau  to  the  town  of  Fiacre,  on  foot. J     Among  the  number 
of  holy  and  eminent  Irishmen  who  thus  extended  their  labours  to  France,  must  not  be 
forgotten  St.  Fursa,||  who  after  preaching  among  the  East  Angles,  and  converting  many 
from  Paganism,  passed  over  into  France;  and,  building  a  monastery  at  Lagny,  near  the 
river  Marne,  remained  there,  spreading  around  him  the  blessings  of  religious  instruction, 
till  his  death. 

In  like  manner,  through  most  of  the  other  countries  of  Europe,  we  hear  of  the  progress 
of  some  of  these  adventurous  spirits,  and  track  the  course  of  their  fertilizing  footsteps 
through  the  wide  waste  of  ignorance  and  paganism  which  then  prevailed.**  In  Brabant, 
the  brothers  of  St.  Furso,  Ultan  and  Foillan,  founded  an  establishment  which  was  long 


*  In  speaking  of  the  learning  displayed  by  St.  Cummian  in  his  famous  Letter  on  the  Paschal  question,  I 
took  occasion  to  remark  on  the  proof  which  it  affords  of  the  existence  of  libraries,  at  that  period,  in  Ireland, 
and  by  no  means  ill  or  scantily  furnished.  From  a  circumstance  mentioned  by  the  ecclesiastical  historians 
of  an  Irish  bishop,  named  Mark,  who  visited  the  monastery  of  St.  Gall,  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, it  would  appear  that  the  Irish  were,  at  that  time,  even  able  to  contribute  to  the  libraries  of  their  fellow 
countrymen  on  the  Continent.  The  fact  is  thus  stated  hy  the  Benedictines : — "  II  s'y  vient  alors  habitner  un 
6veque  Hibernois  noinme  Marc,  dont  la  retraite  fut  avantageuse  aux  6tudes,  tant  par  les  llvrea  dont  il  aug- 
meiita  la  bibliotlieque  que  par  les  personnel  qu'il  avoit  a  sa  suite.  Entre  ceuxci  etoil  un  neveu,  aqui  le 
nom  barbare  de  Moengal  fut  chang6  en  celui  de  Marcel,  et  un  Eusebe,  autre  homme  de  lettres,  et  Hibernois, 
coniines  les  prficedens.'"  The  learned  writers  then  add  the  following  interesting  remark  respecting  the  Irish 
of  ihit  period  in  general: — "On  a  deja  remarque  ailleurs  que  les  gens  de  ce  pays,  presqu'a  rexlr6mit6  du 
monde,  avoient  mieiix  conserve  la  litterature,  parcequ'ils  6toient  moins  exposes  aux  revolutions  que  les 
autres  parties  de  I'Europe." 

t  Ce  commerce  de  litterature  entres  les  Gaules  et  les  lies  Britanniques,  en  genre  de  s'entrecommuniquer 
leurs  connoisances  sur  les  lettres  et  la  doctrine,  et  de  se  preter  de  grands  hommes  pour  les  repaudre,  devint 
mutuel  depuis  que  S.  Gildas,  S.  Columban,  et  plusieurs  autres  Hibernois,  presque  tous  gens  de  lettres,  se 
retirerent  dans  nos  provinces  — Hist.  Litter,  de  la  France,  toni.  iv. 

J  Mole  sub  hac  tegitur  Caidocus  jure  sacerdos, 

Scotia  quem  genuit,  Gallica  terra  tegit. 

The  burial-place  of  this  saint,  who  died  at  Centula,  towards  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century,  was  repaired 
by  Angilbert,  abbot  of  that  monastery,  in  the  reign  of  Charlemange,  when  the  epitaph  from  which  the  above 
couplet  is  cited  was  inscribed  upon  llie  tomb. 

§  L'ermitage  de  Saint  Fiacre  est  devenu  un  hourg  de  la  Brie,  fameux  par  les  p61crinages  que  I'on  y  faisoit; 
I'feglise  ou  ctiapelle  6toit  desservie  par  les  B6nedictins;  les  femmes  n'entroient  point  dans  le  sanctuaire,  et 
Ton  remarque  que  la  Reine  Anne  d'Autriche,  y  veiiant  en  pelerinage  en  1641,  se  conforma  a  cet  usage,  et 
qu'elle  fit  meme  a  pied  le  chemin  depuis  Monceau  jusqu'a  Saint-Fiacre." — Hist,  de  Meauz. 

Il  is  said  in  another  work,  relating  to  this  saint.  '•  On  a  pretendu  que  le  nom  de  Fiacres  avoit  He  dounc 
aux  carosses  de  place,  parcequ'ils  furent  d'abord  destines  a  voiturer  jusqu'a  St.  Fiacre  (en  Brie)  les  Parisiens 
qui  y  allerent  en  pelerinage." 

II  This  saint  was  of  royal  descent:—"  Erat  autem  vir  ille  de  nobilissimo  genere  Scotorum  "—Bede.  I.  iii.  c. 
19.  In  the  same  chapter  will  be  found  an  account  of  those  curious  visions  or  revelations  of  St  Fursa,  which 
are  supposed  by  the  Benedictines  to  have  been  intended  to  shadow  forth  the  political  and  moral  corruption  of 
the  higher  orders  in  Ireland: — "On  s'appercoit  sans  peine  qu'elles  tendent  a  reprimer  les  d6sordres  qui 
r^gnoient  alors  parmi  les  Princes,  les  Eveques,  et  les  autres  ecclesiastiques  d'Hibernie,  ou  le  saint  les  avout 
eues.  Elles  taxent  principalement  leur  avarice,  leur  oisivet6,  le  peu  de  soin  qu'ils  prenoient  de  s'instruire  et 
d'instruire  les  autres." 

**  "  In  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  centuries  (says  Macpherson,)  religion  and  learning  flourished  in  Ireland 
to  such  a  degree,  that  it  was  commonly  styled  the  mother  country  of  saints,  and  reputed  the  kingdom  of  arts 
and  sciences.  The  Saxons  and  Angles  sent  thither  many  of  their  princes  and  princesses  to  have  the  benefit 
of  a  pious  and  learned  education.  It  ought,  likewise,  to  be  acknowledged,  that  some  of  the  most  eminent 
teachsrs  of  North  Britain  received  their  instruction  at  the  Irish  seminaries  of  literature  and  religion." 


142  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

called  the  Monastery  of  the  Irish;  and  the  elegant  scholar,  St,  Livin,*  whom,  by  his  own 
verses,  we  trace  to  the  tomb  of  St.  Bavo.f  in  Ghent,  proceeded  from  thence,  on  a  spiritual 
mission,  through  Flanders  and  Brabant,  prepared  at  every  step  for  that  crown  of  martyr- 
dom, which  at  length,  from  the  hands  of  Pagans,  he  suffered.|  With  the  same  enter- 
prising spirit  we  find  St.  Fridolin,  surnamed  the  Traveller, — a  native,  it  is  supposed,  of 
Connaught, — exploring  the  Rhine  for  some  uninhabited  island,  and  at  length  fixing  him- 
self upon  Seckingen,  where  he  founded  a  church,  and  a  religious  house  for  females,  which 
he  lived  to  see  prosper  under  his  own  eyes.  Next  to  the  generous  self-devotion  of  these 
holy  adventurers,  thus  traversing  alone  the  land  of  the  infidel  and  the  stranger,  the  feeling 
of  gratitude  with  which  after-ages  have  clung  to  their  names,  forms  one  of  the  most 
pleasing  topics  of  reflection  which  history  affords;  and  few,  if  any,  of  our  Irish  mission- 
aries left  behind  them  more  grateful  recollections  than,  for  centuries,  consecrated  every 
step  of  the  course  of  Fridolin  the  Traveller,  through  Lorraine,  Alsace,  Germany,  and 
Switzerland. 

In  the  month  of  May,  664,  that  solar  eclipse  took  place,  the  accurate  record  of  which 
by  the  Irish  chroniclers,  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice.  This  phenomenon,  toge- 
ther with  the  singular  aspect  of  the  sky,  which,  during  the  whole  summer,  as  we  are  told, 
seemed  to  be  on  fire,  was  regarded  generally,  at  the  time,  as  foretokening  some  fatal 
calamity,  and  the  frightful  pestilence  which  immediately  after  broke  out,  both  in  England 
and  Ireland,  seemed  but  too  fully  to  justify  the  superstitious  fear.  This  Yellow  Plague, 
as  the  dreadful  malady  was  called,  having  made  its  appearance  first  on  the  Southern 
coasts  of  Britain,  spread  from  thence  to  Northumbria,  and,  about  the  beginning  of  August, 
reached  Ireland,  where,  in  the  course  of  the  three  years  during  which  its  ravages  lasted, 

it  is  computed  to  have  swept  off"  two-thirds  of  the  inhabitants.     Among  its  earliest 
^V.?"   victims  were  the  two  royal  brothers,  Diermit  and  Blathmac,  who  held  jointly  at 

this  period  the  Irish  throne  ;  and  Bede  mentions  also,  in  the  number  of  suflTerers, 
some  natives  of  England,  both  noble  and  of  lower  rank,  who  had  retired  to  Ireland,  as  he 
expresses  it,  "  to  pursue  a  course  of  sacred  studies,  and  lead  a  stricter  life."  It  is  in 
mentioning  this  interesting  fact,  that  the  historian  adds,  so  honourably  to  the  Irish,  that 
they  most  cheerfully  received  all  these  strangers,  and  supplied  them  gratuitously  with 
food,  with  books,  and  instruction.^ 

While  thus  from  England  such  numbers  crowded  to  these  shores,  and  either  attached 
themselves  to  a  monastic  life,  or  visited  the  cells  of  the  different  monasteries  in  pursuit 
of  general  knowledge,  Irish  scholars  were,  with  a  similar  view,  invited  into  Britain. 
The  Island  of  Hy,  which  was  inhabited  by  Irish  monks,  furnished  teachers  to  all  the 

*  "  Voici  encore  un  ecrivain,"  say  the  Benedictines,  "  que  la  France  est  en  droit  de  partager  avec  I'Hiber- 
nie  Qui  lui  donna  naissance." 

tTlie  epitaph  which  this  saint  wrote  upon  St.  Bavo,  and  the  epistle  addressed  by  him  to  his  friend  Flor- 
bert,  in  sending  him  the  epitaph,  may  both  be  found  in  Usher's  Vet.  Epist.  Hiberniarum  Sylloge.  Of  these 
two' poems  Dr.  Lanigan  remarlis,  that  they  "  are  very  neat  compositions,  and  do  great  honour  to  the  classical 
taste  of  the  Irish  scliools  of  that  period,  while  barbarism  prevailed  in  the  greatest  part  of  Western  Europe." — 
Chap.  vi.  §  12. 

*  In  his  epistle  to  Florbert,  the  Saint  thus  anticipates  the  doom  of  martyrdom  that  awaited  him: — 

Impia  Barbarico  gens  e.xagitata  tumultu 

Hie  Brabanta  furit,  meque  cruenta  petit 
Cinid  tibi  peccavi,  qui  pacis  nuntia  porto? 

Pax  est  quod  porto ;  cur  mihi  bella  moves  T 
Sed  qua  tu  spiras  feritas  sors  l<cta  triumphi, 

Atque  dabit  palmam  gloria  martyrii. 

The  following  verses  from  this  epistle,  in  reference  to  the  task  which  his  friend  Florbert  had  imposed  upon 
him,  may  not,  perhaps,  be  thought  unworthy  of  citation  :— 

El  pius  ille  pater  cum  donis  moUia  verba 

Mittit,  ot  ad  studium  sollicitat  precibus. 
Ac  titulo  magnum  jubet  insignire  Bavonem, 

Atq'  leves  elegos  esse  decus  tiimulo. 
Nee  reputat,  fisso  cQm  stridet  fistula  ligno, 

Cluod  soleat  raucum  reddere  quassa  sonum. 
Exigui  rivi  pauper  quam  vena  ministrat 

Lasso  vix  tennes  unda  ministra  opem. 
Sic  ego  qui  quondam  studio  florente  videbar 

Esse  poeta,  moilo  curro  pedester  equo. 
Etqui  Castalio  dicebar  fonte  madentera 

DictEeo  versu  posse  movere  Lyram, 
Carmine  nunc  lacero  dictant  mihi  verba  Camoens; 

Mensq'ue  dolens  lEBtis  apta  nee  est  modulis. 
Non  sum  qui  fueram  festivo  carmine  Isetus: 

Q.ualiter  esse  queam,  tela  cruenta  videns  ? 

5  On  this,  Ledwich  remarks:— "So  zealous  and  disinterested  a  love  of  learning  is  unparalleled  in  the 
annals  of  the  world." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  143 

more  nortliern  regions;  and  the  appointment  of  tiiree  natives  of  Ireland,  in  succession,  to 
the  new  see  of  Lindisfarne,  proves  how  grateful  a  sense  of  the  services  of  that  nation  the 
Northumbrian  princes  of  this  period  entertained.  At  the  time  we  are  speaking  of,  the 
bishop  of  this  see  was  Colman,  a  monk  of  the  Columbian  order,  who  had  been  sent  from 
Ireland  for  the  purpose  of  filling  that  high  dignity.  Like  all  the  rest  of  the  clergy  of  his 
order,  he  adhered  to  the  Irish  mode  of  celebrating  Easter,  and  tiie  dispute  respecting 
that  point  received  a  new  recruitment  of  force  from  his  accession,  as  well  as  from  the 
scruples  of  the  intelligent  Alchfrid,  son  of  King  Oswin,  who,  while  his  father,  a  convert 
and  pupil  of  the  Irish,  "  saw  nothing  better,"  says  Bede,  "  than  what  they  taught,"  was 
inclined  to  prefer  to  their  traditions  the  canonical  practice  now  introduced  from  Rome.* 
In  consequence  of  the  discussions  to  which  this  difference  gave  rise,  a  memorable  con- 
ference was  held  on  the  subject,  at  Whitby;  where,  in  the  presence  of  the  two  kings, 
Oswin  and  Alchfrid,  the  arguments  of  each  party  were  temperately  and  learnedly  brought 
forward;  the  Bishop  Colman,  with  his  Irish  clergy,  speaking  in  defence  of  the  old  ob- 
servances of  their  country,  while  Wilfrid,  a  learned  priest,  who  had  been  recently  to 
Rome,  undertook  to  prove  the  truth  and  universality  of  the  Roman  method.  The  scene 
of  the  controversy  was  in  a  monastery,  or  nunnery,  over  which  Hilda,  a  distinguished 
abbess,  presided, — herself  and  all  her  community  being  favourers,  we  are  told,  of  the 
Irish  system.  The  debate  was  carried  on  in  Irish  and  Anglo-Saxon,  the  venerable  Cead, 
an  English  bishop,  acting  as  interpreter  between  the  parties;  and  the  whole  proceeding 
but  wanted  a  worthier  or  more  important  subject  of  discussion  to  render  it,  in  no  ordinary 
degree,  striking  and  interesting.! 

After  speeches  and  replies  on  both  sides,  of  which  Bede  has  preserved  the  substance, 
the  king  and  the  assembly  at  large  agreed  to  give  their  decision  in  favour  of  Wilfrid ; 
and  Colman,  silenced  but  not  convinced,  resolving  still  to  adhere  to  the  tradition  of  his 
fathers,  resigned  the  see  of  Lindisfarne,  and  returned  to  his  home  in  Ireland,  taking  along 
with  him  all  the  Irish  monks,  and  about  thirty  of  the  English,  belonging  to  that  establish- 
ment! 

The  great  mistake  which  pervaded  the  arguments  of  the  Roman  party,  upon  this  ques- 
tion, lay  in  their  assumption — whether  wilfully  or  from  ignorance — that  the  method  of 
computation  which  they  had  introduced  was  the  same  that  Rome  had  practised  from  the 
very  commencement  of  her  church ;  whereas,  it  was  not  till  the  middle  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury that  the  Romans  themselves  were  induced,  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  unity,  to  ex- 
change their  old  cycle  of  eighty-four  years  for  a  new  Paschal  system.  By  another  gross 
error  of  the  same  party,  which  seems  also  liable  to  the  suspicion  of  having  been  wilful, 
the  Easter  of  the  Irish  was  confounded  with  the  Quartodeciman  Pasch,  though  between 
the  two  observances,  as  we  have  already  seen,  there  was  an  essential  difference.}  But 
the  fundamental  error  of  both  parties  in  the  contest  was,  the  importance  attached  unduly 
by  each  of  them  to  a  point  of  mere  astronomical  calculation,  unconnected  with  either 
faith  or  morals;  and  while  the  Irish  were,  no  doubt,  censurable  for  persisting  with  so 
much  obstinacy  in  a  practice  which,  besides  being  indifferent  in  itself,  was  at  variance 
with  the  general  usage  of  Christendom,  their  opponents  were  no  less  to  be  blamed  for 
their  want  of  charity  and  good  sense  in  raising,  on  so  slight  a  point  of  difference  and  dis- 
cipline, the  cry  of  heresy  and  schism. 

A  dispute  of  a  still  more  trifling  nature,  and  bordering  closely,  it  must  be  owned,  on 
the  ridiculous,  was,  by  the  English  followers  of  the  Roman  missionaries,  mixed  up, 
throughout,  with  the  Paschal  question,  and,  in  a  subordinate  degree,  made  to  share  its 
fortunes.  This  dispute  related  to  the  tonsure,  or  mode  of  shaving  the  head,  practised 
respectively  by  the  Roman  and  Irish  clergy:  the  former  of  whom  shaved  or  clipped  the 

*  An  edifying  instance  of  the  tolerance  of  that  period  is  afforded  in  the  followitig  fact,  mentioned  by 
Bede: — The  Clueen  of  Eanfled,  who  had  lived  in  Kent,  and  who  had  with  her  a  Kentish  priest,  named 
Romanus,  followed  the  Roman  Easter,  while  the  King  Oswin  celebrated  the  Irish  Easter;  and  it  sometimes 
happened,  says  Bede,  that  while  the  king,  bishop,  &c.  were  enjoying  the  Paschal  festivity,  the  queen  and  her 
followers  were  still  fasting  the  Lent. 

t  Among  other  persons  present  at  the  discussion,  was  Agilbert,  a  native  of  France,  who,  for  the  purpose  of 
studying  the  Scriptures,  as  Bede  tells  us.  had  passed  a  considerable  time  in  Ireland.  "  Venit  in  provinciam 
de  Hibernia  pontifex  quidam,  nomine  Agilberctus,  natione  quidem  Gallus,  sed  tunc  legendaruni  gratia  Scrip- 
turarum  in  Hibernia  non  parvo  tempore  denioratus."— Lib.  iii.  c.  7. 

i  To  the  monastery  built  by  Colman  for  his  English  followers,  at  Mayo,  (Bede,  1.  iv.  c.  4,)  a  number  of  other 
monks  of  that  nation  attached  themselves;  and,  in  the  time  of  Adamnan,  towards  the  close  of  the  seventh 
century,  there  were  about  one  hundred  Saxon  or  English  saints  at  that  place,  which,  from  thence,  was  called 
by  the  name  of  Maigh-conaSasson,  or  Mayo  of  the  English.  For  this  fact.  Usher  refers  to  the  book  of  Balli- 
mote;— "  Ciuo  in  Inco,  uti  Bedse  <elate  grande  Anglorum  fuisse  monasterium  audivimus,  itaetiam  S.Cormaci, 
et  Adamnani  tempore  centum  Saxonicorum  Sanctorum  fuisse  habitaculum,  libri  Balliniotensis  collector  con- 
firmat."— £cc/e5.  Primord. 

§  Inheriting  fully  the  same  perverse  feeling  against  the  Irish,  Dr.  Ledwich  has,  in  the  same  manner,  mis- 
represented theni  on  this  subject;  endeavouring  to  make  out  that  St.  Columba  and  his  successors  were  all 
tiuartodccimaiis.    See  an  able  refutation  of  his  views  on  tliis  point  by  Dr.  Lanigan,  chap.  xii.  note  2.36. 


144  HISTORY  OP  IRELAND. 

crown  of  the  head,  leaving  the  hair  to  grow  in  a  circle  all  round  it;  while  the  Irish, 
allowino-  the  hair  to  cover  the  back  of  the  head,  shaved  or  clipped  it  away,  in  the  form  of 
a  crescent,  from  the  front.  Both  parties,  with  equal  confidence,  and,  it  may  be  added, 
ignorance,  appealed  to  antiquity  in  support  of  their  respective  tonsures;  while,  on  the 
part  of  the  Irish,  the  real  motive  for  clinging  so  fondly  to  their  old  custom  was,  that  it 
had  been  introduced  among  them,  with  all  their  other  ecclesiastical  rules  and  usages,  by 
the  national  apostle,  St.  Patrick.  According  as  their  Paschal  rule,  however,  gave  way, 
this  form  of  the  tonsure  followed  its  fate;  and  in  a  Canon,  the  date  of  which  is  supposed 
to  be  about  the  seventh  or  eighth  century,  we  find  an  order  for  the  observance  of  the 
Roman  tonsure. 

However  constantly  the  kings  of  Ireland,  at  this  period,  were,  as  her  annals  record,  in 
conflict  with  each  other,  that  perfect  security  from  foreign  invasion  which  she  had 
through  so  long  a  course  of  ages  enjoyed,  still  continued  to  be  inviolate.  A  slight  inter- 
ruption, however,  of  this  course  of  good  fortune, — as  if  to  break  the  spell  hitherto 
*■  ^'  guarding  her, — occurred  towards  the  close  of  this  century,  when,  notwithstanding 
the  habitual  relations  of  amity  between  the  Northumbrians  and  the  Irish,  an  expe- 
dition, commanded  by  the  general  of  Egfrid,  King  of  Northumberland,  landed  on  the 
eastern  coast  of  Ireland,  and  ravaging  the  whole  of  the  territory,  at  that  time  called 
Bregia,  spared,  as  the  annals  teii  us,  neither  people  nor  clergy,  and  carried  off  with  them 
a  number  of  captives,  as  well  as  considerable  plunder.  This  sudden  and,  apparently, 
wanton  aggression  is  supposed  to  have  been  owing  to  the  offence  taken  by  Egfrid  at  the 
protection  affbrded  by  the  Irish  to  his  brother,  Alfrid,  who  was  then  an  exile  in  their 
country.*  Availing  himself  of  the  leisure  which  his  period  of  banishment  afforded,  this 
intelligent  prince  had  become  a  proficient  in  all  the  studies  of  his  age:  nor  was  he  the 
only  royal  foreigner  who,  in  those  times,  found  a  shelter  in  Ireland,  as  Dagobert,  the  son 
of  the  King  of  Austrasia,  had,  not  long  before,  been  educated  there  in  a  monastery;  and, 
after  a  seclusion  of  many  years,  being  recalled  froR?  thence  to  his  own  country,  became 
sovereign  of  all  Austrasia,  under  the  title  of  Dagobert  11. 

The  very  year  after  his  piratical  attack  on  the  Irish  coast,  King  Egfrid,  by  a  just  judg- 
ment upon  him,  as  Bede  appears  to  think,  for  this  wanton  aggression  on  "a  harmless 
nation,  which  had  been  always  most  friendly  to  the  English,"!  was,  in  a  rash  invasion  of 
the  Pictish  territory,  defeated  and  slain ;  and  his  brother  Alfrid,  though  illegitimate, 
succeeded  to  the  throne4  With  the  view  of  seeking  restitution,  both  of  the  property 
and  the  captives,  which  had  been  carried  away  in  the  marauding  expedition  under  Egfrid, 
Adamnan,  the  abbot  of  Hy,  was  sent  to  the  court  of  the  new  kmo,  whose  warm  at- 
tachment and  gratitude  to  Ireland,  as  well  as  his  personal  friendship  for  her  legate, 
could  not  fail  to  ensure  perfect  success  to  the  mission  ;  and  accordingly  we  find,  in 
the  annals  of  the  year  684,  a  record  of  the  return  of  Adamnan,  bringing  back  with 
him  from  Northumbria  sixty  captives.^  This  able  and  learned  man  was  descended 
from  the  same  royal  line  with  his  predecessor,  St.  Columba,  namely,  the  race  of  the 
northern  Nials,  which,  from  the  first  foundation  of  Hy,  furnished,  for  more  than  two 
centuries,  almost  all  its  abbots.  So  constant  did  the  Irish  remain  to  one  line  of  descent, 
as  well  in  their  abbots  as  their  kings. 

It  was  during  this  or  a  subsequent  visit  to  his  royal  friend  that  Adamnan,  observing  the 
practice  of  the  English  churches,  was  induced  to  adopt  the  Roman  Paschal  system ;  as 
well  as  to  employ,  on  his  return  home,  ail  the  influence  he  possessed,  with  his  country- 
men, in  persuading  them  to  follow  his  example.  In  those  parts  of  Ireland  which  were 
exempt  from  tlie  jurisdiction  of  Hy,  his  success  appears  to  have  been  considerable;  but 
neither  in  that  monastery,  nor  any  of  those  dependent  upon  it,  could  their  eminent  abbot 
Bucceed  in  winning  over  converts.  Among  the  writings  left  by  Adamnan,  the  most 
generally  known  is  his  Life  of  Si.  Columba, — a  work,  of  which  a  fastidious  Scotch  critic 
has  pronounced,  that  "  it  is  the  most  complete  piece  of  such  biography  that  all  Europe 
can  boast  of,  not  only  at  so  early  a  period,  but  even  through  the  whole  Middle  Ages."|| 

In  the  annals  of  the  reign  of  the  monarch  Finnachtha,  which  lasted  from  the  year 
674  to  693,  we    meet  with  one  of  the  few  records   of  civil  transactions,  which  the 

*  On  account  of  his  illegitimacy,  Alfrid  had  been  set  aside  by  some  of  the  nobles,  and  his  younger  brother 
Egfrid  exalted  to  the  throne.  "  Is  (Alfridus)  quia  nothus,  ut  dixi,  erat  factione  optin)atuni,  quanivis  senior, 
regno  indigniis  el  astimatus,  in  Hiberniam,  seu  vi,  seu  indignatione  secesserat.  Ita  ab  odio  germani  tutus, 
et  magno  olio  Uteris  imbutus,  omni  philosophia  animum  composuerat."— GMftc/m.  Malmsbur.  De  Oest.  Keg. 
lib.  i.  c.  3. 

t  Vastavil  misere  gentem  innoxiam  el  nationi  Anglorum  semper  amicissimam. — Lib.  iv.  c.  26. 

I  He  ably  retrieved,  too,  as  Bede  informs  us,  the  ruined  state  of  that  kingdom.  How  much  this  prince  had 
profited  by  his  studies  in  Ireland,  appears  from  what  the  same  historian  states  of  him,  that  "  he  was  most 
learned  in  the  Scriptures  "— "  vir  in  scripturis  doctissimus."— Lib.  iv.  c.  26. 

§  Annal.  IV.  Mag  «  Pinkerton,  Inquiry,  &c. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  145 

monkisli  clironiclers  have  deigned  to  transmit;  nor  even  in  this  instance,  perhaps,  should 
we  have  been  turnished  with  any  knowledge  of  the  fact,  had  it  not  been  so  closely  con- 
nected with  the  ascendency  and  glory  of  the  church.  The  Boarian  tribute,  that  iniqui- 
tous tax  upon  the  people  of  Leinster,  which  iiad  now,  through  forty  successive  reigns, 
been  one  of  the  most  fertile  of  all  the  many  sources  of  national  strife,  was,  at  length,  at 
the  urgent  request  of  St.  Moling,  archbishop  of  Ferns,  remitted  by  the  pious  King  Fin- 
nachtha,  for  himself  and  his  successors,  for  ever. 

Towards  the  close  of  this  century,  we  again  find  the  page  of  Irisii  history  illuminated 
by  a  rich  store  of  saintly  ornaments.  It  is  highly  probable  that,  on  the  return  of  Prince 
Dagobert  to  Austrasia,  he  had  been  accompanied  or  followed  thither  from  Ireland  by 
some  of  those  eminent  scholars  who  had,  during  his  stay  there,  presided  over  his  studies; 
as  we  find  him,  on  his  subsequent  accession  to  the  throne,  extending  his  notice  and  pa- 
tronage to  two  distinguished  natives  of  Ireland,  St.  Arbogast*  and  St.  Florentius,  the 
former  of  whom  having  resided,  for  some  time,  in  retirement  at  Alsace,  was,  by  Dagobert, 
when  he  became  king,  appointed  bishop  of  Strasburg;  and,  on  his  death,  a  fe\v  years 
after,  his  friend  and  countryman,  Florentius,  became  his  successor.  The  tombs  of  two 
brothers,  Erardf  and  Albert,  both  distinguished  Irish  saints  of  this  period,  were  long 
shown  at  Ratisbon;  and  St.  Wiro,  who  is  said  to  have  been  a  native  of  the  county  of 
Clare,t  rose  to  such  eminence  by  his  sanctity,  that  Pepin  of  Heristal,  the  mighty  ruler 
and  father  of  kings,  selected  him  for  his  spiritual  director,  and  was  accustomed,  we  are 
told,  to  confess  to  liim  barefoot. 

But  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  Irish  missionaries  of  this  period,  was  the  great 
apostle  of  Franconia,  St.  Kilian,  who,  to  his  other  triumphs  and  glories  in  the  cause  of 
religion,  added  finally  that  of  martyrdom.  His  illustrious  convert,  the  Duke  of  Wurtz- 
burg,  whose  conversion  was  followed  by  that  of  numbers  of  his  subjects,  having  con- 
tracted a  marriage  with  the  wife  of  his  brother,  St.  Kilian  pointed  out  to  him  tlie  un- 
lawfulness of  such  a  connexion,  and  required,  as  a  proof  of  his  sense  of  religion,  that 
he  should  dissolve  it.  The  Duke,  confessing  this  to  be  the  most  difficult  of  all  the 
trials  imposed  upon  him,  yet  added  that,  having  already  sacrificed  so  much  for  the 
love  of  God,  he  would  also  give  up  Geilana,  notwithstanding  that  she  was  so  dear  to 
Jiim,  as  soon  as  a  military  expedition,  on  which  he  was  then  summoned,  should  be  at  an  end. 
On  being  informed,  after  his  departure,  of  what  had  passed,  Geilana  determined  to  take 
her  revenge;  and,  seizing  the  opportunity  when  St.  Kilian,  accompanied  by  two  of  his 
brethren,  was  employed  in  chanting  the  midnight  service,  she  sent  an  assassin,  with 
orders  to  put  them  all  to  death.  As  the  saint  had  exhorted  them  to  receive  calmly  the 
wished-for  crown  of  martyrdom,  no  resistance  was  made  by  any  of  the  party,  and  they 
were,  one  by  one,  quietly  beheaded.  On  the  same  night,  their  remains  were  hastily 
deposited  in  the  earth,  together  with  their  clothes  and  pontifical  ornaments,  the  sacred 
books  and  cross ;  and  were  many  years  after,  discovered  by  St.  Burchard,  Bishop  of 
Wurtzburg.  Of  the  impious  GeiJana  we  are  told,  that  she  was  seized  with  an  evil 
spirit,  which  so  grievously  tormented  her  that  she  soon  after  died;  and,  to  this  day,  St. 
Kilian  is  honoured  as  Wurtzburg's  patron  saint. 

To  this  period  it  seems  most  reasonable  to  refer  the  patron  saint  of  Tarentum,  Catal- 
dus,  of  whose  acts  more  has  been  written,  and  less  with  certainty  known,  than  of  any 
other  of  the  great  ornaments  of  Irish  church  history. 5     His  connexion  with  the  cele- 

*  Arbogastus,  origine.Scotus. — Mabillon. 

t  There  has  been  some  doubt  as  to  the  claims  of  Ireland  to  this  saint;  but  BoUandus,  after  much  conside- 
ration on  the  subject,  declares  it  to  be  the  most  probable  opinion  that  he  was  an  Irishman.  See  the  point 
discussed  by  Dr.  Lanigan.chap.  xviii.  note  95. 

t  '•  Dr.  Lingard  says  {Anglo-Saxon  Church,  chap.  xiii.  note  12.)  that  Alcuin,  in  the  poem  de  Pont.  Ebor.  v. 
1045,  calls  Wiro  an  Anglo-Saxon.  Now,  in  the  said  poem,  which,  by  the  by,  was  not  written  by  Alcuin, 
there  is  not  a  word  about  Wiro  at  that  verse,  nor,  as  far  as  I  can  tind,  in  any  other  part  of  it." — Lanigan, 
chap,  xviii.  note  105. 

§  See,  for  a  long  account  of  this  saint,  Usher's  De  Brit.  Eccles.  Primord.  751.  et  seq.  Prom  a  Life  of  Catal- 
dus,  in  verse,  by  Bonaventura  Moronus,  Usher  cites  some  opening  lines,  of  which  the  following  are  a  spe- 
cimen : — 

"  Oceani  Divum  Hesperii  Fhreblque  cadentis 
Tmmorlale  decus,  nulli  pietale  secundum, 
Prisca  Phalantasi  celebrant  quem.jura  Senatus, 
Externisque  dolet  mitli  glacialis  Ibcrne, 
Musa,  refer." 

The  place  ofhis  birth  wasthua  announced,  we  are  told,  in  song,  in  the  ancient  churches  of  Tarentum: 

"  Gaude,  feli.x  Hibernia,  de  qua  proles  alma  progreditur:" 
And  again,  in  this  rhyming  epitaph: 

18 


146  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

brated  school  of  Lismore,  which  was  not  founded  till  about  the  year  669,  places  him,  at 
least,  towards  the  conclusion  of  the  seventh  century,  if  not  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eio'hth-  it  beinf  evident,  from  the  mention  of  Lismore,  in  some  of  the  numerous  poems 
de'dicat'ed  to  his'^praise,  that  the  fame  of  that  school  had,  at  the  time  when  he  flourished, 
already  extended  itself  to  foreign  lands.* 

In  the  eicfhth  century,  indeed,  the  high  reputation  of  the  Irish  for  scholarship  had  be- 
come established  throughout  Europe ;  and  that  mode  of  applying  the  learning  and  sub- 
tlety of  the  schools  to  the  illustration  of  theology,  whicli  assumed,  at  a  later  period,  a 
more  systematic  form,  under  the  name  of  the  Scholastic  Philosophy,  is  allowed  to  have 
originated  among  the  eminent  divines  whom  the  monasteries  of  Ireland,  in  the  course  of 
this  century,  poured  fourtli.  Of  the  dialectical  powers  of  these  theologians  we  are 
furnished  with  one  remarkable  specimen,  in  a  sort  of  syllogistic  argument  used  by  them 
on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity,  which,  however  hetrodox  may  seem  its  tendency,  by  no 
means  merits  the  charge  of  sophistry  brought  against  it;  as  it  but  puts  in  a  short,  con- 
densed form,  the  main  difficulty  of  the  doctrine,  and  marks  clearly  the  two  dangerous 
shoals  of  Tritheism  and  Sabellianism,  between  which  the  orthodox  Trinitarian  finds  it 
BO  difficult  to  steer.t 

As  we  approach  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century,  the  literary  annals  of  the  country 
present  a  much  rarer  display  of  eminent  native  names.  But,  however  thinly  scattered, 
they  were  the  sole  or  chief  lights  of  their  time.  Minds,  in  advance  of  the  age  they  live 
in,  have  always  received  and  deserved  a  double  portion  of  fame;  and  there  is  one  dis- 
tinguished Irishman  of  tliis  period,  whose  name,  from  the  darkness  in  which  it  shone  out, 
will  continue  to  be  remembered  when  those  of  far  more  gifted  men  will  have  passed  into 
oblivion.!  Virgilius  whose  real  name  is  supposed  to  have  been  Fargil,  or  Feargal,^  appear- 
ed first  as  a  missionary  abroad,  about  the  year  746,  when,  arriving  in  France,  he  attracted 
the  notice  and  friendship  of  Pepin,  the  father  of  Charlemagne,  and  became  an  inmate  of  hia 
princely  residence  near  Compiegne,  on  the  Oise.  From  thence,  after  a  stay  of  two 
years,  he  proceeded  to  Bavaria,  bearing  letters  of  introduction  from  his  able  patron  to 
the  duke  Odilo,  then  ruler  of  that  duchy.  The  great  English  missionary,  Boniface, — 
the  Apostle,  as  he  is  in  general  styled,  of  the  Germans, — had  been  lately  appointed  to 
the  new  archbishopric  of  Mentz,  and  a  difference  of  opinion  on  a  point  of  theology,  be-, 
tween  him  and  Virgilius,  who  had  been  placed  within  the  jurisdiction  of  his  see,  first 
brought  them  into  collision  with  each  other.  Some  ignorant  priest  having  been  in  the 
habit  of  using  bad  Latin  in  administering  baptism,  St.  Boniface,  who  chose  to  consider 
the  ceremony  thus  performed  to  be  invalid,  ordered  Virgilius,  in  some  such  cases  that 
had  occurred,  to  perform  the  baptism  over  again.  1|  This  the  wiser  abbot  spiritedly  re- 
fused, maintaining  that  the  want  of  grammatical  knowledge  in  the  minister  could  not 

"  Felix  Hibernia,  sed  Magis  Tarentum, 
QuEE  claudis  in  tumulo  magnum  talentum." 

Usher  has  amply  exposed  in  this,  as  in  numerous  other  instances,  the  impudent  pretences  on  which  the 
notorious  Dempster  has  laid  claim  to  our  Irish  saints,  as  natives  of  Scotland. 

*  In  a  passage  too  long  to  be  given  entire,  Bonaventura  Moronus  has  described  the  multitudes  of  foreign 
scholars  that  flocked  from  every  part  of  Europe  to  the  famous  school  at  Lismore,  where  Cataldus  had  been 
educated : 

"  Undique  conveniunt  proceres,  quns  diilce  trahebat 
Discendi  studium,  major,  num  cognito  virtus, 

An  laudata  foret 

Certatim  hi  properant  diverso  tramite  ad  urbem 
Lesmoriam,  juvenis  primos  ubi  transigit  annos." 

t  "  Apud  modernos  scholafticos  maxime  aptid  Scotos  est  syllngismus  delusionis,  ut  dicunt,  Trinitatem, 
Ficut  personarum,  ita  esse  substantiarura." — Litter  of  Benedict.  Abbot  of  Aniane,  quoted  by  Mosheim,  vol.  ii. 
cent.  viii.  chap.  3.  The  obji-ct  of  the  syllogism  of  those  Irisli  scholastics  is  thus  described  by  Benedict: — 
"  Guatenus  si  adsenseril  illpctus  auditor,  J'rinitatem  esse  trium  suhstantiariim  Deum,  triiim  d^-rogetur 
cnltor  Deorum  :  si  aulem  abnuerit,  personanim  denegatur  culpetur:"  that  is,  as  explaineil  by  Mosheim, 
"  You  must  either  affirm  or  deny  that  the  three  Persons  in  the  Deity  are  three  substances:  if  you  affirm  it, 
you  are  undoubtedly  a  'liiiheist,  and  wnr.'^hlp  three  Gods  ;  if  you  deny  it,  this  denial  implies  that  Ihey  are 
not  three  distinct  pi'rsons.  and  thus  you  fall  into  gsabellianism." 

I  "  Avant  tons  ces  savants  hommes,  on  avnit  admire  eu  la  personne  de  Virgile,  Eveque  de  Saltzbourget 
Apotre  de  la  Carinthie,  de  grandes  connoissances,  lant  sur  la  Philosophie  que  sur  la  Thenlogie.  II  est  le 
premier  que  Ton  sache  qui  ait  decouvprt  les  Antipodes,  ou  I'autre  moude."— //I'si.  Lilt,  dc  la  France,  torn.  iv. 

§  "  The  Irish  Fear,  sometimes  contracted  into  Per,  has,  in  latinizing  of  names,  been  not  seldom  changed 
into  Vir.  For  Fear,  in  Irish,  signifies  man  as  Vlr  does  in  Latin.  Thus  an  abbot  of  Hy,  whose  name  is  con- 
stantly written  in  Irish  Fergna,  is  called  by  Adamnan  Virgnous,  through,  as  Colgan  observes,  a  Latin  in- 
flection."— Lnnigan,  chap  xix.  note  127. 

II  In  performing  the  ceremony  of  baptism,  this  priest  used  to  say,  "  Baptize  te  in  nomine  Palria  et  Filia  el 
Spiritua  Sancla,  instead  of  Patris,  Filii,  el  Spirilus  Sancti."— iCIpist.  Zachar.  yet.  Ep.  IJibern.  Sylloge. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  147 

invalidate  the  efficacy  of  the  ordinance.  Confident,  too,  in  the  correctness  of  his  opi- 
nion, he  laid  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case  before  Pope  Zachary,  who  immediately 
wrote  to  reprove  the  archbishop  for  the  order  which  he  had  issued^^  artd  thus  virtually 
gave  his  sanction  to  the  opposition  of  Virgilius. 

This  triumph  over  him  by  an  inferior  seems  to  have  rankled  in  the  mind  of  Boniface, 
who  from  thenceforth  sought  opportunities  of  denouncing  Virgilius  to  the  pope,  as  guilty 
of  various  errors  on  points  of  catholic  doctrine.  Among  these  charges,  the  most  serious, 
as  may  be  concluded  from  the  excitement  which  it  produced,  was  that  which  accused 
the  Irish  abbot  of  maintaining  that  there  "  was  another  world,  and  other  men,  under  the 
earth."*  The  fact  was,  that  the  acute  mind  of  Virgilius  had,  from  the  knowledge  ac- 
quired by  him  in  the  Irish  schools,  where  geographical  and  philosophical  studies  were 
more  cultivated  than  in  otlier  parts  of  the  West,  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  earth 
was  of  a  spherical  figure,  and  that,  by  a  necessary  consequence,  there  were  antipodes. 
This,  as  it  proved  upon  inquiry,  was  the  scientific  doctrine  which  had  been  represented 
ignorantly  to  the  pope,  as  a  belief  in  another  world  below  the  earth,  distinct  from  ours, 
inhabited  by  men,  not  of  the  race  of  Adam,  nor  included  among  those  for  whom  Christ 
died.f  It  is  by  no  means  wonderful  that,  on  such  a  representation,  as  well  of  the  opi- 
nion as  of  the  deductions  from  it,  Pope  Zachary  should  regard  it  as  an  alarming  heresy, 
and  write-in  answer  to  the  archbishop,  that,  "should  the  charge  be  proved,  a  council 
must  be  convened,  and  the  offender  expelled  from  the  church."  As  no  record  exists  of 
any  farther  proceedings  upon  the  subject,  we  may  take  for  granted  that  the  accused 
abbot  found  means  of  clearing  himself  from  the  aspersion  ;J  and  so  little  did  this  memo- 
rable charge  of  heresy  stand  in  the  way  of  liis  preferment,  earthly  or  heavenly,  that  in 
a  few  years  after  he  was  made  bishop  of  Saltzburg,  and  in  a.  d.  1233,  we  find  hira  ca- 
nonized by  Pope  Gregory  IX. 

Such  are  the  real  particulars  of  a  transaction  which  it  has  been  the  object  of  many 
writers  to  misrepresent,  for  the  purpose  of  flippantly  accusing  the  church  of  Rome  of  a 
deliberate  design  to  extinguish  the  light  of  science,  and  obstruct  the  progress  of  truth.} 
Were  it  even  certain  that  this  pope  was  slow  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  antipodes,  he 
would,  at  least,  have  erred  in  good  company;  as  already  the  poet  Lucretius  had  pro- 
nounced this  belief  to  be  inconsistent  with  reason  ;||  while  no  less  a  church  authority  than 
St.  Augustine  had  denounced  it  as  contrary  to  the  Scriptures.lT  But  there  is  every  reason 
to  suppose,  that  Pope  Zachary,  on  the  doctrine  of  Virgilius  being  explained  to  him,  saw 
that  it  was  an  opinion  to  be  at  least  tolerated,  if  not  believed;  and  so  far  was  the  pro- 
pounder  of  it  from  being,  as  is  commonly  stated,  punished  by  losing  his  bishopric,**  that 
it  appears,  on  the  contrary,  to  have  been  shortly  after  his  promulgation  of  this  doctrine 
that  he  was  raised  to  the  see  of  Saltzburg. 

The  life  of  this  learned  and  active  man,  after  his  elevation  to  the  see  of  Saltzburg,  was 
marked  by  a  succession  of  useful  public  acts;  and  the  great  Basilic,  raised  by  him  in 
honour  of  St.  Rupert,  attested  at  once  the  piety  and  magnificence  of  his  nature.  But 
the  most  lasting  service  rendered  by  him  to  the  cause  of  religion,  was  the  zealous  part 
which  he  took  in  propagating  the  Gospel  among  the  Carinthians.  Two  young  princes  of 
the  reigning  family  of  that  province  having  been,  at  his  request,  baptized  and  educated 
as  Christians,  he  found  himself  enabled,  through  their  means,  when  they  afterwards  suc- 
ceeded to  power,  so  far  to  extend  and  establish  the  church  already  planted  in  their  do- 
minions, as  fully  to  justify  his  claim  to  the  title  of  the  Apostle  of  Carinthia. 

Under  the  auspices  of  the  munificent  Charlemagne,  that  country  on  whose  shores 
the  missionary  and  the  scholar  had  never  failed  to  meet  with  vvclcomo  and  fame,  had 
become  a  still  more  tempting  asylum  for  the  student  and  the  exile;  and  among  the 
learned  of  other  lands  who  enjoyed  that  prince's  patronage,  those  from  Ireland  were 

*  "  auod  alius  miindus  et  alii  homines  sub  terra  sint,  seu  alius  sol  et  lutia."—BoHifac.  Epist.  Bibliothec. 
Patrum. 

t  The  argument  of  Boniface  was,  that  "  Si  essenl  antipodes,  alii  homines  adeoque  alius  Christus  intro- 
duceretur." 

X  "  Disceplationis  exitum  non  comperio.    Fit  verisimile  aut  purgasse  se  Virgiliura  Pontifici,  sive  coram, 

sive  per  litteras:  auf,  cognitis  invidoruni  ulriusque  fraudibus ullro,  quod  inter  bonos  solet,  in 

gratiam  esse  reditum." — Velser.  Rerum  Boiarum,V\\>.  v. 

6  Among  others,  D'Alembert  has  founded  ou  this  supposed  persecution  of  the  Irish  scholar,  whom  he 
honours  so  far  as  to  connect  his  name  with  Galileo's,  some -strong  charges  againsr  the  tribunal  of  Rome, 
which,  lie  says,  "  condamna  un  celebre  astrononif;  pour  avoir  souteiui  le  mouvement  de  la  terre,  et  le  d6clara 
hferfetique;  a-peu-pres  comme  le  pape  Zacharie  avoit  condamne,  quelques  siecles  auparavant,  un  Eveqiie, 
pour  n'avoir  pas  pense  comme  Saint  Augustin  sur  les  Antipodes,  et  ponr  avoir  devine  leur  existence  six  cens 
ans  avant  que  Cristophe  Columbe  les  d6couvrit."— £>!s<:o«'-s  Prelim,  de  V Encyclopedic. 

II  Lih   i    1064  IT    De  Civitat.  Dei   lib.  xvi.  c.  9. 

•*  Thus,  Dr.  Campbell,  one  of  the  most  pretending  and  superficial  of  the  writers  on  Irish  affairs,  speaks  ot 
"  this  great  man  as  sentenced  to  degradation,  upon  his  conviction  of  being  a  Mathcw-alician,  by  Fope  iiacnary, 
in  the  eighth  century."— S(rec(urej,  m  the  Ecdesiast.  and  Lit.  Hist,  of  Ireland. 


148  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

not  the  least  conspicuous  or  deserving.  The  strange  circumstances  under  which  two 
itinerant  Irish  scholars,  named  Clement  and  Albinus,  contrived  to  attract  the  empe- 
ror's notice,  are  thus  related  by  a  monkish  chronicler  of  the  time.*  Arriving,  in  com- 
pany with  some  British  merchants,  on  the  shores  of  France,  these  two  Scots  of  Ireland, 
as  they  are  designated  by  the  chronicler,  observing  ihat  the  crowds  who  flocked  around 
them  on  their  arrival  were  eager  only  for  saleable  articles,  could  think  of  no  other 
mode  of  drawing  attention  to  themselves,  than  by  crying  out  "Who  wants  wisdom"? 
let  him  come  to  us,  for  we  have  it  to  sell."  By  continually  repeating  this  cry,  they 
soon  succeeded  in  becoming  objects  of  remark;  and,  as  they  were  found,  upon  nearer 
inquiry,  to  be  no  ordinary  men,  an  account  of  them  was  forthwith  transmitted  to  Charle- 
magne, who  gave  orders  that  they  should  be  conducted  into  his  presence.  Their 
scheme  or  whim,  whichsoever  it  might  have  been,  was  at  once  crowned  with  success ; 
as  the  king,  finding  their  pretensions  to  wisdom  (as  all  the  learning  of  that  time  was 
by  courtesy  called,)  to  be  not  without  foundation,  placed  Clement  at  the  head  of  a  semi- 
nary which  he  then  established  in  France,  and  sent  Albinus  to  preside  over  a  similar 
institution  at  Pavia.f  The  historian  Denina,  remarking  the  fallen  state  of  Italy  at  this 
period,  when  she  was  compelled,  as  he  says,  to  look  to  the  North  and  the  extreme 
West  for  instructors,  adds,  as  a  striking  proof  of  her  reduced  condition,  that  Irish 
monks  were  placed  by  Charlemagne  at  the  iiead  of  some  of  her  schools.f 

Some  doubts  have  been  started  as  to  the  trutii  of  this  characteristic  adventure  of  the 
two  Irish  scholars.5  But,  in  addition  to  the  evidence  on  which  the  story  rests,  and 
which  is  the  same  relied  upon  for  most  of  the  early  life  of  Charlemagne,  the  incident 
is  marked  throughout  with  features  so  truly  Irish — the  dramatic  humour  of  the  expedi- 
ent, the  profession  itself  of  an  itenerant  scholar,  to  a  late  period  common  in  Ireland, — 
that  there  appear  but  slight  grounds  for  doubting  the  authenticity  of  the  anecdote.  The 
vehement  denial  of  its  truth  by  Tiraboschi  is  actuated  too  evidently  by  offended  national 
vanity,  at  the  thought  of  an  Irishman  having  been  chosen  to  preside  over  a  place  of  edu- 
cation in  Italy,  to  be  received  with  the  deference  his  authority  might  otherwise  com- 
mand; and  both  Muratori  and  Denina  have  given  their  sanction  to  the  main  fact  of  the 
narrative. 

In  the  latter  part  of  this  century  we  find  another  native  of  Ireland,  named  Dungal, 
trying  his  fortune,  with  far  more  valid  claims  to  distinction,  in  France,  and  honoured  in 
like  manner  with  the  patronage  of  her  imperial  chief.  Of  the  letter  addressed  by  this 
learned  Scot||  to  Charlemange,  on  the  two  solar  eclipses  alleged  to  have  been  observed 
in  Europe  in  the  year  810,  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  speak;  and,  however  super- 
ficial the  astronomical  knowledge  displayed  in  this  short  tract,  the  writer  has  proved 
himself  to  have  been  well  acquainted  with  all  that  the  ancients  had  said  upon  the  sub- 
ject ;1[  while  both  in  his  admission  that  two**  solar  eclipses  might  take  place  within  the 
year,  and  his  doubt  that  such  a  rare  incident  had  occurred  in  810,  he  is  equally  correct. 
The  very  circumstance,  indeed,  of  its  having  been  selected  by  Charlemange,  though 
living  a  recluse,  at  that  time,  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Denis,  as  one  of  the  few  European 
scholars  worthy  of  being  consulted  on  such  a  point,  shows  sufficiently  the  high  estimation 
in  which  he  was  then  held. 

*  Monach.  Sangall.  de  Gest.  Carol. 

t  "  On  compte  encore  (say  the  Benedictines)  entro  les  cooperateurs  de  Charlemagne  dans  rexOcution  de  son 
grand  dessein,  iin  certain  Clement,  Hibernois  de  nation."— Torn   iv. 

X  "  Ma  ben  niaggior  maraviglia  ci  dovra  parere,  che  I'ltalia  non  solamente  allora  abbia  dovuto  riconoscere 
da'  barbari  boreali  il  rinnovamento  della  milizia,  ma  abbia  da  loro  dovuto  apprendere  in  quello  stesso  tempo 
le  scienze  piu  necessarie;  e  die  bisognasse  dagli  ultimi  confini  d'occidente  et  del  nord  far  venire  in  Italia  i 
maestri  ad  insegnaici,  non  che  altro,  la  lingua  latina.  Carlo  Magno  nel  781  avea  preposto  alle  scuole  d'  Italia 
e  di  Francia  due  Monachi  Irlandesi."— X)e«e  Rivoluzioni  d'  Italia,  lib.  viii.  cap.  12. 

§  After  mentioning  that  one  of  these  Irishmen,  Clement,  had  been  detained  in  France  by  Charlemagne, 
7iraboschi  adds,  "  L'altro  fu  da  lui  mandate  in  Italia,  e  gli  fu  assignato  il  monastero  di  S.  .^gostino  presso 
J\?^'*'  ••.•••  ■accinche  chiiinque  fosse  bramoso,  potessc  esser  da  lui  istruito.  Ecco  il  gran  racconto  del 
Monaco  di  S.  Gallo,  su  cui  e  fonilala  I'accennata  commune  opinione.  Ancoiche  esse  si  aniinettesse  per  vero, 
altro  hnalmente  non  potremmo  raccoglieno,  se  non  che  uno  Scozzese  fu  mandato  da  Carlo  Magno  a  Pavia, 
per  tenervi  scuola;  ne  cio  basterebbe  a  pinvare,  che  vi  fosse  tale  scarsezza  d'nomini  dotti  in  Italia,  che  con- 
venisse  inviarvi  stranieri. "—S/orja  della  Letterat.  Lalian.,  torn,  iii  lib.  3  cap.  1. 

II  Having  stated  that  Mabillon  supposed  Dungal  to  be  an  Irishman,  the  authors  of  the  Hist.  Litteraire  de 
la  trance  suy,"Ce  qui  paroit  appuye  tant  sur  son  nom  que  sur  ce  que  I'Hibernie  fournit  alors  plusieurs 
autres  grands  hommes  a  la  France." 

fr  Dacher.  Spicileg.  torn.  iii.  The  following  remarks  on  Dnngars  letter  are  from  the  pen  of  Ismael  Bullial- 
•,\  f.^lT""'"""^  profund.T!  indaginis,"  as  Iticciolus  styles  him,  whom  IVAchery  had  consulted  on  the  sub- 
jecl.  Non  est  eiiim  possibile  ut  in  locis  ab  a-quinoctiali  linea  paulo  remotioribus,  intra  senicstre  spatitini 
tuna;  eclipses  soils  ceriiantur,  quod  sub  linea  iequinoctiali,  vel  in  locis  siibjacentibus  parallelis  ab  ea  non 
longe  (lescriptis  accidere  potest:  intra  vero  quinqucmestre  spatium  in  eodem  hemisphairio  boreali  vel  austrino 
bina;  eclipses  solares  consp,ci  quicunt,  quie  omnia  demonstrari  possunt  utpote  vera.  Sed  hujus  Kpistola; 
Auctor  Dungalus  hasdifferentias  ignorasse  videtur." 

**  In  Struyk's  Catalogue  of  Eclipses  there  occur,  I  think,  four  instances  of  a  solar  eclipse  having  been 
observed  twice  within  the  space  of  a  year,  viz  a.  d,  237-8,  812-3,  llgj  6,  and  1108-9. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  149 

We  find  him  some  time  after  in  Italy,  acting  as  master  of  the  great  public  school 
established  at  Pavia  by  Lothaire  I. ;  with  jurisdiction,  too,  over  all  the  other  subordinate 
schools  which  this  prince  founded  in  the  different  cities  of  Italy.*  How  high  was  the 
station  assigned  to  the  Irish  Professor,  may  be  judged  from  a  Capitular,!  issued  by 
Lothaire,  in  which,  while  the  various  cities  where  schools  had  been  founded  are  enume- 
rated, the  name  of  Dungal  alone  of  all  the  different  professors  is  mentioned,  and  every 
institution  is  placed  in  subordination  to  that  of  Pavia. 

A  work  written  by  this  eminent  man  about  the  year  827,  in  answer  to  an  attack  made 
by  Claudius,  Bishop  of  Turin,  on  the  Catholic  practice  of  honouring  images  and  paying 
reverence  to  saints,  is  praised  by  a  distinguished  Italian  writer,  as  displaying  not  merely 
a  fund  of  sacred  learning,  but  also  a  knowledge  of  polite  literature,  and  of  the  classical 
graces  of  style.j:  In  opposition  to  Claudius,  who,  reviving  the  heresy  of  Vigilantius, 
maintained  that  saints  ought  not  to  be  honoured,  nor  any  reverence  paid  to  images,  the 
Irish  Doctor  contends  zealously  for  the  ancient  Catholic  practice,  and,  instead  of  resort- 
ing to  the  aid  of  argument  on  a  point  solely  to  be  decided  by  authority  and  tradition, 
appeals  to  the  constant  practice  of  the  church  from  the  very  earliest  times,  which  has 
been,  he  says,  to  revere,  with  the  honour  suitable  to  them,  the  figure  of  the  cross,  and 
the  pictures  and  relics  of  saints,  without  either  sacrificing  to  them  or  offering  them  the 
worship  which  is  due  to  God  alone.  In  honour  of  his  countryman  St.  Columbanus,  Dungal 
bequeathed  to  the  monastery  of  Bobbio  a  valuable  collection  of  books,  the  greater  part  of 
which  are  now  at  Milan,  having  been  removed  to  the  Ambrosian  Library  by  Cardinal 
Frederic  Borromeo.J 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  Ireland,  when  it  was  her  destiny  to 
undergo  a  great  and  disastrous  change ;  when  that  long  seclusion  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  comprising  a  period  commensurate  with  the  wholeof  her  authentic  history,  which, 
with  a  few  doubtful  exceptions,  had  kept  her  verdant  fields  untouched  by  the  foot  of  an 
invader,  was  at  length  fiercely  broken  in  upon ;  and  a  series  of  invasions,  from  the  north 
of  Europe,  began  to  be  inflicted  upon  her  people,  which  checked  the  course  of  their 
civilization,  kept  the  whole  island  for  more  than  three  centuries  in  a  continued  state  of 
confusion  and  alarm,  and  by  dividing,  even  more  than  by  wasting,  the  internal  strength 
of  the  kingdom,  prepared  the  way  for  its  final  and  utter  subjugation  by  the  English.  Be- 
fore we  plunge,  however,  into  the  dark  and  revolting  details  of  this  period,  which,  marked 
as  they  are  with  the  worst  excesses  of  foreign  aggression,  are  yet  more  deeply  disgraced 
by  the  stain  of  domestic  treachery  and  strife,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  infringe  so  far  on 
the  order  of  historical  synchronism,  as  to  complete  the  rapid  review  we  have  here  com- 
menced of  the  many  peaceful  triumphs  achieved  by  Irish  genius  during  this  century,  as 
well  at  home  as  in  foreign  countries,  leaving  the  warfare  and  political  transactions  of  the 
same  interval  to  be  treated  separately  afterwards. 

It  should  have  been  mentioned  in  the  account  of  our  celebrated  scholar  Virgilius,  that 
in  leaving  Ireland  he  is  said  to  have  been  accompanied  by  a  Greek  bishop,  named  Dubda ; 
a  circumstance  which,  coupled  with  the  fact  stated  by  Usher  of  there  having  been  a 
Greek  church  at  Trim,  in  the  county  of  Meath,||  which  was  so  called  even  to  his  time, 
proves  that  the  fame  of  the  schools  and  churches  of  Ireland  had  attracted  thither  several 
Greek  ecclesiastics;  and  accounts  for  so  many  of  her  own  native  scholars,  such  as  St. 
Columbanus,  Cummian,  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  John  Erigena,  having  been  so 
perfectly  masters  of  the  Greek  language.  One  of  the  chief  arguments,  indeed,  employed 
by  Ledwich,  in  his  attempt  to  show  that  the  early  church  of  Ireland  was  independent  of 


*  According  to  P'riina,  not  merely  the  management  of  these  schools,  but  the  credit  of  founding  them  also, 
is  to  be  attributed  to  Dungal : — "  Fii  nell  807  fatto  venire  di  .Scozia  un  monaco  per  nome  Dungalo,  famoso  in 
queir  eta  pel  suo  sapere.  Ebbe  costui  a  reggere  in  particolare  lo  studio  di  Pavia,  ma  fii  nello  stesso  tempo 
autore  e  quasi  fondatore  delle  altre  scuole  d'lvrea,  di  Torino,  di  Fernio,  di  Verona,  di  Vicenza,  di  Cividal  del 
Friuli,  alle  quale  dovevano  concorrere  ripartitaniente  gli  scolari  da  tutte  le  altre  citta  del  regno  Italico,  sic- 
come  ordino  Lottario  in  suo  famoso  capitolare."— Lib.  viii.  cap  12. 

t  This  Capitular,  as  given  by  Tiraboschi,  thus  commences: — '' Primum  in  Papia  conveniant  ad  Diingalluni, 
de  Mediolano,  de  Laude,  de  Bergamo,  de  Novaria,"  &c.  &c. — Tom.  iii.  lib.  3.  cap  1.  Tiraboschi  adds,  "Chi 
fossero  a  Professori  nelle  altre  citla,  non  ce  n'e  rimasta  memoria.  Solo  quel  di  Pavia  si  nomina  in  questa 
legge,  cioe  Dungalo."— lb. 

}  "CfEterum  liber  ille  Diingali  hominem  eriiditum  sacrisque  etiam  Uteris  ornatum  prodit,  at  simul  in 
grammaticali  foro  ac  Prisciani  deliciis  enutrium." — Muratoii. 

§  A  catalogue  of  the  books  belonging  to  the  library  at  Bobbio,  together  with  the  names  of  the  respective 
donors,  has  been  preserved  by  Muratori  (Antiq.  Ital.  vol.  viii.  Dissert.  43.,)  and,  in  this  document,  supposed  to 
be  written  in  the  10th  century,  the  name  of  Dungal  is  thus  mentioned  :—"  Item,  de  libris  quos  Diingalus 
prcBcipuus  Scotorum  obtulit  beatissimo  Columbano  ;"  meaning,  to  the  monastery  founded  by  Columbanus. 

II  Pontincem  secum  hahuit  propriuni  Dobdan  nomine,  Grscum,  qui  ipsum  secutus  erat  e.\  patria 

Mirarer  vero  ex  Hibernia  nostra  hominem  Graecum  prodiisse,  nisi  scirem  in  agro  Midensi  apud  Trimmcnses 
Eedem  sacrani  exiitissc,  qus  Graces  EcclesiE  nomen  ad  hunc  usque  diem  xcUncl.—Epist.  IJibcrn.  Syllogc, 
note  xvi. 


150  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  See  of  Rome,  is  founded  on  those  traces  of  connexion,  through  Greek  and  Asiatic 
missionaries,  with  the  East,  which,  there  is  no  doubt,  are  to  be  found  in  the  records  and 
transactions  of  that  period.  Had  such  instances,  however,  been  even  numerous  enough 
to  prove  more  than  a  casual  and  occasional  intercourse  with  those  regions,  it  would  not 
have  served  the  purpose  this  reverend  antiquary  sought  to  gain :  as,  at  the  time  when 
Christianity  was  first  introduced  into  Ireland,  the  heads  of  the  Greek  church  were  on  the 
best  terms  with  the  See  of  Rome;  Asiatics  and  Greeks,  during  the  very  period  to  which 
he  alludes,  were  raised  to  the  chair  of  St.  Peter;  and  it  was  not  till  many  centuries  after, 
that  the  schism  of  the  Greeks  divided  the  Christian  world. 

In  addition  to  the  evidence  of  their  merits  furnished  by  recorded  acts  of  the  Irish  mis- 
sionaries themselves,  it  is  but  just  to  mention  also  some  of  those  tributes  of  admiration, 
which  their  active  piety  and  learning  drew  from  their  contemporaries.  A  curious  letter 
addressed  by  the  Saxon  scholar  Aldhelm,*  to  his  countryman  Eahfrid,  who  had  just  re- 
turned from  a  long  course  of  study  in  Ireland,  though  meant,  in  its  inflated  style  of  irony, 
to  throw  ridicule  on  the  Irish  schools,  is  rendered,  by  the  jealousy  which  it  so  involun- 
tarily betrays,  far  more  flattering  than  the  most  prepense  panegyric; — "Why  should 
Ireland,"  says  the  writer,  "  whither  troops  of  students  are  daily  transported,  boast  of  such 
unspeakable  excellence,  as  if  in  the  rich  soil  of  England,  Greek  and  Roman  masters  were 
not  to  be  had  to  unlock  the  treasures  of  divine  knowledge.!  Though  Ireland,  rich  and 
blooming  in  scholars,  is  adorned  like  the  poles  of  the  world  with  innumerable  bright  stars, 
it  is  Britain  has  her  radiant  sun,  her  sovereign  Pontiff"  Theodore,  nurtured  from  the  ear- 
liest age  in  the  school  of  philosophy:  it  is  she  possesses  Adrian  his  companion,  graced 
with  every  virtue  .  .  .  This  is  that  Theodore  who,  though  he  should  be  surrounded  by  a 
circle  of  Hibernian  scholars,  as  a  boar  in  the  midst  of  snarling  dogs,  yet  as  soon  as  he 
bares  his  grammatical  tooth,  puts  quickly  to  flight  the  rebel  phalanx."^ 

The  tributes  of  Bede  to  the  piety,  learning,  and  benevolence  of  the  Irish  clergy,  have 
been  frequently  adverted  to  in  these  pages;  and  while  justice  was  thus  liberally  rendered 
to  them  by  the  English,  we  find  a  French  author  of  the  ninth  century,  Eric  of  Auxerre, 
equally  zealous  in  their  praise.  "What  shall  I  say,"  he  exclaims,  "of  Ireland,  who, 
despising  the  dangers  of  the  deep,  is  migrating,  with  almost  her  whole  train  of  philoso- 
phers, to  our  coasts."5 

Among  the  names  that,  early  in  the  ninth  century,  adorn  this  list  of  distinguished 
Irishmen,  are  those  of  Sedulius  and  Donatus,  the  former  the  author,  it  is  supposed,  of  the 
Commentaries  on  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  From  the  many  Irish  scholars  of  this  name 
that  arose  at  different  periods  into  reputation,  considerable  difficulty  has  been  found  in 
distinguishing  their  respective  times  and  writings.||  But  it  appears  pretty  certain,  though 
both  were  natives  of  Ireland,  that  the  author  of  the  poems  mentioned  in  a  preceding  part 
of  this  work  is  to  be  considered  as  a  distinct  person  from  the  commentator  on  St.  Paul. 
In  the  subject  and  origin  of  one  of  the  writings  ascribed  to  the  later  Sedulius, IT  may  be 
found  a  proof  of  the  constant  prevalence  among  his  countrymen  of  that  tradition  respect- 
ing their  origin  from  Spain,  to  which  I  have  had  occasion,  at  the  commencement  of  this 
volume,  to  advert.  On  account  of  the  reputation  he  had  acquired  by  his  commentaries 
on  St.  Paul,  this  abbot  was  despatched  by  the  pope,  with  the  dignity  of  Bishop  of  Oreto, 
to  Spain,  for  the  purpose  of  reconciling  some  difl^erences  of  opinion  that  had  arisen  among 
the  clergy  of  that  country.  The  Spaniards,  objecting  to  the  appearance  of  a  stranger  in 
such  a  capacity,  made  some  difficulty  as  to  receiving  him;  on  which  Sedulius,  it  is  said, 
drew  up  his  treatise  entitled  "  the  concordance  of  Spain  and  Hibernia,"  in  which,  refer- 


*  The  insliuctor  of  Aldlielin  was  Maidiilpii,  an  Irishman;  though  Mr.  Turner  (unintentionally,  as  I  am 
willing  to  think)  suppresses  the  fact,  merely  saying  that  Aldhelm  had  "continued  his  studies  at  Malnisbury, 
where  Mairtulf.  an  Irishman,  had  founded  a  monastery."— Vol.  ii.  Aldhelm  himself  became  afterwards  abbot 
of  the  monastery. 

t  "Cur,  iiiquam,  Hiliernia,  quo  catervatim  istinc  lectores  classibus  advecti  confluunt,  ineffabili  quodam 
privileeio  efferatur:  ac  si  istic,  ffficundo  Britannia;  in  cespite,  didascali  Argivi  Komanive  Quirites  reperiri 
mininie  queant,  qui  cculestis  tetrica  enodantes  bibliotheca;  problemata  sciolis  reserare  se  sciscitantibus 
valeant.  Q.uanivis  cnim  prffiiiictum  Hibernia;  rus,  discentium  opulans  vernansque  (ut  ita  rii.xerim)  pascuosa 
numerositate  lectoriim,  quemndmoduni  poli  cardines  astriferis  micantium  orncntur  vibraminibus  side  rum; 
ast  tamen,"  &;c.  Scc—Kpisl   Jlibcrn.  Sylloge. 

t  "  Etiamsi  boata;  memoriie  Theodorus  summi  sacerdotii  gubernacula  regens,  Hibcrnensinm  globo  discipu- 
lorum  (CPU  aper  truculentus  molossorum  catasta  ringente  vallatus)  stipetur;  limato  perniciter  Grammatico 
dente,"  &;c.  &c.— 74. 

§  "  Quid  Hiberniam  memorem,  contempto  pelagi  discrimine,  pene  tola  cum  grege  philosophorum  ad  littora 
nostra  migrantem. "—./?(/  Carol.  Calv. 

|(  See,  for  the  various  authorities  on  this  subject,  the  Ecclesiar.  Primord.  769.,  where  the  result  of  the  mass 
of  evidence  so  laboriously  brought  together  seems  to  be,  that  the  commentator  and  the  poet  were  decidedly 
distinct  persons. 

V  Thus  mentioned  by  Ucpidanus,  the  Monk  of  St.  Gall,  under  the  year  818:— "  Sedulius  Scottus  clurus 
liabetur." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  151 

rinor,  no  doubt,  to  the  traditions  of  both  countries,  he  asserted  the  claims  of  the  Irish  to 
be  considered  as  Spaniards,  and  to  enjoy  all  the  privileges  of  the  Spanish  nation.* 

At  the  same  period  another  accomplished  Irishman,  Donatus,  having  gone  on  a  pil- 
grimage to  Rome,  was  induced  to  fix  himself  in  Italy,  and  became  soon  after  Bishop  of 
Fiesole.  That  he  left  some  writings  behind  him,  political  as  well  as  theological,  may  be 
collected  from  the  epitaph  on  his  tomb,  composed  by  himselff  But  of  these  productions 
the  only  remains  that  have  reached  us  are  some  not  inelegant  verses,  warmly  in  praise 
of  his  native  land.f 

But  the  most  remarkable  man  that  Ireland,  or  perhaps,  any  other  country,  sent  forth, 
in  those  ages,  was  the  learned  and  subtle  John  Scotus;  whose  distinctive  title  of  Erigena, 
or,  as  it  was  sometimes  written,  Eringena,  points  so  clearly  to  the  land  of  his  birth,  that, 
among  the  numbers  who  have  treated  of  his  life  and  writings,  but  a  very  few  have  ven- 
tured to  contest  this  point.  At  what  period  he  removed  from  Ireland  to  France  cannot 
be  very  accurately  ascertained ;  but  it  is  conjectured  to  have  been  about  the  year  845,  when 
he  had  already  reached  the  age  of  manhood,  and  was  doubtless  furnished  with  all  the 
learning  of  his  native  schools;  and  such  was  the  success,  as  well  of  his  social  as  of  his 
intellectual  powers,  that  Charles  the  Bald,  King  of  France,  not  only  extended  to  him  his 
patronage,  but  made  him  the  companion  of  his  most  secluded  and  familiar  hours. 

For  the  early  travels  of  this  scholar  to  Greece  and  into  the  East,  there  appears  to  be  no 
other  foundation  than  a  wish  to  account  for  his  extraordinary  knowledge  of  the  Greek 
and  other  languages,  as  well  as  for  that  acquaintance  with  the  mystic  theology  of  the 
Alexandrian  school,  which  he  derived,  in  reality,  from  his  study  of  the  writings  ascribed 
to  Dyonysius  the  Areopagite.  A  copy  of  these  treatises  had  been  sent  as  a  present  to 
Louis  I.,  by  Michael  Balbus,  the  Greek  Emperor;  and  as  additional  reverence  was  at- 
tached, in  France,  to  their  contents,  from  the  notion  that  Dionysius,  the  supposed  author, 
was  the  same  as  St.  Denys,  the  first  Bishop  of  Paris,  Charles  the  Bald,  with  a  view  of 
rendering  the  work  accessible  to  such  readers  as  himself,  who  were  acquainted  with 
Greek,  appointed  Erigena  to  the  task  of  translating  it  into  Latin. 

The  change  effected  in  the  theology  of  Europe  by  this  book,  as  well  as  by  the  prin- 
ciples deduced  from  it  afterwards  in  the  translator's  own  writings,  continued  to  be  felt 
through  a  very  long  period.  Previously  to  this  time,  the  scholastic  mode  of  consider- 
ing religious  questions  had  prevailed  generally  among  the  theologians  of  Europe  ;5  but 
the  introduction  to  the  mystic  doctrines  of  Alexandria,  by  John  Scotus,  infused  a  new 

*  Harris  on  Ware's  Writers,  art.  Sedulius. 

t  "Gratuita  discipulis  dictabam  scripta  libellis 
Schemata  metrorutn,  dicta  beata  senum." 

J  "  Finibus  occiduis  describitur  optima  tellns 

Nomine  et  antiquis  Scotia  dicta  libris. 
Insula  dives  opum,  geramarum,  vestis  et  auri : 

Commoda  corporil)us,  aere,  sole,  solo. 
Melle  fluit  pulchris  et  lacteis  Scotia  campis, 

Vestibus  atque  armis,  frugibus,  arte,  viris,"  &c  &c. 

The  translation  of  these  verses  given  in  O'Halloran's  History,  was  one  of  the  earliest  pieces  of  poetry  with 
which  in  my  youth  £  was  familiar;  and  it  is  purely  in  the  indulgence  of  old  recollections  that  I  here  venture 
to  cite  a  few  of  the  lines:— 

"Far  westward  lies  an  isle  of  ancient  fame. 
By  nature  bless'd,  and  Scotia  is  her  name, 
EnrolI'd  in  books — exhaustless  is  her  store 
Of  veiny  silver  and  of  golden  ore. 
Her  fruitful  soil  for  ever  teems  with  wealth. 
With  gems  her  waters, and  her  air  with  health; 
Her  verdant  fields  with  milk  and  honey  flow, 
Her  woolly  fleeces  vie  with  virgin  snow. 
Her  waving  furrows  float  with  bearded  corn. 
And  arts  and  arras  her  envied  sons  adorn." 

§  By  Brucker  (torn.  iii.  De  Scliolasticis)  the  commencement  of  the  scholastic  theology  is  brought  down  so 
late  as  to  the  twelfth  century;  but  it  is  plain  from  his  ovvn  history  that  this  form  of  theology  had  a  much 
earlier  origin;  and  by  Mosheim  the  credit  of  first  introducing  it  is  attributed  to  the  Irish  of  the  eighth  cen- 
tury. 

"  That  the  Hibernians,"  he  says,  "  who  were  called  Scots  in  this  century,  were  lovers  of  learning,  and  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  these  times  of  ignorance  by  the  culture  of  the  sciences  beyond  all  the  other  Euro- 
pean nations,  travelling  through  the  most  distant  lands,  both  with  a  view  to  improve  and  to  communicate 
their  knowledge,  is  a  fact  with  which  I  have  been  long  acquainted;  as  we  see  them,  in  the  most  authentic 
records  of  antiquity,  discharging,  with  the  highest  reputation  and  applause,  the  function  of  doctor  in  France, 
Germany,  and  Italy,  both  during  this  and  tlie  following  century.  But  that  these  Hibernians  were  the  first 
teachers  of  the  scholastic  theology  in  Europe,  and  so  early  as  the  eighth  century  illustrated  the  doctrines  of 
religion  by  the  principles  of  philosophy,  I  learned  but  lately  from  the  testimony  of  Benedict,  Abbot  of  Aniane, 
in  the  province  of  Languedoc."  He  then  produces  his  proofs,  to  which  I  refer  the  reader,  (Cent.  viii.  part  ii. 
chap.  3,)  and  adds: — "  From  hence  it  appears,  that  the  philosophical  or  scholastic  theology  among  the  Latins 
IS  of  more  ancient  date  than  is  commonly  imagined." 


152  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

element  into  the  theology  of  the  West;*  and  tlie  keen  struggle  which  then  commenced 
between  those  opposing  principles  has  formed  a  considerable  part  of  the  history  of  re- 
ligious controvesy  down  to  tiie  present  day.  It  is  not  a  little  singular,  too,  that  while, 
as  an  eminent  church  historian  alleges,  "  the  Hibernians  were  the  first  teachers  of  scho- 
lastic theology  in  Europe,"  so  an  Hibernian,  himself  unrivalled  among  the  dialecticians 
of  his  day,  should  have  been  also  the  first  to  introduce  into  the  arena  the  antagonist 
principle  of  mysticism. 

The  want  of  that  self-restraint  acquired  in  a  course  of  training  for  holy  orders, — 
for,  by  a  rare  fate  in  those  days,  Erigena  was  both  a  scholar  and  a  layman, — is  observa- 
ble in  the  daring  lengths  to  which  his  speculations  respecting  the  nature  of  God  are  car- 
ried; speculations  bordering,  it  must  be  owned,  closely  on  the  confines  of  Spinozism  or 
Pantheism.  Thus,  "  the  soul,"  he  says,  "  will  finally  pass  into  the  primordial  causes  of 
all  things,  and  these  causes  into  God ;  so  that,  as  before  the  existence  of  the  world  there 
was  nothing  but  God  and  the  causes  of  all  things  in  God,  so  there  will  be,  after  its 
end,  nothing  else  than  God  and  the  causes  of  all  things  in  God."  With  the  same 
Pantheistic  view,  he  asserts  that  "  all  things  are  God,  and  God  all  things, — that  God 
is  the  maker  of  all  things,  and  made  in  all."  It  is  plain  that  this  universal  deification 
is  but  another  form  of  universal  materialism  ;  and  the  self-satisfaction,  and  even  triumph, 
with  which  so  good  and  pious  a  man — for  such  Erigena  is  allowed  universally  to  have 
been — could  come  to  such  desolating  conclusions,  was  but  the  result  of  that  dangerous 
principle  of  identifying  religion  with  philosophy,  for  which  he  has  been  so  lauded  by  one 
of  the  most  eminent  of  the  modern  apostles  of  rationalism.! 

The  notions  just  cited  are  promulgated  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Division  of  Nature,  or 
the  Nature  of  Things;  and  though  in  that  work,  which  was  written  subsequently  to  his 
translation  of  Dionysius,  there  is  to  be  found,  in  its  fullest  force,  the  intoxicating  influence 
of  the  fountain  at  which  he  had  been  drinking,  it  is  manifest  that,  even  before  he  had 
become  the  interpreter  of  the  dreams  of  others,  his  mind  had  already  been  stored,  by  the 
study  of  the  Platonic  writers,  with  visionary  notions  of  its  own ;  as,  in  the  share  taken 
by  him  in  the  famous  controversy  with  the  monk  Gotescalc,  on  the  subject  of  predestina- 
tion, he  had,  in  the  midst  of  those  dialectic  subtleties  in  which  his  chief  strength  and 
enjoyment  lay,  exhibited  the  same  daringness  of  research  into  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine 
nature,  which  characterizes  those  later  flights  of  his  genius  to  which  I  have  adverted. | 
Combating  the  doctrine  of  Gotescalc,  who  maintained,  in  accordance  with  the  views  of 
St.  Augustine,  and,  afterwards,  of  Calvin,  that  the  decrees  of  God  had,  from  all  eternity, 
preordained  some  men  to  everlasting  life,  and  others  to  everlasting  punishment  and 
misery,  Erigena  denied  that  there  was  any  predestination  of  the  damned ;  contending 
that  the  prescience  of  God  extended  only  to  the  election  of  the  blessed ;  since  he  could 
not  foresee  that  of  which  he  was  not  the  author,  and,  being  the  source  neither  of  sin  nor 
evil,  could  not  foreknow  or  predestinate  them.  In  truth,  identifying,  as  he  did,  all  things 
with  God,  it  was  not  possible  for  him  to  admit  of  permanent  pain  or  evil  in  the  system, 
without  making  that  Being  a  sharer  in  them.  Hence  his  doctrine,  that  the  punishment 
of  the  damned,  and  even  the  wickedness  of  the  devils  themselves,  will,  some  time  or 
other,  cease,  and  the  blessed  and  the  unblessed  dwell  in  a  state  of  endless  happiness,  dif- 
fering only  in  degree. 

While  thus,  in  his  notion  of  the  final  redemption  even  of  the  demons  and  the  damned, 

*  "  Illos  enim  Latinis  auribiis  accommodando  chaos  simul  Alexandrinum,  quod  plerosque  haclenus  in  Oc- 
■cidente  latuerat.notum  fecit,  ansamque  dedit  ut  cum  theologia  scholastica,  myslica  quoque  extolleret,  rationi 
Bane  et  philosophise  noii  minus  inimica  quam  ilia  ut  supra  dictum." — Brucker.  De  P/iilosopk.  Christianor.  Oc- 
cident.  "  And  thus,"  adds  Brucker,  "  that  philosophic  enthusiasm,  which  the  Oriental  philosophy  brought 
forth  and  Platonism  nursed,  which  Egypt  educated,  Asia  nurtured,  and  the  Greek  church  adopted,  was  intro- 
duced, under  the  pretext  and  authority  of  a  great  apostolic  name,  into  the  Western  churches,  and  there  gave 
rise  to  innumerable  mischiefs." 

t  "  Remarquez  qu'ils  sont  tons  ecct6siastiques  et  leur  philosophie  est  toute  religieuse  et  tote  chr^tienne. 
C'est  la  leur  commun  caractere;  ils  no  font  tous,  sous  ce  rapport,  que  commenter,  cette  belle  phrase  de  Scot 
Erigene,  '  il  n'y  a  pas  deux  6tudes,  I'une  de  la  philosophie,  I'autre  de  la  religion;  ia  vraie  philosophie  est  la 
vraie  religion,  et  la  vraie  religion  est  la  vraie  philosophic.'" — Victor  Cousin,  Cours  de  Philosophie,  torn.  i. 
lecon  9. 

The  original  passage,  here  referred  to,  is  as  follows  :—"  Q.u id  est  aliud  de  philosophia  tractare,  nisi  verse 
religionis,  qua  summa  et  principalis  omnium  rerum  causa  Ueus,  et  humiliter  colilur  et  rationabiliter  inves- 
tigatur,  regulas  exponere  ?  Conficitur  inde  veram  esse  philosophiam  veram  religionem,  conversimque  verum 
religionem  esse  veram  philosophiam." — De  Pradestinatione. 

J  "  Scott  ErigOne  avait  puis6  dans  son  commerce  (avec  les  ecrits  da  Denis  I'Areopagite)  une  foule  d'idiies 
Alexandrines  qu'il  a  dOveloppees  dans  ses  deux  ouvrages  originaux,  I'un  sur  la  Predestination  et  la  Grace, 
I'autre  sur  la  Division  de  Etres.  Ces  idees,  par  leur  analogie  avec  celles  de  S.  Augustin,  entrerent  facilement 
dans  la  circulation,  et  grosso.rent  le  trtsor  de  la  scholastique."— Coastn,  ut  supra. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  mistake  into  which  the  learned  professor  has  here  fallen,  can  only  be  accounted 
for  by  his  not  having  made  himself  acquainted  with  the  works  of  which  he  speaks;  as  it  is  not  possible  for 
two  systems  to  have  less  analogy  with  each  other  than  those  of  St.  Augustine  and  John  Erigena  upon  the 
subject  of  predestination. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  153 

he  revived  one  of  the  heresies  of  Origen,  his  assertion  of  the  power  of  the  human  will, 
and  his  denial  of  the  corruption  of  human  nature,  betrayed  a  coincidence  between  his 
creed  and  that  of  the  heretic  Pelagius,  which  he  in  vain  endeavoured,  by  logical  subtle- 
ties, to  disguise.  He  had,  in  fact,  gathered  from  almost  every  heresy  some  materials  for 
his  philosophy,  and  his  piiiiosophy,  in  turn,  lent  vigour  and  animation  to  effete  heresy. 

Besides  the  labours  of  this  ingenious  man  which  I  have  here  mentioned,  he  entered 
likewise  into  the  controversy  raised,  at  this  period,  respecting  the  manner  in  which  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ  are  present  in  the  sacrament.  The  treatise  written  by  him  upon 
the  subject  no  longer  exists;  but  the  general  opinion  is,  that  he  denied  the  Real  Pre- 
sence; and  the  natural  bent  of  his  mind  to  run  counter  to  prevailing  and  sanctioned  opi- 
nions, renders  it  most  probable  that  such  was  his  view  of  this  now,  tor  the  first  time,  con- 
troverted mystery.  In  stating,  however,  as  he  is  said  to  have  done,  that  the  sacrament 
of  the  Eucharist  is  not  the  "true  body  and  true  blood,"  he  might  have  had  reference 
solely  to  the  doctrine  put  forth  then  recently  by  Paschasius  Radbert,  who  maintained 
that  the  body  present  in  the  Eucharist  was  the  same  carnal  and  palpable  body  which  was 
born  of  the  Virgin,  which  suffered  on  the  cross,  and  rose  from  the  dead;  whereas,  the 
belief  of  the  Catholic  church,  on  this  point  of  doctrine,  has  always  been,  that  the  body 
of  Christ  is  under  the  symbols,  not  corporeally  or  carnally,  but  in  a  spiritual  manner.* 

The  stories  introduced  into  the  general  accounts  of  John  Erigena,  of  his  removing  to 
England  on  the  death  of  his  patron,  Charles  the  Bald,  and  acquiring  a  new  Maecenas  in 
the  person  of  Alfred,  the  great  English  king,  are  all  manifestly  fables;  arising  out  of  a 
confusion,  of  which  William  of  Malmesbury  and  others  availed  themselves,  between  our 
Irish  John — who,  it  is  evident,  remained  in  France  till  he  died, — and  a  monk  from 
Saxony,  much  patronized  by  Alfred,  called  John  of  Atheling.f  At  what  period  Erigena 
died  is  not  clearly  ascertained;  but  it  is  concluded  that  his  death  must  have  occurred 
before  the  year  875,  as  a  letter  written  in  that  year  by  Anastasius,  the  Bibliothecarian, 
speaks  of  him  in  the  past  tense,  as  if  then  dead.|; 

The  space  devoted  here  to  the  account  of  this  extraordinary  person^  will  hardly,  I 
think,  be  deemed  more  than  it  deserves;  since,  in  addition  to  the  honour  derived  to  his 
country  from  the  immense  European  reputation  which  he  acquired,  he  appears  to  have 
been,  in  the  whole  assemblage  of  his  qualities,  intellectual  and  social,  a  perfect  represen- 
tative of  the  genuine  Irish  character,  in  all  its  various  and  versatile  combinations. 
Combining  humour  and  imagination  with  powers  of  shrewd  and  deep  reasoning, — the 
sparkle  upon  the  surface  as  well  as  the  mine  beneath, — he  yet  lavished  both  these  gifts 
imprudently,  exhibiting  on  all  subjects  almost  every  power  but  that  of  discretion.  His 
life,  in  its  social  relations,  seems  to  have  been  marked  by  the  same  characteristic  anoma- 
lies; for  while  the  simplicity  of  his  mind  and  manner,  and  the  festive  play  of  his  wit, 
endeared  him  to  private  friends,  the  daring  heterodoxy  of  his  written  opinions  alarmed 
and  alienated  the  public,  and  rendered  him  at  least  as  much  feared  as  admired. 

Another  Irish  philosopher,  named  Macarius,  who  flourished  in  France  about  this  period, 
is  supposed  by  some  writers  to  have  preceded  the  time  of  Erigena,  but,  more  probably, 
was  either  his  contemporary,  or  came  soon  after  him,  as  the  doctrine  promulgated  in  a 


*  Thus  explained,  in  perfect  consonance,  as  lie  says,  wfth  the  doctrine  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  by  the  cele- 
brated missionary,  Veron: — "  Ergo,  corpus  Christi,  seu  Christus,  est  in  symbolis  spirituali  inodo  seu  spiritu- 
aliter  et  non  corporali  seu  carnali,  nee  corporaliler  seu  carnaliler." — Regula.  Fid.  Cathol.  c.  ii.  sect.  11. 

t  The  antiquary  Leland,  though  following  the  popular  error  in  numbering  John  Scotus  among  those 
learned  men  who  adorned  the  court  of  Alfred,  yet  expressly  distinguishes  him  from  that  Saxon  morTk  with 
whom  Mr.  Turner,  among  others,  has  strangely  confounded  him  : — "  Joannem  monachum  et  Saxonia  trans- 
marina  oriundum,  Joannem  Scotum  qui  Dionysii  hierarchiam  interpretatus  est,  viros  extra  quaestionem 
doctissimos,  in  pretio  et  familiaritate  habuit." — Leland.  Commentar.  cap.  115, 

t  This  long  and  curious  letter  may  be  found  in  Usher's  Sylloge.  '•  It  is  wonderful,"  says  the  Bibliotheca- 
rian, "  how  that  barbarous  man  (who,  placed  at  the  extremity  of  the  world,  might,  in  proportion  as  he  was 
remote  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  be  supposed  to  be  unacquainted  with  other  languages.)  was  able  to  com- 
prehend such  deep  things,  and  to  render  them  in  another  tongue.  I  mean  John  Scotigena,  whom  I  have  beard 
epoken  of  as  a  holy  man  in  every  respect." 

§  I  cannot  resist  the  desire  of  "adding  to  the  other  notices  of  this  Irish  scholar  the  following,  from  an  emi- 
nent German  writer: — "On  place  dans  »n  ordre  beaiicoup  plus  eleve  Jean  Scot,  ne  en  Irelande,  (de  la  son 
surnom  d'Erigene)  homme  fort  lettre,  esprit  philosophique  et  independant,  dont  on  ignore  quelles  furent  les 

resources  pour  atteindre  a  cette  snptriorite On  peut  regarder  comme  des  phenomenes  singuiiers  pour 

son  siecle  ses  connnissances  en  latin  et  en  grec  (quelquesuns  y  joignent  la  langue  araoe)  son  amour  pour 
la  philosophie  dWristote,  sa  traduction,  si  precieuse  en  Occident,  de  D^nys  l' Areopagite,  ses  opinions  franches 
et  eclair^es  dans  les  disputes  de  son  temps  sur  la  predestination  et  I'eucharistie,  sa  maniere  de  considerer  la 
philosophie  comme  la  science  des  principes  de  tonte  chose,  science  qui  ne  peut  etre  distinguee  de  la  religion, 
et  son  systeme  philosophique  renouvol6  du  n^oplatonisme,  oil  domine  ce  principe,— Dieu  est  la  substance  de 
toutes  choses,  elles  decoulent  de  la  plenitude  de  son  etre,  et  retournent  entin  a  lui.  Tous  ces  resultats  si  ex- 
traordinaires  d'eludes  laborieuses,  et  d'une  pens^e  forte  et  originale,  eus=ent  pu  faire  plus  de  bien,  si  leur 
influence  n'eut  ete  arret^e  par  les  proscriptions  de  rorthodoxie."— TVnnejnan,  Manuel  de  I'Hist.  de  la  Phil 

19 


154  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

treatise  ascribed  to  his  pen,  that  "  there  is  but  one  soul  in  all  mankind,"  had  clearly  its 
origin  in  the  emanative  system  of  that  mystic  school  of  philosophy  with  whicii  the  trans- 
lator of  the  pseudo-Dionysius  had,  for  the  first  time,  made  the  Western  Church  ac- 
quainted. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


STATE  OF  LEARNING  AND  THE  ARTS  IN  IRELAND  DURING  THE  SAME  PERIOD. 

In  a  preceding  chapter  of  this  volume  there  has  b"^en  submitted  to  the  reader  most  of 
the  evidence,  as  well  incidental  as  direct,  suggested  by  various  writers,  in  support  of  the 
belief,  that  the  use  of  letters  was  known  to  the  pagan  Irish.  But,  perhaps,  one  of  the 
most  convincing  proofs,  that  they  were  at  least  acquainted  with  this  gift  before  the  time 
when  St.  Patrick  introduced  among  them  the  Christian  doctrine,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
immediate  display  of  mind  and  talent  which  the  impulse  of  that  great  event  produced, — 
in  the  rapidity  with  which  they  at  once  started  forth  as  scholars  and  missionaries,  and 
became,  as  we  have  seen,  the  instructors  of  all  Europe,  at  a  time  when,  according  to 
some,  they  weve  but  rude  learners  themselves.  It  is,  indeed,  far  easier  to  believe — what 
there  is  besides  such  strong  evidence  to  prove — that  the  elements  of  learning  were 
already  known  to  them  when  St.  Patrick  and  his  brother  missionaries  arrived,  than  that 
the  seeds  then  for  the  first  time  sown  should  have  burst  forth  in  so  rich  and  sudden  a 
harvest. 

To  the  question, — Where,  then,  are  any  of  the  writings  of  those  pagan  times?  where 
the  tablets,  the  manuscripts,  even  pretending  to  be  of  so  ancient  a  datel — it  can  only  be 
answered,  that  the  argument  involved  in  this  question  would  apply  with  equal  force  to 
the  two  or  three  centuries  succeeding  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  when,  as  ail  know,  not 
merely  letters,  but  the  precious  fruits  of  those  elements,  literature  and  the  sciences,  had 
begun  to  spring  up  in  Ireland.  And  yet,  of  that  long  and  comparatively  shining  period, 
when  the  schools  of  this  country  attracted  the  attention  of  all  Europe;  when  the  accom- 
plished Cummian  drew  from  thence  his  stores  of  erudition,  and  Columba's  biographer 
acquired  in  them  his  Latin  style;  when  Columbanus  carried  to  Gaul,  from  the  celebrated 
school  of  Banchor,  tliat  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  which  he  afterwards  displayed 
in  his  writings,  and  the  acute  Virgilius  went  forth,  enriched  with  the  various  science 
which  led  him  to  anticipate  the  discovery  of  the  sphericity  of  the  earth; — of  all  that 
period,  in  Ireland,  abounding  as  it  was  in  scholars  and  writers  extraordinary  for  their 
time,  not  a  single  authentic  manuscript  now  remains;  not  a  single  written  relic,  such  as 
ought  to  convince  that  class  of  skeptics  who  look  to  direct  proofs  alone,  that  the  art  of 
writing  even  existed  in  those  days.  The  very  same  causes — the  constant  ravages  of 
invasion  and  tlie  blind  fury  of  internal  dissension* — which  occasioned  the  destruction  and 
loss  of  manuscripts  between  the  time  of  St.  Patrick  and  the  ninth  or  tenth  century,  ac- 
count with  still  stronger  force  for  the  disappearance  of  all  earlier  vestiges  of  writing; 
and,  in  fact,  the  more  recent  and  scanty  at  present  are  the  remains  of  the  acknowledged 
era  of  Irish  literature,  the  more  it  weakens  the  argument  drawn  from  the  want  of  any 
Euch  visible  relics  of  the  ages  preceding  it.f 

*  "  Nee  mirum,"  says  Ware,  in  the  dedication  prefixed  to  liis  account  of  Irish  writers;  "  nam  periisse  liquet 
plurimoriim  notitiani,  iina  cum  niulto  maxima  operum  eorum  parte,  cum  Hibernia  nostra  scditionibus  intes- 
tinis  oppressa,  quasi  miseriarum  diluvio  inundala  fuerit." 

Of  llie  wanton  destruction  ol  Irish  manuscripts  which  took  place  after  the  invasion  of  the  English,  I  shall, 
in  a  suhspqiient  part  of  this  work,  have  occasion  to  speak.  Many  of  these  precious  remains  were,  as  the 
author  of  Cambrensis  Eversus  tells  us,  actually  torn  up  by  boys  for  covers  of  books,  and  by  tailors  for  mea- 
sures:—" Inter  pueros  in  ludis  literariis  ad  librorum  siltibas,  et  inter  sartores  ad  lascinias  pro  vestium  forma 
dimetiendi."  "  It  was  till  the  time  of  James  I.,"  says  Mr.  Webb,  "  an  object  of  government  to  discover  and 
destroy  every  literary  remain  of  the  Irish,  in  order  the  more  fully  to  eradicate  from  their  minds  every  trace 
of  their  ancient  in(\c\te.i]i\c\icc"—Mualysis  of  the  Antiq.  of  Ireland. 

t  The  absurd  reasoning  of  the  opponents  of  Irish  antiquities  on  this  point  has  been  well  exposed  by  the 
English  writer  just  cited:— "The  more  recent  they  can  by  any  means  make  this  date,  the  greater,  in  their 
opinion,  is  the  objection  to  the  authenticity  of  Irish  hiBtory,  and  to  the  pretensions  of  the  national  antiqtia- 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  155 

We  have  seen  that  a  manuscript  copy  of  the  Four  Gospels,  still  extant,  is  said  to  have 
been  written  by  the  hand  of  St,  Columbkill ;  and  to  this  copy  Dr.  O'Connor  triumphantly 
refers,  as  affording  an  irrefragable  answer  to  those  who  deny  the  existence  of  any  Irish 
manuscript  of  an  older  date  than  the  tenth  century.*  But  the  zeal  of  this  amiable  scholar 
in  the  cause  of  his  country's  antiquities,  and  the  facility  with  which,  on  most  points  con- 
nected with  that  theme,  he  adopts  as  proved  what  has  only  been  boldly  asserted,  render 
even  him,  with  all  his  real  candour  and  learning,  not  always  a  trust- worthy  witness;  and 
the  result  of  the  researches  on  this  point,  in  Ireland,  of  one  whose  experience  in  the 
study  of  manuscripts,  combined  with  his  general  learning,  render  him  an  authority  of  no 
ordinary  weight,!  is  that  the  oldest  Irish  manuscript  which  has  been  discovered  in  that 
country,  is  the  Psalter  of  Cashel,  written  in  the  latter  end  of  the  ninth  century. 

For  any  remains,  therefore,  of  our  vernacular  literature  before  that  period,  which  have 
reached  us,  we  are  indebted  to  Tigernach  and  tiie  annalists  preceding  him,  through 
whom  a  few  short  pieces  of  ancient  poetry  have  been  transmitted;  and  to  those  writers 
of  the  tenth  century,  who,  luckily  taking  upon  themselves  the  office  of  compilers,  have 
made  us  acquainted  with  the  contents  of  many  Curious  works  which,  though  extant  in 
their  times,  have  since  been  lost.  Among  the  fragments  transmitted  through  the  anna- 
lists are  some  distichs  by  the  arch-poet  Dubtach,  one  of  St.  Patrick's  earliest  converts, 
the  antiquated  idiom  of  which  is  accounted,  by  Irish  scholars,  to  be  in  itself  a  sufficient 
proof  of  their  authenticity.^  A  few  other  fragments  from  poets  of  that  period  have  been 
preserved  by  the  same  trust-worthy  chronicler;  and  it  appears  on  the  whofe  highly  pro- 
bable, that  while  abroad,  as  we  have  seen,  such  adventurous  Irishmen  as  Pelagius  and 
Cselestius  were  entering  into  the  lists  with  the  great  champions  of  orthoctoxy, — while 
Sedulius  was  taking  his  place  among  the  later  Latin  classics, — there  were  also,  in  Ire- 
land itself,  poets,  or  Fileas,  employing  their  native  language,  and  either  then  recently 
quickened  into  exertion  by  the  growing  intercourse  of  their  country  with  the  rest  of 
Europe,  or  forming  but  links,  perhaps,  of  a  long  bardic  succession  extending  to  remote 
times. 

According  as  we  descend  the  stream  of  his  Annals,  the  metrical  fragments  Cited  by 
Tigernach  become  more  numerous;  and  a  poet  of  the  seventh  century,  Cenfaelad,  fur- 
nishes a  number  of  these  homely  ornaments  of  his  course.  The  singular  fate  of  the 
monarch,  Murcertach,  who,  in  the  year  534,  was  drowned  in  a  hogshead  of  wine,  seems 
to  have  formed  a  favourite  theme  with  the  poets,  as  no  less  tlian  three  short  pieces  of 
verse  on  this  subject  have  been  preserved  by  the  annalists,  written  respectively  by  the 
three  poets,  Cernach,  Sin,  and  Cenfaelad.  In  these,  as  in  all  the  other  fragments  as- 
signed to  that  period,  there  is  to  be  found,  as  the  learned  editor  of  the  Irish  Chronicles 
informs  us,  a  peculiar  idiom  and  structure  of  verse,  which  denotes  them  to  be  of  the  early 
date  to  which  they  are  assigned.  It  would  appear,  indeed,  that  the  modern  contrivance 
of  rhyme,  which  is  generally  supposed  to  have  had  a  far  other  source,  may  be  traced  to 
its  origin  in  the  ancient  rans  or  rins,  as  they  termed  their  stanzas,  of  the  Irish.  The 
able  historian  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  in  referring  to  some  Latin  verses  of  Aldhelm,  which 
he  appears  to  consider  as  the  earliest  specimen  of  rhynre  now  extant,  professes  himself  at 
a  loss  to  discover  whence  that  form  of  verse  could  have  been  derived. 5  But  already, 
before  the  time  of  Aldhelm,  the  use  of  rhyme  had  been  familiar  among  the  Irish,  as  well 
in  their  vernacular  verses  as  in  those  which  they  wrote  in  Latin.  Not  to  dwell  on  such 
instances,  in  the  latter  language,  as  the  Hymns  of  St.  Columba,  respecting  whose 
authenticity  there  may  be  some  question,  an  example  of  Latin  verses  interspersed  with 
rhyme  is  to  be  found  among  the  poems  of  St.  CoIumbanus,||  which  preceded  those  of 

rians  to  an  early  use  of  letters  among  their  countrymen."  He  afterwards  adds:—"  If  we  possess  so  few  Irish 
manuscripts,  written  before  the  twelfth  century,  it  is  plain  tliat,  by  adducing  this  circumstance,  they  the 
more  clearly  ascertain  the  extent  of  those  disturbances  which  destroyed  every  historical  record  prior  to  the 
tenth,  and  which  must  have  been  far  more  effectual  in  causing  to  perish  every  remain  of  the  fiftli  age." — Id. 

*  After  quoting  Usher's  account  of  the  Kells  manuscript.  Dr.  O'Connor  says  :— 

"  Habemus  itaque,  ex  indubitata;  fidei  scriptoribus  ad  nostra  fere  tempora  extitisse  antiquiss?mus  codices, 
characteribus  Hibernicis  scriptos,  qui  longo  ante  seculum  decimum  exarati  fuere  ;  ita  ut  a  veritateplurimum 
abesse  consendi  sunt  qui  nullum  ante  seculum  X.  codicem  characteribus  Hibernicis  scriptum  extare  opinan- 
tur,"— fier.  Hib.  Script.  Ep.  j^unc. 

t  Astle,  Origin  and  Progress  of  Writrng. 

t  "Carminis  antiquitatem  indicant  phrases  jam  obsolette,  et  a  recentiorum  idiomate  aliens." — Ep. 
J^Tunc.  cv. 

§  "  Here,  then,"  says  Mr.  Turner,  "  is  an  example  of  rhyme  in  an  author  who  lived  before  the  year  700,  and 
he  was  an  Anglo-Saxon.  Whence  did  he  derive  it  ?  Not  front  the  Arabs :  they  had  not  yet  reached 
Europe." 

II  Beginning, 

"  Mundus  iste  transit  et  quotidie  decrescit: 
Nemo  vivens  manebit,  nullus  vivus  remansit." 

Though  the  rhymes,  or  conincideht  sounds,  occur  thus,  in  general,  bn  the  final  syllable,  there  are  instances 
throughout  the  poem  of  complete  double  rhymes.    As,  foi'  instance, 


156  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Aldhelm  by  near  Haifa  century.  So  far  back,  indeed,  as  the  fifth  century,  another  Irish 
poet,  Sedulius,  had,  in  some  of  the  verses  of  his  well-known  hymn  on  the  Life  of  Christ, 
left  a  specimen  of  much  the  same  sort  of  rhyme.*  As  practised  most  generally,  in  their 
own  language,  by  the  Irish,  this  method  consisted  in  rhyming  at  every  hemistich,  or,  ia 
other  words,  making  the  syllable  in  the  middle  of  the  line  rhyme  to  that  of  the  end ; 
much  in  the  manner  of  those  verses  called,  in  the  twelfth  century.  Leonine,  from  the 
name  of  the  writer  who  had  best  succeeded  in  them.  According  to  this  "art  of  the 
Irish,"t  as  it  was  styled,  most  of  the  distichs  preserved  by  Tigernach  from  the  old  poets 
were  constructed ;  and  it  is  plain  that  Aldhelm,  whose  instructor,  Maidulph,  was  a  native 
of  Ireland,  must  have  derived  his  knowledge  of  this,  as  well  as  of  all  other  literary  ac- 
complishments of  that  day,  from  the  lips  of  his  learned  master.  How  nearly  bordering 
on  jealousy  was  his  own  admiration  of  the  schools  of  the  Irish  has  been  seen  in  the  sar- 
castic letter  addressed  by  him  to  Eaghfrid,  who  had  just  returned  from  a  course  of  six 
years'  study  in  that  country,  overflowing,  as  it  would  appear,  with  gratitude  and  praise. 

In  its  infant  state,  poetry  has  been  seldom  separated  from  music;  and  it  is  probable 
that  most  of  the  stanzas  cited  by  the  annalist  were  meant  originally  to  be  associated  with 
song.  Of  some  of  the  juvenile  works  of  St.  Columbanus  we  are  told,  that  they  were 
"  worthy  of  being  sung;"t  and  a  scene  brought  vividly,  in  a  few  words,  before  our  eyes, 
by  the  Irish  biographer  of  Columba,  represents  that  holy  man  as  sitting,  along  with  his 
brethren,  upon  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  lake  Kee,^  while  among  them  was  a  poet 
skilled,  we  are  told,  in  modulating  song  to  verse,  "after  the  manner  of  his  art."||  That 
it  was  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  stringed  instrument,  called  the  Cruit,  they  performed 
these  songs  or  chants,  appears  to  be  the  most  general  opinion.  In  some  distichs  on  the 
death  of  Columba,  preserved  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  MastersH,  we  find  mention  of 
this  kind  of  harp**  in  rather  a  touching  passage : — "  Like  a  song  of  the  cruit  without  joy, 
is  the  sound  that  follows  our  master  to  the  tomb ;"  and  its  common  use  in  the  eighth 
century,  as  an  accompaniment  to  the  voice,  may  be  implied  from  Bede's  account  of  the 
religious  poet  Ceadmon,  who,  in  order  to  avoid  taking  a  part  in  the  light  songs  of  society, 
always  rose,  as  he  tells  us,  from  table  when  the  harp  was  sent  round,  and  it  came  to  his 
turn  to  sing  and  play.  The  Italians,  who  are  known  to  have  been  in  possession  of  the 
harp  before  the  time  of  Dante,  are,  by  a  learned  musician  of  their  own  country,  Galilei, 
said  to  have  derived  it  from  Ireland;  the  instrument,  according  to  his  account,  being  no 
other  than  a  cilhara  with  many  strings,  and  having,  at  the  time  when  he  wrote,  four 
octaves  and  a  tone  in  compass. 

How  little  music,  though  so  powerful  in  its  influence  on  the  feelings,  either  springs 

"  Dilexerunt  tenebras  tetras  magis  quam  lucem; 
Imitari  contemniint  vitre  Doininuin  Ducem, 
Velut  in  somnis  regnent,  una  liora  Ia?tantur, 
Sed  aeterna  tormenta  adhuc  illis  paranlur." 

*  The  following  lines  from  this  hymn  will  afford  a  specimen  of  the  Irish  method  of  rhyming  :— 

"A  solis  ortus  cardine,  ad  usque  terra;  limited, 
Christum  canamus  principein — natum  Maria  virginc." 

But  it  is  still  more  correctly  exemplified  in  a  hymn  in  honour  of  St.  Brigid,  written,  as  some  say,  by 
Columbkill ;  but,  according  to  others,  by  St.  Ultaii  of  Ardbraccan.    See  Usher,  Eccles.  Primord.  963. 

"  Christum  in  nostra  insula — qua;  vocatur  Ilibernia, 
Oslensusest  hominites— maximis  mirubiliijjs,"  &,c. 

t  From  the  following  account  of  the  metrical  structure  of  Irish  verse  it  will  be  seen  that  it  was  peculiarly 
such  as  a  people  of  strong  musical  feeling  (and  with  whom  the  music  was  the  chief  object)  would  be  likely 
to  invent  and  practise  :— 

"  The  rhymth  consists  in  an  equal  distance  of  intervals,  and  similar  terminations,  each  line  being  divisible 
into  two,  that  it  may  be  more  easily  accommodated  to  the  voice  and  the  music  of  the  bards.  It  is  not  formed 
by  the  nice  collocation  of  long  and  short  syllables,  but  by  a  certain  harmonic  rhythm,  adjusted  to  the  voice  of 
Bong  by  the  position  of  words  which  touch  the  heart  and  assist  the  memory."— Essay  by  Dr.  Drummond, 
Trans,  of  Royal  Irish  .acacl.  vol.  xvi. 

X  "  Ad  canendum  digna," — so  pronounced  by  his  biographer  Jonas. 

8  In  the  county  of  Roscommon. 

11  Alio  in  tempore  S.  Columba,  cum  juxta  stagnum  Cei,  propc  ostium  fluminis  quod  Latine  Bos  dicitur  (i.  e. 
the  Boyle  river)  die  aliqua  cum  fratrihus  soderot.  quidam  ad  eos  Scoticus  poeta  devenit.  Qui  cum  recessisset, 
Fratres  ad  Sanctum,  cur,  inquiuiit,  aliquod  ex  more  sute  artis,  canlicum  non  postulasti  modulabiliter  decan- 
tari. — Adamnan.  lib.  i.  c.  42. 

II  Ad  ann.  593.    Written  by  Dalian  Feargall,  and  thus  translated  by  Dr.  O'Connor:— 

Est  medicina  mcdici  absque  remedio— est  Dei  decretum  limor  cum  moerore. 

Est  carmen  cum  cythara  sine  gaudio— sonus  scquens  nostrum  Ducem  ad  sepulchrum. 

**  Of  this  instrument,  tbe  harp,  the  Irish  are  said  to  have  had  four  different  species;  the  clarseach,  the 
keirnine,  the  cronar  criiil,  and  tho  croamtheine  emit;  for  all  of  which  see  Walker,  Hist.  Mem.  of  Irish  Bards, 
Beauford,  ibid.,  Jlppeiidix,  and  Ledwich's  Jtntiquilie.<!.  What  Montfaucon,  however,  says  of  the  different 
names  given  to  the  lyre,  among  the  ancients,  may  also,  perhaps,  be  applicable  lierc :—"  Among  this  great 
diversity  I  cannot  but  think  the  same  instrument  iiiust  often  be  signified  by  different  names." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  J 57 

from,  or  is  dependent  upon,  intellect,  appears  from  the  fact,  that  some  of  the  most  exqui- 
site  effusions  of  this  art  have  had  their  origin  among  the  simplest  and  most  uncultivated 
people ;  nor  can  all  that  taste  and  science  bring  afterwards  to  the  task  do  more,  in  gene- 
ral, than  diversify,  by  new  combinations,  those  first  wild  strains  of  gaiety  or  passion  into 
which  nature  had  infused  her  original  inspiration.  In  Greece  the  sweetness  of  the 
ancient  music  had  already  been  lost,  when  all  the  other  arts  were  but  on  their  way  to 
perfection  ;*  and  from  the  account  given  by  Giraldus  Cambrensisf  of  the  Irish  harpers  of 
the  twelfth  century,!  't  may  be  inferred  that  the  melodies  of  the  country,  at  the  earlier 
period  of  which  we  are  speaking,  was  in  some  degree  like  the  first  music  of  the  infant 
age  of  Greece,  and  partook  of  the  freshness  of  that  morning  of  mind  and  hope  which  was 
then  awakening  around  them. 

With  respect  to  the  structure  of  the  ancient  Irish  harp,  there  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  any  thing  accurately  ascertained;  but,  from  that  retentiveness  of  all  belonging  to 
the  past  which  we  have  shown  to  have  characterized  this  people,  it  appears  most  pro- 
bable that  their  favourite  instrument  was  kept  sacredly  unaltered;  and  remained  the 
same  perhaps  in  later  times,  when  it  charmed  the  ears  of  English  poets  and  philoso- 
phers,5  as  when  it  had  been  modulated  by  the  bard  Cronan,  in  the  sixth  century,  upon 
the  banks  of  the  lake  Kee. 

It  would  appear  that  the  church  music,  likewise,  of  the  Irish,  enjoyed  no  inconsiderable 
repute  in  the  seventh  century,  as  we  find  Gertrude,  the  daughter  of  the  potent  Maire  du 
Palais,  Pepin,  sending  to  Ireland  for  persons  qualified  to  instruct  the  nuns  of  the  Abbey 
of  Nivelle  in  psalmody  ;||  and  the  great  monastery  of  Bangor,  or  Benchoir,  near  Carrick- 
fergus,  is  supposed,  by  Ware,  to  have  derived  its  name  from  the  White  Choir  which 
belonged  to  it. IT  A  certain  sect  of  antiquarians,  whose  favourite  object  it  is  to  prove 
that  the  Irish  church  was  in  no  respect  connected  with  Rome,  have  imagined  some  mode 
by  which,  through  the  medium  of  Asiatic  missionaries,  her  Chant  of  Psalmody  miffht 
have  been  derived  to  her  directly  from  the  Greeks.  But  their  whole  hypothesis  is  shown 
to  be  a  train  of  mere  gratuitous  assumption;  and  it  is  little  doubted  that,  before  the  in- 
troduction of  the  Latin,  or  Gregorian  Chant,  by  St.  Malachy,  which  took  place  in  the 
twelfth  century,  the  style  of  music  followed  by  the  Irish,  in  their  church  service,  was 
that  which  had  been  introduced  by  St.  Patrick  and  his  companions  from  Gaul.** 

The  religious  zeal  which,  at  this  period,  covered  the  whole  island  with  monasteries  and 
churches,  had  not,  in  the  materials  at  least  of  architecture,  introduced  any  chanwe  or 
improvement.     Stone  structures  were  still  unknown;  and  tlie  forest  of  oak  which,°from 

*  See  Anacliarsis,  chap.  27.  notes  v.  vii  "It  is  remarkable,"  says  Wood,  "that  the  old  chaste  Greek 
melody  was  lost  in  refinement  before  their  other  arts  had  acquired  perfection." — Essay  on  Homer. 

t  Topograph.  Vist.  3.  c.  11.  This  curious  passage,  which  appears,  though  confusedly,  even  to  imply  that  the 
Irish  were  acquainted  with  counterpoint,  is  prefaced  by  a  declaration  that  in  their  music  alone  does  he  find 
any  thing  to  commend  in  that  people: — "  In  musicis  solum  instrumentis  commendabilem  invenio  genlis  istce 
diligentiam."  The  passage  in  question  is  thus  translated  in  Mr.  Walkers  Hist.  Mem.  of  the  Irish  Bards:— 
"  It  is  wonderful  how,  in  such  precipitate  rapidity  of  the  fingers,  the  musical  proportions  are  preserved  ;  and 
by  their  art,  faultless  throughout,  in  the  midst  of  their  complicated  modulations,  and  most  intricate  arrange- 
ment of  notes,  by  a  rapidity  so  sweet,  a  regularity  so  irregular,  a  concord  so  discordant,  the  melody  is  ren- 
dered harmonious  and  perfect,  whether  the  chords  of  the  diatesseron  or  diapente  are  struck  together;  yet  they 
always  begin  in  a  soft  mood,  and  end  in  the  same,  that  all  maybe  perfect  in  the  sweetness  of' delicious 
sounds.  They  enter  on,  and  again  leave,  their  modulations  with  so  much  subtility,  and  the  tinglings  of  the 
small  strings  sport  with  so  much  freedom,  under  the  deep  notes  of  the  bass,"  &c.  &c. 

"  Mirura  quod  in  tanta  tarn  prfficipiti  digitorum  capacitate  musica  servatur  proportio:  et  arte  per  omnia 
indemni  inter  crispatos  modules,  organaque  multipliciter  intricnta,  tam  suavi  velocitate,  tam  dispari  pari- 
tate,  tam  discordi  concordia  consona  redditur  et  completur  melodia,  seu  diatesseron  seu  diapente  chordce 
concrepent.  Semper  tamen  ab  molli  incipiunt  et  in  idem  redeunt,  ut  cuncta  sub  jucundas  sonoritatis  dulce- 
dine  compleantur.  Tam  subtiliter  modulos  intrant  et  exeunt;  sicque  sub  obtuso  grossioris  chordaj  sonitii, 
gracilium  tinnitus  licentius  ludunt,"  &c.  &c. —  Topograph.  Hibern.  dist.  3.  cap.  11. 

X  "  Even  so  late  as  the  eleventh  century,"  says  Warton,  "  the  practice  continued  among  the  Welsh  bards 
of  receiving  instructions  in  the  Bardic  profession  from  Ireland." — Hist,  of  English  Poetry. 

§  Alluding  to  such  tributes  as  the  following:— 

"  The  Irish  I  admire 
And  still  cleave  to  that  lyre, 

As  our  muse's  mother  ; 
And  think,  till  I  expire, 

Apollo's  such  another," — Drayton- 

"  The  harp,"  says  Bacon,  "hath  the  concave  not  along  the  strings,  but  across  the  strings;  and  no  harp 
hath  the  sound  so  melting  and  prolonged  as  the  Irish  harp."— Sjto.  Sylvar.  See  also  Seldon's  Notes  on 
Drayton's  Polyolbion. 

The  following  is  from  Evelyn's  Journal :— "Came  to  see  my  old  acquaintance,  and  the  most  incomparable 

player  on  the  Irish  harp,  Mr.  Clarke,  after  his  travels Such  music  before  or  since  did  I  never  hear,  that 

instrument  being  neglected  for  its  extraordinary  difficulty  ;  but  in  my  judgment  far  superior  to  the  lute  itself, 
or  whatever  speaks  with  strings." 

II  "Poor  instruire  la  communaute  dans  la  chant  des  Pseaumes  et  la  meditation  des  choses  saintes."— 
Quoted  from  Fleury  by  D'Alton,  Essay,  210. 

IT  According  to  O'Halloran  and  Dr.  O'Connor,  the  name  Benn-Choir  signifies  Sweet  Choir. 

**  See,  on  this  subject,  Lanigan,  chap.  x.\vi.  note  46. 


15S  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

old  heathen  associations,  had  suggested  the  site  of  the  church,  furnished  also  the  rude 
material  of  which  it  was  constructed.  In  some  few  instances  these  wooden  edifices  were 
encircled  by  an  enclosure  of  stone,  called  a  casiol,  like  that  which  Bade  describes  as  sur- 
rounding a  chapel  erected  on  Holy  Island  by  St.  Cuthbert.  The  first  churches,  indeed, 
of  Northumbria  were  all  constructed  of  wood;  and  that  of  St.  Finan,  the  Irish  bishop,  at 
Lindisfarn,  was,  as  we  are  told,  built  after  "  the  fashion  of  his  country,  not  of  stone,  but 
of  split  oak,  and  covered  with  reeds."* 

When  such  was  the  rude  simplicity  of  their  ecclesiastical  architecture,  it  may  be  con- 
cluded that  their  dwellings  were  still  more  homely  and  frail ;  and  in  this,  as  in  most  of 
the  other  arts  of  life,  their  slow  progress  may  be  ascribed  mainly  to  their  civil  institu- 
tions. Where  possessions  were  all  temporary,  the  natural  motive  to  build  durably  was 
wanting.  Instead  of  being  brought  together,  too,  in  cities,  where  emulation  and  mutual 
interchange  of  mind  would  have  been  sure  to  lead  to  improvement,  the  separate  clans  of 
the  Irish  sat  down,  each  in  its  hereditary  canton,  seldom  meeting  but  in  the  field,  as  fel- 
low-combatants, or  as  foes.  In  this  respect,  the  religious  zeal  which  now  universally 
prevailed  supplied,  in  some  degree,  the  place  of  industry  and  commerce;  and,  among  the 
many  civilizing  effects  of  the  monastic  institutions,  it  was  not  the  least  useful  that,  where- 
ever  established,  they  were  the  means  of  attracting  multitudes  around  them,  and,  by 
examples  of  charity  and  self-denial,  inspiring  thenl  with  better  motives  than  those  of 
clanship  for  mutual  dependence  and  concert.  The  community  collected,  by  degrees, 
around  the  Oak  of  St.  Brigid,  at  Kildare,  grew  at  length  into  a  large  and  flourishing 
town;  and  even  the  solitary  cell  of  St.  Kevin,  among  the  mountains,  drew  around  it,  by 
degrees,  such  a  multitude  of  dwellings  as,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  form  a  holy  city  in 
the  wilderness.! 

With  regard  to  our  evidenoe  of  the  state  of  agriculture,  at  this  period,  the  language 
employed,  on  such  subjects,  in  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  our  only  sources  of  information,  is 
too  vague  and  general  to  afford  any  certain  knowledge.  The  tending  of  sheep  was,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  task  assigned  to  St.  Patrick  during  his  servitude;  and  it  is,  indeed, 
most  probable  that  pasturage  was  then,  as  it  continued  for  many  centuries  after,  the 
chief  employment  of  the  people.J  The  memorable  "  Earn,"  however,  of  the  apostle's 
friend  Dicho,  implies  obviously  the  practice  of  hoarding  grain;  and  from  an  account 
given,  in  the  annals  for  the  year  650,  of  a  murder  which  took  place  in  "the  bake-house 
of  a  mill,"  it  would  appear  that  water-millsj  had  already  been  brought  into  use  at  that 
time.  II  There  is,  indeed,  mention  made,  in  one  of  the  Brehon  Laws,1[  though  of  what 
period  seems  uncertain,  both  of  carpenters  and  millwrights. 

Another  of  these  Irish  Laws,  said  to  be  of  great  antiquity,  shows  that  the  practice  of 
irrigating  lands  must  have  been  in  use  when  it  was  enacted:  as  it  thus  regulates  the 
common  right  in  the  water: — "  According  to  the  Fenechas,  the  common  right  of  drawn 
water  belongs  to  the  land  from  which  it  is  drawn.  It  is  therefore  that  all  require  that 
it  shall  run  freely  the  first  day  over  the  entire  land.  For  right  in  the  water  belongs  to 
none  but  in  the  land  from  which  it  is  drawn."** 

The  biographer  of  St.  Columba,  besides  employing  the  terms  ploughing  and  sowing, 
mentions  as  the  result,  on  one  occasion,  of  the  abbot's  prayers  and  intercessions,  that  they 
had  an  abundant  harvest.  The  discipline  of  the  monks,  enjoining  herbs  and  pulseft  as 
their  chief  food,  would  lead  to  the  culture  of  such  productions  in  their  gardens.  The 
mention  of  honey-comb,  too,  as  part  of  the  monastic  diet,  concurs,  with  some  curious 
early  laws  on  the  subject, Jl  to  prove  their  careful  attention  to  the  rearing  of  bees;  and 

*  Tn 'insula  Lindisfainensi  fecit  ecclesiam  episcopali  sede  congruain,  quam  tamcn  more  Scotorum  non 
de  lapiric  sed  de  robore  SGCto  totam  composuit  atque  arundine  texit. — Bedc,  lib.  3.  cap.  25. 

t  "In  ip.so  loco  clara  et  religiosa  civitas  in  lionore  S.  Coenigeni  (Kevin)  crevit  quiE  nomine  prfedictffi  vallis 
in  qua  ipsa  list  Gleandaloch  vocatur."— Q,uoted  by  Usher,  from  a  life  of  St.  Kebin,  Eccles.  Primord.  956. 

X  It  was  for  this  reason  that  they  appeared  to  Giraldus  as  not  yet  in  his  time  emerged  from  the  pastoral 
life: — "Gens  agriculturffi  labores  aspernans,  a  primo  pastoralis  vilcE  Vivendi  raodo  non  recedens."  That 
Spenser  held  it  to  be  no  less  a  cause  than  a  sign  of  the  want  of  civilization,  appears  from  the  following  strong 
sentence:—"  To  say  truth,  though  Ireland  be  by  nature  accounted  a  great  soil  of  pasture,  yet  had  I  rather 
have  fewer  cows  kept,  and  men  better  mannered,  than  to  have  such  huge  increase  of  cattle,  and  no  increase 
of  good  conditions,  I  would,  therefore,  wish  that  there  were  some  ordinances  made  amongst  them,  that  who- 
soever keepeth  twenty  kine  should  keep  a  plough  going  ;  for,  otherwise,  all  men  would  fall  to  pasturage,  and 
none  to  husbandry."  — Kicw  of  the  State  of  Ireland. 

§  Annal.  iv.  Mag.  ad  ann.  (HT.— See  Dr.  O'Connor's  note  on  the  passage. 

II  The  introduction  of  water-mills  into  the  British  Isles  is  attributed,  by  Whitaker,  to  the  Romans;  and 
from  hence,  he  says,  this  sort  of  mill  is  called  Melin  in  the  British,  and  Muilan  or  J\luiland  in  the  Irish. 

IT  Collectan.  Hibcrn.  No,  I. 

**  O'Reilly  on  the  Brehon  Laws,  Trans.  Royal  Irish  Academy,  vol.  xiv. 

tt  "  Cibus  sit  villis  ct  vespertinus  monachOriini,  satietatem  fugiens  et  potus  ebrietatem,  ut  et  sustineat  et 
non  noceat.    Olera,  legumina,  farinoe  aquis  nii.\t;p,"  &c.—Columba7i.  Reg.  cap.  3. 

\X  "  Whoever  plunders  or  steals  bees  from  out  a  garden  or  fort  is  subject  to  a  like  penalty  as  if  he  steal 
them  out  of  a  habitation,  for  these  are  ordained  of  equal  penally  By  law."    Again,  "  Bees  in  an  enclosure,  or 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  159 

not  only  apple-trees,  but  even  vines,  arc  said  to  have  been  cultivated  by  the  inmates  of 
the  monasteries. 

Of  the  skill  of  the  workers  in  various  metals  at  this  period,  as  well  as  of  the  lapidaries 
and  painters,  we  are  told  wonders  by  the  hagiologists,  who  expatiate  at  length  on  the 
staff  of  St.  Patrick,  covered  with  gold  and  precious  stones,  the  tomb  of  St.  Brigid  at 
Kildare,  surmounted  by  crowns  of  gold  and  silver,  and  the  walls  of  the  church  at  the 
same  place,  adorned  with  holy  paintings.  But  it  is  plain  that  all  this  luxury  of  religious 
ornament,  as  well  as  those  richly  illuminated  manuscripts  which  Dr.  O'Connor  and  others 
have  described,  must  all  be  referred  to  a  somewhat  later  period. 

Of  the  use  of  war-chariots  among  the  Irish,*  in  the  same  manner  as  among  the  Britons 
and  the  Greeks,  some  notice  has  already  been  taken;  and  this  sort  of  vehicle  was  em- 
ployed also  by  the  ancient  Irish  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  travelling.  The  self-devo- 
tion of  St.  Patrick's  charioteer  has  made  him  memorable  in  our  history;  and  both  St. 
Brigid  and  Columba  performed  their  progresses,  we  are  told,  in  the  same  sort  of  carriage. 
There  is  also  a  canon  of  the  synod  attributed  to  St.  Patrick,  which  forbids  a  monk  to 
travel  from  one  town  to  another,  in  the  same  chariot  with  a  female.f 

Reference  has  been  made,  in  the  course  of  this  chapter,  to  the  early  Brehon  Laws,  and 
could  we  have  any  dependence  on  the  date  assigned  to  such  of  these  laws  as  have  been 
published,  or  even  on  the  correctness  of  the  translations  given  of  them,  they  would  un- 
questionably be  very  important  documents.  Of  those  published  by  Vallancey  it  has  been 
pronounced,  by  a  writer  not  over-credulous,|  that  they  bear  strong  internal  marks  of 
antiquity;  and  while  the  comment  on  the  several  laws  is  evidently,  we  are  told,  the 
work  of  some  Christian  juris-consults,  the  laws  themselves  wear  every  appearance  of 
being  of  ancient,  if  not  of  Pagan,  times.  No  mention  occurs  in  them  of  foreigners,  or  of 
foreign  septs,  in  Ireland.  The  regulations  they  contain  for  the  barter  of  goods,  and  for 
the  payment  of  fines  by  cattle  and  other  commodities,  mark  a  period  when  coin  had  not 
yet  come  into  general  use;  while  the  more  modern  date  of  the  Comment,  it  is  said,  is 
manifested  by  its  substituting,  for  such  primitive  modes  of  payment,  gold  and  silver  taken 
by  weight.  Mention  is  made  in  them,  also,  of  the  Taltine  Games  and  the  Convocation 
of  the  States;  and  it  is  forbidden,  under  the  pain  of  an  Eric,  to  imprison  any  person  for 
debt  during  these  meetings. 

With  the  single  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  absence  of  any  allusion  to  foreigners,  there 
.  is  not  one  of  these  alleged  marks  of  anticjuity  that  would  not  suit  equally  well  with  the 
state  and  condition  of  Ireland  down  to  a  period  later,  by  many  centuries,  than  that  at 
which  we  are  arrived ;  the  payment  by  cattle  and  the  law  of  the  Eric  having  been  re- 
tained, as  we  shall  find,  to  a  comparatively  recent  date. 

With  respect  to  the  manner  in  which  the  Irish  laws  were  delivered  down,  whether 
in  writing  or  by  tradition,  there  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion;  and  the  poet 
Spenser,  in  general  well  informed  on  Irish  subjects,  declares  the  Brehon  Law  to  be  "  a 
rule  of  right  unwritten."  Sir  John  Davies,  too,  asserts  that  "  its  rules  were  learned 
rather  by  tradition  than  by  reading."  This  is  evidently,  however,  an  erroneous  repre- 
sentation. Without  referring  to  the  Collections  of  Judgments,  or  Codes  of  Laws,  which 
are  said  to  have  been  compiled  under  some  of  the  heathen  princes,  we  find,  after  the 
introduction  of  Christianity,  the  Great  Code,  or  Seanchas-More,  as  it  was  called,  drawn 
up  with  the  aid,  according  to  some  writers,  of  St.  Patrick,^  but  supposed  by  others  to 
have  been  of  a  much  later  date. 

In  the  seventh  century,  a  body  of  the  laws  of  the  country  was  compiled  and  digested, 
we  are  told,  from  the  scattered  writings  of  former  lawyers,  by  three  learned  brothers,  the 
sons  of  O'Burechan,  of  whom  one  was  a  judge,  the  second  a  bishop,  and  the  third  a  poet.|| 
The  great  number,  indeed,  of  Irish  manuscripts  still  extant,  on  the  subject  of  the  Brehon 
Laws,  sufficiently  refutes  the  assertion  of  Spenser  and  others,  that  these  laws  were  deli- 
vered down  by  tradition  alone.  In  the  very  instance,  mentioned  by  Sir  John  Davies,  of 
the  aged  Brehon  whom  he  met  within  Fermanagh,  the  information  given  reluctantly  by 
this  old  man,  respecting  a  point  of  local  law,  was  gained  by  reference  to  an  ancient 

fort,  and  in  a  garden,  are  of  the  same  account  (as  to  property,  penalty,  &c.)  as  the  wealth,  or  substance  of  a 
habitation."  Extracted  from  inedited  Brehon  Laws,  in  an  Essay  on  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  Gardening  in 
Ireland,  by  J.  C.Walker.    See  Antholos.  Hibern.,  vol.  i.,  and  Trans.  Royal  Acad.  vol.  iv. 

*  The  king  of  the  Irish  Crutheni,  or  Picts,  is  described  by  Adamnan  as  escaping  from  the  field  of  battle  in 
a  chariot : — "  Quemadmodum  victus  currui  insidensevaserit." 

t  Monachus  et  virgo  ...  in  uno  curru  a  villa  in  villam  non  discurrant. 

t  Leland,  Hist,  of  Ireland,  Preliminary  Discourse. 

§  Anno  Christi  438  et  regis  Leogarii  decimo,  vetustis  codicibus  allisque  antiquis  Hiberniffi  rnonumenlia 
undique  conquisitis,  et  ad  unum  locum  congregatis,  Hiberniw  Antiquitates  et  Sanctiones  Legales  S.  Fatricii 
authoritate  repurgatm  et  conscripta3  suul.—Mnnal.  Mag.  IF', 

II  Ware's  Writers,  chap.  iv. 


160  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

parchment  roll,  "  written  in  fair  Irish  character,"  which  the  Brehon  carried  about  with 
him  always  in  his  bosom.*  The  truth  appears  to  be,  that  both  tradition  and  writing  were 
employed  concurrently  in  preserving  these  laws;  the  practice  of  oral  delivery  being 
still  retained  after  the  art  of  writing  them  down  was  known;  and  a  custom  which  tended 
much  to  perpetuate  this  mode  of  tradition,  was  the  duty  imposed  upon  every  Filea,  or 
Royal  Poet,  to  learn  by  heart  the  Brehon  Law,  in  order  to  be  able  to  assist  the  memory 
of  the  judge.f 

On  the  whole,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  claims  to  a  high  antiquity  of  the  nume- 
rous remains  of  the  Brehon  Law  that  have  come  down  to  us,  of  the  immemorial  practice 
of  this  form  of  jurisprudence  among  the  ancient  Irish,  and  of  the  fond,  obstinate  reverence 
with  which,  long  after  they  had  passed  under  the  English  yoke,  they  still  continued  to 
cling  to  it,  there  exists  not  the  slightest  doubt.  In  the  fifth  century,  the  Brehons  were 
found  by  St.  Patrick  dispensing  their  then  ancient  laws  upon  the  hills;  and,  more  than  a 
thousand  years  after,  the  law-officers  of  Britain  found  in  the  still  revered  Brehon  the 
most  formidable  obstacle  to  their  plans. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Invasion  of  Ireland  by  the  Danes. — Supposed  intercourse  with  the  Northern  Nations  at  an 
early  period. — The  Black  Strangers  and  the  White  Strangers. — Reign  of  King  Niell  of  the 
Showers. — Battle  of  Almhain. — State  of  Ireland  at  this  period. — Weakness  of  the  monar- 
chy.— Increasing  strength  of  the  Throne  of  Munster. — Causes  of  both. — Reign  of  the 
Monarch  Aidus. — Devastations  of  the  Danes. — Political  connexion  of  the  Irish  Kings  with 
Charlemagne. — Inroads  of  the  monarch  into  Leinster. 

According  to  the  most  trust-worthy  of  English  records,!  it  was  in  the  year  787  that 
those  formidable  pirates  of  the  north  of  Europe,  known  by  the  general  name  of  Danes, 
made,  for  the  first  time,  their  appearance  upon  the  coasts  of  Britain. §  This  expedition, 
which  consisted  but  of  three  ships,  had  been,  most  probably,  sent  to  ascertain  the  locali- 
ties and  resources  of  these  regions,  and  to  see  how  far  they  held  forth  temptations  to  the 
invader  and  the  spoiler.  It  would  appear  that  the  report  made  by  this  party,  on  their 
return,  was  of  no  very  encouraging  nature,  as  nearly  eight  years  elapsed  before  another 
experiment  of  the  same  kind  was  tried;  and  the  attempts  upon  the  English  and  the  Irish 
coasts  took  place  nearly  about  the  same  time; — the  small  island  of  Rechran,  at  present 
Raghlin,||  having  been,  in  the  year  79.5,  laid  waste  by  the  Danes.lF 

At  what  period  these  nations  of  the  north  became  for  the  first  time  acquainted  with 
Ireland  has  been  a  subject  of  much  doubt  and  controversy  among  our  historians.  While, 
according  to  some,  the  calamitous  epoch  we  are  now  approaching  witnessed  the  first 
descent  of  northern  adventurers  upon  these  shores,  there  are  others  who  maintain  that 
traces  of  habitual  intercourse  between  the  people  of  Ireland  and  the  Lochlans,  or  Danes, 
may  be  discovered  in  the  Irish  annals,  as  far  back  as  the  first  century  of  our  era.    There 

•  Letter  to  the  Earl  of  Salisbury,  Collectan.  vol.  i. 

t  "  In  order  to  qualify  the  File,"  says  Mr.  O'Reilly,  "  for  this  important  office,  the  rules  for  the  education 
of  the  poetic  professors  required  that  every  Dos,  or  poet  of  the  third  degree,  before  he  was  qualified  to  become 
a  Cana,  or  poet  of  the  fourth  degree,  should  repeat,  in  the  presence  of  the  king  and  the  nobles,  the  Sreithe 
JVeivMdk,  i.  e.  the  Law  of  the  Degrees  or  Ranks,  and  fifty  poems  of  his  own  composition." — Essay  on  the 
Brehon  Laics. 

t  Chron.  Sax. 

§  Usher,  Ind.  Chron.  Some  foreign  historians  date  the  first  of  this  series  of  northern  invasions  so  early  as 
the  year  700.  "  Pontanus  et  Torfieus,"  says  Langehek,  "nimis  vetustum  in  illis  insulis  dominium  ab  anno 
700  circiter  tribuerunt."— Z)e  Sei-vitiis  qua:  Rcguli  Maunur,  &c. 

II  Seward,  Topog.  Jlibcrn.  According  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hamilton,  however,  who  has  given  an  account  of 
this  island  (^Letters  concerning  Ike  Coast  of  .Antrim,)  it  is  at  present  called  Raghery  ;  meaning,  as  he  rather 
fancifully  conjectures,  Ragh-Erin,  or  the  Fort  of  Erin.-  To  this  secluded  spot  Robert  Bruce  fled  for  refuge 
when  driven  to  extremities  by  the  English  King;  and  the  remains  of  a  fortress  which  tradition  has  connected 
with  his  name  are  still  visible  on  the  northern  angle  of  the  island. 

The  annals  of  Ulster  refer  to  a.  d.  747,  the  date  of  this  attack  upon  Rechrain,  by  the  Danes,  and  record  as 
the  first  achievement  of  these  marauders,  the  drowning  of  the  Abbot  of  Rechran's  pigs—"  Badudh  Arascaich 
ab.  Muiccinnse  re  guil." 

V  The  Welsh  chronicler,  Caradoc  of  Lancarvan,  (whom  Usher,  in  this  instance  inconsiderably  follows,) 
states  the  greater  part  of  Ireland  to  have  been  devastated  in  the  same  year,  795:  "  Ma.\imam  Iliberniic  par- 
tem populati  Rechreyn  quoque  vastaverunt."  The  Danes,  however,  did  not  penetrate  into  tlie  interior  of  the 
country  until  several  years  later. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  161 

is,  indeed,  no  doubt  that  the  appellation  Lochlan,  or  Dwellers  on  Lakes,  by  which  the 
Irish,  from  about  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century,  are  known  to  have  designated  their 
Danish  invaders,  was  employed  also  in  their  earlier  annals  to  denote  some  northern  nation 
with  which  they  were  at  that  time  in  habits  of  intercourse  and  commerce.  But  whether 
these  earlier  Lochlanders  were  of  the  same  race  or  region  with  those  who  afterwards 
poured  from  the  great  Scandinavian  reservoir,  there  appears  to  be  no  means  of  ascer- 
taining. 

In  proof  of  the  Danes  having  been  the  people  with  whom  this  early  intercourse  was 
maintained,  the  authority  of  a  number  of  northern  historians  has  been  adduced,  according 
to  whose  accounts  it  would  seem  that,  from  a  period  preceding  the  birth  of  Christ,  a 
succession  of  invasions  of  this  island  from  Denmark  had  been  commenced;*  and  that,  for 
some  centuries  after,  a  course  of  alternate  hostility  and  friendship  marked  the  relations 
between  the  two  countries.  Imposing,  however,  as  is  the  array  of  northern  authorities 
for  this  statement,  the  entire  value  of  their  united  evidence  may  be  reduced  to  that  of 
the  single  testimony  of  Saxo  Grammaticus,  from  whose  pages  they  have  all  copied ;  and 
it  is  well  known  that,  for  all  the  earlier  portion  of  this  eloquent  writer's  history,  the 
foundation  is  as  unsound  and  unreal  as  Scaldic  fable  and  fallacious  chronology  could 
make  it.  The  only  circumstance  that  lends  any  semblance  of  credit  to  the  accounts 
given  by  northern  historians  of  the  early  fortunes  of  Ireland,  is  the  known  fact,  that  the 
chief  materials  of  their  own  history  were  derived  from  records  preserved  in  Iceland;  to 
which  island,  inaccessible  as  it  might  seem  to  have  been  to  the  rude  navigation  of  those 
days,t  it  is  certain  that  a  number  of  Irish  missionaries  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries 
contrived  to  find  their  way.  We  learn,  from  more  than  one  authentic  source,  that,  when 
the  Norwegians  first  arrived  in  Iceland,  they  found  there  traces  of  its  having  been  pre- 
viously inhabited  by  a  Christian  people;  and  the  Irish  books,  bells,  and  holy  staves,  left 
behind  by  the  former  dwellers,  sufficiently  denoted  the  religious  island  from  whence  they 
had  migrated. f  The  title  of  Papas,  which  it  appears  was  borne  by  them,  has  led  to  the 
conclusion  that  they  must  have  been  Irish  priests  who  had  adventurously  fixed  them- 
selves in  this  desolate  region;  and,  under  the  same  name,  they  were  found  in  Orkneys 
when  the  Norwegians  conquered  those  islands. 

Unless  we  were  to  suppose,  however,  that  among  the  books  left  by  these  missionaries 
in  Iceland,  there  were  any  relating  to  Irish  history  of  which  the  chroniclers  consulted  by 
Saxo  might  have  availed  themselves,  the  incident,  though  curious  and  well  attested, 
affords  but  slight  grounds  for  placing  reliance  on  these  early  northern  annals,  whose 
sources  of  information  are  known  to  have  been  spurious,  and  to  whose  general  character 
for  extravagant  fiction,  the  few  brief  notices  which  they  contain  respecting  Irish  affairs 
can  hardly  be  expected  to  furnish  an  exception.  Nor  is  any  more  serious  credit  due  to 
them,  when  they  represent  Dublin  to  have  been  in  possession  of  the  Danes  a  short  time 
before  the  birth  of  Christ,^  than  when  they  assert  that  London  was  built  by  these  northern 
people  about  the  very  same  period. 

Fabulous,  however,  as  are  these  accounts,  yet  that,  long  before  either  the  Danish  or  even 
the  Saxon  invasions,  the  coasts  of  the  Baltic  had  sent  forth  colonies  to  some  of  llie  British 
Isles,  is  a  fact  to  which  foreign  as  well  as  domestic  tradition  bears  testimony.  The  con- 
jecture of  Tacitus,  that  the  people  called  Picts  were  a  Germanic,  or  northern  race,  is 
confirmed  by  the  traditional  accounts  of  this  people,  preserved  in  the  chronicles  of  Bri- 
tain; and  all  the  early  Scandinavian  legends  concur  with  the  annals  of  Ireland  in  inti- 
mating, at  some  remote  period,  relations  of  intercourse  between  the  two  countries.  We 
have  seen,  in  a  preceding  part  of  this  work,  what  almost  certain  grounds  there  are  for 
believing  that  those  Scyths,  or  Scots,  who,  at  the  time  when  Ireland  first  became  known 
to  modern  Europe,  formed  the  dominant  part  of  her  people,  were  a  colony  from  some 

*  The  Scandinavians  were  very  early  practised  in  navigation;  insomuch  that  the  Siieones  who  occupied 
anciently  the  present  Sweden  and  the  Danish  isles  are  said  by  Tacitus  to  have  dwelt  in  the  ocean,— "ipso 
in  oceano."— German,  c.  44.    See  also  Pliny,  lib.  iv.  30. 

t  It  is  said  that  these  northern  navigators  carried  ravens  with  them  in  their  expeditions,  for  the  purpose 
of  discovering  distant  land  by  the  direction  of  the  flight  of  these  birds.  See  Harrow's  Voyages  into  the  Polar 
Regions. 

I  Mallet's  JVorthern  .Antiquities,  c.  ii.  By  Foster  it  is  supposed  that  these  articles  may  have  been  left  at 
Iceland  by  some  of  the  Norman  pirates,  who,  after  plundering  Ireland,  may  have  directed  their  course  to  the 
westward  with  their  booty.  {J^Torthern  Voyages.)  'J"he  following  is  the  account  given  of  this  interesting 
circumstance  in  the  jSntijaitet.  ,Scanrfo-Ce/£.—"  Before  Iceland  was  inhabited  by  the  Norwegians,  there  were 
men  there  whom  the  Norwegians  call  Papas,  and  who  professed  the  Christian  religion,  and  are  thought  to 
have  come  by  sea  from  the  W^est ;  for  there  were  left  by  them  Irish  books,  bells,  and  crooked  staves,  and 
several  other  things  were  found  which  seemed  to  indicate  that  they  were  west-men." 

§  The  Danish  King,  Frolho,  who,  according  to  their  accounts,  seized  upon  Dublin,  at  this  remote  period, 
found  so  much  wealth,  as  they  tell  us,  in  the  royal  treasury  of  that  city,  that  no  regular  partition  of  the 
booty  was  made,  but  every  soldier  was  allowed  to  carry  away  as  much  as  he  pleased.— Pet.  Olai,  Chronica 
Reg.  Dan. 

20 


162  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

region  bordering  on  tlie  Baltic  Sea  wiiich  had,  a  few  centuries  before,  gained  possession 
of  this  island.  From  whatever  part  these  Scythian  adventurers  may  have  arrived, 
whether  from  the  Cimbric  peninsula,  the  islands  of  the  Baltic,  or  the  Scandinavian  shores, 
it  may  be  couciuded  that  with  that  region  the  occasional  intercourse  was  afterwards 
maintained,  and  those  alliances  and  royal  intermarriages  formed  of  which,  in  our  ancient 
traditions  and  records,  some  scattered  remembrances  still  remain.* 

With  respect  to  those  swarms  of  sea-rovers  who,  throughout  the  dark  and  troubled 
period  we  are  now  approaching,  carried  on  their  long  career  of  havoc  and  blood,  though 
known  most  popularly  in  English  history  by  the  general  name  of  Danes,  they  are  but 
rarely,  and  not  till  a  late  period,  thus  designated  in  our  annals.  By  Tigernach,  the  ear- 
liest existing  annalist,  they  are  invariably  called  Gall,  or  Strangers;  while,  in  the 
Annals  of  Inisfallen,  of  Ulster,  and  of  the  Four  Masters,  they  are  styled  indifferently 
either  Galls,  Gentiles,  Dwellers  on  the  Lakes,  or  Pirates;  but,  in  not  more  than  two  or 
three  instances,  are  they  called  Normans,f  and  as  seldom  Danes. 

In  the  present  kingdoms  of  Sweden  and  Denmark,  including,  as  the  latter  does,  Nor- 
way, was  comprised  the  vast  extent  of  territory  which,  in  those  days,  poured  forth  almost 
its  whole  population  over  the  waters,  and  made  all  the  coasts  of  Europe  tributary  to  its 
unnumbered  Sea  Kings,  Though  confounded,  therefore,  ordinarily  under  the  general 
name  of  Northmen,  these  daring  adventurers,  among  whom  piracy  was,  as  among  the 
Greeks  of  the  Homeric  age,  accounted  an  honourable  calling,  were,  it  is  clear,  a  miscel- 
laneous aggregate  of  Norwegians,  Danes,  Swedes,  Livonians,  Saxons,  and  Frisians,^ 
whose  expeditions,  independent  respectively  of  each  other,  and  having  no  common  object 
but  plunder  and  devastation,  kept  all  the  maritime  districts  of  the  west  of  Europe  in  a 
state  of  constant  dismay.  The  only  distinction  employed  by  the  Irish  to  denote  any 
difference  between  the  several  tribes  that  invaded  them,  was  that  of  Black  Strangers  and 
White  Strangers;  and  under  these  distinctive  appellations  we  find  two  great  bodies  of 
these  foreigners  designated,  who,  about  the  year  850,  contested  fiercely  with  each  other 
the  possession  of  Dublin  and  its  adjoining  territories.  It  may  be  remarked  as  at  least  a 
curious  coincidence  in  favour  of  the  opinion  of  those  who  regard  the  Picts,  or  Caledonians, 
as  of  a  congenerous  race  with  these  later  invaders,^  that  the  very  same  distinction  was 
applied  to  that  people  by  the  Romans  of  the  fourth  century;  who,  as  we  learn  from 
Ammianus,  divided  them  into  Ducalidones  and  Vecturiones,  sigtiifying  the  Black  Picts 
and  the  White  Picts. 

Between  the  political  institutions  of  Britain  and  Ireland,  there  existed,  at  the  time 
when  the  northern  invasions  we  are  about  to  notice  took  place,  a  very  strong  similitude; 
rendering  them  both,  perhaps,  in  an  equal  degree,  incapable  of  presenting  that  firm  front 
to  an  invader  which,  in  countries  less  parcelled  out  into  dynasties,l|  and  therefore  more 
compact  in  will  and  power,  would  have  been  most  probably  displayed.  In  the  one  single 
kingdom  of  Northumbria,  we  find  represented,  upon  a  smaller  scale,  almost  a  counterpart 
of  those  scenes  of  discord  and  misrule  which  form  the  main  action  of  Irish  history  in  those 
times;  tlie  same  rapid  succession  and  violent  deaths  of  most  of  the  reigning  chieftains, 
and  the  same  recklessness  of  the  public  weal  which  in  general  marked  their  whole 
career. 

The  two  predominant  pursuits  of  the  Irish  in  those  days — war  and  religion — are  most 
strikingly  exemplified  in  the  different  fates  of  the  successive  monarchs,  whose  uninter- 
esting existence  is  drily  recorded  throughout  this  period.  For  while  most  of  them,  as 
one  of  their  ovvn  historians  expresses  it,  died  with  swords  in  their  hands,  there  were  also 
many  who,  exchanging  the  camp  for  the  cloister,  devoted  the  close  of  their  days  to  peni- 
tence and  seclusion  ;  and  the  monarch  Niell  of  the  Sliowers,ir  who  died  in  pilgrimage  at 
lona,  was  deposited,  with  three  others  of  his  royal  countrymen,  in  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings 
in  that  island.** 

*  Seep.  65,  of  this  Work. 

t  In  one  instance  (IV.  Mig-.  ad  an.  797.)  we  fimi  llio  term  "  Norman"  inseded  l>y  a  more  recent  hand. 

i  La  vaste  ctemlne  de  la  Rcandinavie  etant  parlagee  alorsentre  plusieurs  peuples  pen  connns,  et  seulement 
designee  par  des  iiuuis  gC'nerau.x.  comnie  ceux  de  (ioths  et  de  Normans,  par  exeniple,  on  ne  pouvoit  savoir 
e.xactemont  ile  qiieiU;  contree  chaque  troupe  6toit  originaire."— Mallet,  Introdiict. 

§  See  p  67,  nf  this  Work. 

II  Muring  the  Heptarchy  Britain  contained  about  fifteen  kingdoms,  Sa.xon,  British,  and  Scotch;  and  the 
kingdom  of  Kent,  llic  smallest  of  ihem  all,  could  at  one  time  boast  no  less  than  three  kings. 

ir  Niell  IVassach.—"  He  was  so  surnamed,  because,  as  some  authors  say,  in  his  reign  (but  more  authentic 
authors  say  the  night  he  was  born,)  three  Showers,  viz.  a  Shower  of  Honey,  a  Shower  of  Silver  (we  have  some 
of  the  same  yet  in  the  kingdom,  called  the  twelve  grain  penny,)  and  a  Shower  of  Blood,  happened  in  Ireland  ; 
and  the  names  of  the  certain  places  wherein  they  fell  are  mentioned  in  the  Antiquity  Books."— 3Ic.  Curtin, 
Brief  Discourse  in  Findication  of  Ihc  Jliiliquihi  of  Ireland. 

**  "  The  tomb  on  the  soiithe  syde  foresaid  "has  this  inscription,  Tumulus  Return  Hyhcrnict,  that  Is,  The  tomb 
of  the  Irland  hinges;  for  we  have  in  our  aiiM  Erische  cronickells,  ther  wer  foure  Jrland  kingeseirdit  in  ilie 
said  tombe."— Monio's  If'cslcru  Isles. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  163 

During  the  century  that  elapsed  previously  to  this  period,  notwithstanding  the  advance- 
ment of  a  great  portion  of  the  people  in  all  the  knowledge  of  those  times,  the  character 
of  the  civil  transactions  of  the  country  still  continued  to  be  at  the  same  low  and  barbarous 
level ;  and  the  few  efforts  made  from  time  to  time  to  get  rid  of  some  of  the  numerous 
sources  of  strife, — as  in  the  instance  of  the  odious  Boarian  tribute,  which  the  monarch 
Finactha,  as  we  have  seen,  remitted  "for  himself  and  his  successors  for  ever,"* — were 
rendered  unavailing  either  by  the  force  of  old  habit,  or  by  new  demands  of  violence  and 
rapacity.     Not  half  a  century  had  elapsed  from  the  time  of  the  renunciation  of  this  tax, 
when  the  claim  to  it  was  again  brought  forward  by  the  monarch  Fergall;  who, 
at  the  head  of  an  army  of  21,000  men,  invaded  Leinster  to  enforce  its  payment.f  ■^".-,9* 
The  force  assembled  by  the  king  of  that  province  to  repel  this  inroad  amounted, 
we  are  told,  to  no  more  than  9000  men;  but  they  were  the  flower  of  his  kingdom,  and 
were  commanded  on  this  occasion  by  about  100  champions  of  the  highest  military  re- 
nown. 

It  was  at  Almhain,  a  spot  memorable  in  the  Finian  songs  and  legends]:  for  having 
been  the  residence  of  the  Leinster  hero,  Fin-Mac-Curahal,  that  the  shock  of  the  two  hos- 
tile armies  took  place;  and,  notwithstanding  the  gallantry  of  the  Lagenian  troops,  and 
the  inspirations  of  the  better  cause  for  which  they  fought,  their  great  inferiority  in  num- 
bers would  have  rendered  the  issue  but  for  a  short  time  doubtful,  had  not  an  interposition, 
in  which  the  hand  of  Heaven  Was  supposed  to  be  visible,  given  an  unexpected  turn 
to  the  fortunes  of  the  day.     On  the  very  first  onset  of  the  combatants  there  ap-  "Jg^* 
peared  a  holy  man,  or  hermit,  among  the  ranks,  who  regardless  of  the  dangers 
that  surrounded  him,  raised  his  voice  in  bold  and  awful  denunciations  of  the  impious 
wrong  of  which  Fergall  and  his  people  were  guilty,  in  violating  the  engagement  entered 
into  by  his  predecessor  to  abolish  the  Doarian  tribute  for  ever.     Seized  with  a  panic  at 
these  denouncements,  the  royal  army  almost  unresistingly  gave  way;  tlie  monarch  him- 
self, with  his  select  body-guards,  to  the  number  of  160  knights,  were  among  the  slain  ; 
and,  of  the  two  armies,  no  less  than  7000,  among  whom  TigernachS  reckons  200  kings, 
were  among  the  number  slaughtered  on  that  day. 

Of  the  system  of  policy  established  in  Ireland,  from  the  earliest  periods  of  her  history, 
some  account  has  been  given  in  a  preceding  part  of  this  work.ll  But  a  few  farther  re- 
marks, suggested  by  the  events  to  which  we  are  hastening,  will  enable  the  reader  to 
understand  more  clearly  their  precise  character  and  course.  The  nature  of  the  quintuple 
division  of  the  island,  in  ancient  times,  has  been  variously  and  somewhat  confusedly  repre- 
sented. It  may  be  collected,  however,  to  have  been  a  sort  of  pentarchy,  in  which,  in 
addition  to  the  four  great  provinces  of  Leinster,  Ulster,  Munster,  and  Connaught,  was 
included,  as  a  fifth  province,  the  district  called  Meath  ;1T  which,  though  belonging  natu- 
rally to  Leinster,  was  set  apart,  on  account  of  its  position  in  the  centre  of  the  kingdom, 
to  form  the  seat  of  the  monarchy.  The  limited  extent  of  this  portion,  as  compared  with 
the  four  other  principalities,  was  supposed  to  be  compensated  as  well  by  its  commanding 
position  and  superior  fertility,  as  by  the  ample  supplies  and  tributes  which,  in  his  capacity 
of  supreme  ruler,  the  King'  of  Tara  was  entitled  to  receive  from  the  subordinate  princes. 
In  the  course  of  time,  however,  it  was  found  expedient  to  extend  the  limits  of  the  royal 
domain ;  and  a  tract  of  land  taken  from  each  of  the  other  provinces  was  added  to  the 
original  territory,  forming  altogether  the  country  now  called  Meath  and  West  Meath, 
with  the  addition,  probably,  of  a  great  portion  of  the  present  King's  County. 

The  want  of  a  controlling  power  and  influence  in  the  monarchy,  as  regarded  its  relations 
with  the  provincial  governments,  had  been  always  an  anomaly  in  the  Irish  scheme  of 
polity  productive  of  weakness,  insubordination,  and  confusion  ;  and  this  source  of  evil, 
at  the  time  of  the  irruption  of  the  Danes,  had,  by  a  number  of  concurrent  circumstances, 
been  increased.     As  some  modification  of  the  evils  of  an  elective  monarchy,  measures 

*  A.  D.  693.    See  p.  144,  of  this  Work.  t  IV.  Mag.  ad  ami.  718.  {Mtx  Com.  722.) 

I  See  c.  vii.  p.  81,  of  this  Worlv. 

§  Ad  ann.722.  Por  a  similar  prodigality  of  the  regal  title  among  the  Carthaginians,  see  Larcher  upon 
Herodotus,  Polymn. 

II  Chap.  ix.  p.  96.  ,        ^    , 

TT  According  to  some  anthofities,  among  whom  is  Giraldus  Cambreiisis,  the  qiiintiiple  numbrr  of  the  pro- 
vinces was  made  out  by  the  division  of  Munster  into  two,  North  and  South,  which,  together  witli  the  other 
three  provinces,  Ulster,  Connaught,  and  Leinster,  constituted,  they  say,  the  Pentarchy.  Dr.  O'Connor  pro- 
nounces Meath  to  have  been  a  sixth  portion,  adding,  somewhat  nationally,  "  Talis  fuit  Hibernorum  Pen- 
tdvchid.^^ PtoI  ^  59 

The  omission  of  Meath  by  Giraldus,  in  his  quintuple  division  of  the  kingdom,  is  thus  strongly  objected  to 
by  Lynch:—"  Divisio  regni  a  Giraldo  instituta,  cum  ei  Mediam  inserere  omisil  manca  est  et  mutila  .  .  .  .  • 
Media  vero,  cum  extra  provinciarum  aliarum  fines  posita  et  nullius  in  Hibernia  Regis,  nisi  Monarchy  sohus 
imperiis  obno.\ia  sit,  ul  uiium  Pentarchiro  rcguuia  li  ceteris  sejunctuni  per  ae  constitual  nccesse  est.  — 
Cambrens.  Kccrs. 


164  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

had  been  taken,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  reigns  of  Hugony  and  Tuathal,*  to  confirm  the 
right  of  succession  to  one  royal  family  only.  The  frequent  intrusion,  however,  of  usur- 
pers among  the  successors  of  these  monarchs,  shows  how  little  even  the  strong  feeling  of 
the  Irish  in  favour  of  the  legitimate  blood  could  avail  against  the  blind  zeal  of  popular 
factions,  and  the  reckless  ambition  of  the  provincial  chiefs.  Far  more  successful,  in  his 
provisions  for  the  descent  of  the  monarchy,  was  the  great  O'Niell  of  the  Nine  Hostages; 
whose  will,  bequeathing  his  hereditary  possessions  to  the  descendants  of  his  eight  sons, 
was  adhered  to  with  such  remarkable  fidelity,  that,  for  more  than  500  years,  with  but 
one  single  exception,  all  the  monarchs  of  Ireland  were  chosen  from  the  Hy-Niell  race. 
Through  the  very  same  causes,  however,  by  which  the  power  of  this  illustrious  house 
was  perpetuated,  it  vvas  also  weakened  and  divided.  In  providing  for  his  innumerable 
royal  descendants  such  means  of  aggrandizement,!  both  in  the  north  and  in  the  south,  he 
was,  as  it  were,  launching  so  many  brands  of  discord  into  future  times;  for  the  four  great 
families,  or  clans,  into  which,  under  the  denominations  of  North  Hy-Niells  and  South 
Hy-Niells,  his  posterity  was  subdivided,  never  ceased  to  disturb  the  kingdom  by  their 
conflicting  pretensions,  rendering  the  contests  for  the  crown  as  stormy  as  its  possession 
was  insecure.  And  thus  the  discord  and  mutual  enmity  of  the  kindred  clans  who  enjoyed 
a  right  to  the  succession,  were  added  to  the  jealous  and  hostile  feelings  of  those  who 
were  by  law  excluded  from  it. 

Besides  these  fertile  sources  of  weakness  and  division,  the  monarchy  had  also  to  cope 
with  a  rival  power  in  the  provincial  kingdom  of  Munster;  a  power,  the  foundation  of 
which  had  been  laid  in  earlier  ages,  but  which  had  now  for  a  long  time  been  growing 
formidable  to  the  weakened  throne  of  Tara,t  and  at  last  usurped  upon  it,  to  the  utter 
overthrow  of  the  old  Tuathalian  constitution. §  The  origin  of  this  kingdom  in  Munster, 
which  extended  over  the  greater  part  of  the  south  of  Ireland,  is  to  be  sought  in  that 
ancient  division  of  the  island  into  two  equal  parts,  northern  and  southern,  called  Leath 
Con,  or  Con's  Half,  and  Leath  Mogh,  or  Mogh's  Half  ||  The  greater  portion  of  the 
territory  included  in  this  latter  moiety  constituted  the  kingdom  of  Munster;  and  this 
kingdom  was  again  subdivided  into  two  principalities.  North  and  South  Munster,  which, 
by  the  will  of  Olill-Ollum,  an  acient  king  of  the  province,  were  bequeathed  to  the  de- 
scendants of  his  two  eldest  sons,  Eogan  and  Cormac  Cas.  From  the  former,  whose 
kingdom  of  Desmond,  or  South  Munster,  comprehended  the  present  counties  of  Water- 
ford,  Cork,  and  Kerry,  the  people  of  these  districts  were  called  Eoganacths,  or  Eugenians; 
while  from  Cas,  whose  descendants  held,  as  their  patrimony,  Thomond,  or  North  Mun- 
ster,— including  the  counties  of  Clare,  Limerick,  and  the  country  about  Cashel,  as  far  as 
the  mountains  of  Sliablama  in  Ossory, — the  people  of  this  principality  derived  the  name 
so  memorable  in  Irish  warfare,  of  Dalgais,  or  Dalcassians.  By  an  arrangement,  complex, 
and,  like  most  other  of  the  rules  of  succession  in  Ireland,  pregnant  with  the  seeds  of 
strife,  it  was  settled  that  the  crown  of  all  Munster,  or  Leath  Mogh,  should  be  enjoyed 
alternately  by  these  two  kindred  families;  and  that,  while  one  exercised  its  turn  of 
dominion  over  the  whole  province,  the  other  was  to  rule  only  over  that  portion  which 
formed  its  own  separate  patrimony.  For  instance,  when  the  Eugenians  succeeded  to 
their  alternate  right  of  giving  a  sovereign  to  Leath  Mogh,  the  Dalcassians  were  confined 
to  their  principality  of  Thomond,  or  North  Monster:  and,  in  like  manner,  when  it  came 
to  the  latter  family  to  furnish  the  sovereign  of  Leath  Mogh,  the  Eugenians  relapsed  into 
their  subordinate  state  of  kings,  or  dynasts,  of  South  Munster. 

•  See  chap.  vii.  pp.  73.  77,  of  this  Work. 

t  "  His  (Niell's)  posterity,  the  Hy-Niells,  orNeTideans,  distinguished  into  South  and  North,  were  descended 
from  his  eight  sons,  four  of  whom  remained  in  Meath,  which,  by  a  decree  of  Kinj;  Tuathal,  belonged  always 
to  the  reigning  monarch,  until  it  was  divided  among  the  sons  of  King  Niell.  The  other  four  went  to  Ulster."— 
O'Flakerty  Ogygia,  part  iii.  c.  85.  In  the  same  place,  he  gives  an  account  of  the  different  territories  assigned 
respectively  to  the  eight  sons. 

X  The  first  encroachment  of  the  power  of  Munster  on  the  rights  of  the  monarchy  was  the  act  of  Olliol-Olim, 
an  early  king  of  that  province,  in  forcing  the  princes  and  states  of  I.cinstor  to  pay  to  him,  instead  of  to  the 
monarch,  the  fine,  or  mulct,  called  the  Tribute  of  Eidirsgeol,  which  had  been  imposed  upon  them  by  the 
monarch,  Couary  More.  In  the  Psalter  of  Cashell,  as  cited  in  those  Munster  annals  from  which  Vallancey 
drew  his  materials,  it  is  said,  of  Luig  Meann,  a  successor  of  Olliol  Olim,  that  he  was  not  only  King  of  Leath 
Mogh,  but  was  considered  equal  to  the  monarch  of  Ireland  in  power  and  influence  over  the  natives. 

§  To  such  a  height  had  the  power  of  the  Kings  of  Munster  attained,  at  the  time  when  the  LeaWiar  na 
Cceart,  or  Book  of  Rights,  was  drawn  n\>{Transact.  of  the  Ibcrvo- Celtic  Society,  art.  S<.  £(;;iin,)  that,  as  appears 
from  that  curious  document,  they  then  assumed  a  right,  which  had  been  exercised  originally  only  by  the 
monarch,  of  subsidising  and  demanding  tribute  from  the  other  pentarchs  and  provincial  princes.  Vallancey 
himself,  who  has  traced  historically  the  progress  of  the  power  of  this  province,  vet  seems  unable  to  believe 
in  its  assumption  of  such  rights:  "  which  subsidies,  however  (he  says,)  I  do  not  suppose  to  have  been  given 
or  received  as  a  mark  of  superiority  in  the  King  of  Munster  over  the  other  pentarchs."— iajo  of  Taitistry 
illustrated. 

II  "The  bounds  fi.ved  between  these  two  halves  (says  Vallancey)  were  from  Athcliath  na  Mearuidhe,  now 
called  Clarin's  Bridge,  near  Galvvay,  to  the  ridge  of  mountains  called  EisgirRiada,  on  which  Cluainmacnoiss 
and  Cluainirard  arc  situated,  and  so  on  to  Dublin."— /.a?o  of  Tanistry  illustrated. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  165 

I  have  been  anxious  lo  explain  clearly,  even  at  the  risk  of  falling  into  tediousness,  the 
complex  nature  of  the  form  of  government  by  vehich  the  affairs  of  this  province  were 
administered,  both  because  it  affords  a  striking  instance  of  the  mode  in  which  kingship 
was,  in  those  times,  subdivided  and  complicated,  and  because,  from  the  prominent  part 
taken  by  the  princes  of  Munster,  in  most  of  the  transactions  about  to  be  narrated,  some 
knowledge  of  the  territorial  relations  of  these  dynasts  to  each  other  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary towards  a  clear  understanding  of  the  course  of  the  general  history. 

While  such  as  has  been  just  described  was  the  complex  system  by  which  that  moiety 
of  the  island  called  Leath  Mogh  was  governed,  the  control  over  the  northern  portion,  or 
Leath  Cuinn,  was  all  that  remained, — and,  in  some  respects  but  nominally  remained, — 
in  the  hands  of  the  monarch,  whose  power  of  asserting  his  supreme  rights,  or  even  of 
maintaining  the  decent  dignity  of  the  crown,  had  been,  from  other  causes,  considerably 
diminished  at  this  period.  Those  royal  demesnes  which,  under  the  designation  of  the 
Mensal  Lands  of  the  House  of  Tara,  had  been,  in  early  times,  set  apart  for  the  support  of 
the  monarchy,  were  again,  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  centuries,  diverted  from  that  purpose  ; 
and,  at  last,  the  district  of  Meath  itself,  the  ancient  appendant  to  the  crown,  came  to  be 
partly,  if  not  entirely,  severed  from  it,*  leaving  little  more,  perhaps,  of  the  original  royal 
demesnes  than  the  lands  immediately  surrounding  Temora,  or  Tara.  To  Niell  the 
Great,  as  we  have  seen,  the  mischievous  policy  which  dictated  this  dismemberment  of 
the  royal  territory,  is  to  be  attributed; — that  prince  having  parcelled  out  the  state  lands, 
in  order  to  provide  for  and  aggrandize  some  of  those  numerous  branches  of  the  Hy-Niell 
race,  both  northern  and  southern,  which  had  then  spread  themselves  over  the  whole 
island,  weakening  that  noble  stock  by  their  diffusion. 

Among  the  various  other  causes,  therefore,  which  had  combined,  at  this  crisis,  to  en- 
feeble the  Irish  monarchy,  and  adduce  a  power,  at  all  times  more  imposing  than  efficient, 
to  little  better  tiian  a  mere  shadow  of  sovereignty,  is  to  be  numbered  this  diminution  of 
his  fiscal  resources, — leaving  no  other  support  for  the  maintenance  of  the  regal  power 
and  state,  than  in  those  contributions  and  military  supplies  derived  from  the  provincial 
princes,  and  furnished  in  general  with  a  feeling  of  reluctance  which  only  force  could 
overcome. 

From  the  foregoing  statements,  though  too  much  partaking,  I  fear,  of  the  inherent 
complexity  of  their  subject,  it  may  be  collected  that  the  government  of  Ireland,  though 
originally  a  pentarchy,  and  still  nominally  retaining  that  form,f  had,  by  the  course  of 
events,  become  divided  into  two  great  rival  sections,  or  kingdoms,  between  which  a  strug- 
gle was,  at  the  period  we  have  now  reached,  carrying  on,  which  ended  in  the  triumph  of 
the  throne  of  Munster,  and  the  downfal  of  Tara's  ancient  dynasty. 

The  name  of  the  monarch  who  filled  the  throne  at  the  time  when  the  Northmen  made 
their  first  serious  incursions  was  Aldus,  or  Aedan,  a  son  of  the  king  Niell  Tras- 
sach;  and  during  his  long  reign  the  incursions  of  these  pirates  increased  in  fre-   ~*q^" 
quency  and  violence-!     Landing  on  the  north-west  coast  of  Ireland,  they  pene- 
trated  as  far  as  Roscommon,  laying  waste  all  the  surrounding  country,  and  giving  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  interior  their  first  bitter  foretaste  of  the  desolation  and  misery  that  were 
yet  in  store  for  them.     The  ravagers,  previously  to  this  expedition,  had  twice  visited  the 
sainted  island  of  lona,  and,  with  that  feeling  of  hatred  to  all  connected  with  Christianity 
which  marked  their  fierce  career,  had  set  fire  to  the  monastery  of  Icolumbkill,  and  caused 
a  great  number  of  its  holy  inmates  to  perish  in  the  flames.     The  results  of  their  second 
attack  were  no  less  disastrous;  and  but  a  small  proportion,  it  is  said,  of  the  monks  of  that 
famous  fraternity  were  left  alive.     Whatever  spot,  indeed,  had  been  most  distinguished 
by  popular  reverence,  thither  these  spoilers  bent  their  course.     Even  the  small  island, 
Inis-Patrick,  the  supposed  residence  of  the  Irisii  apostle,  did  not  escape  their  unholy 
rage;§  and  an  Irish  geographer  of  that  period, 1|  in  describing  the  waste  and  desolation 

*  Proofs  of  this  separation  of  Meath  from  the  monarchy  occur  continually  in  the  annals  of  the  eighth  and 
ninth  centuries.  Thug,  Annal.  Vlt.  ad  an.  SG3,  we  are  told  that  Lorcan,  the  King  of  Meath,  was  deprived  of 
his  eyes  by  Aodh,  King  of  Temora,  i.  e.  the  monarch.  In  the  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  709,  another  monarch  of  the 
same  name  is  stated  to  have  divided  Meath  between  the  two  sons  of  his  royal  predecessor,  Donchad.  Meath 
itself,  indeed,  appears  to  have  been  partitioned  in  these  times  into  almost  incredibly  small  principalities,  as  we 
find  not  only  kings  for  the  two  chief  divisions  of  that  district,  namely,  North  Brigia  and  South  Brigia,  but 
even  a  "  king  of  tAe  Aa// of  South  Bregia." — innal.  Ult.  ad  an.  814. 

"  Hy-Niellia  (South,)  another  name  for  the  whole  territory  of  Meath,  after  it  was  possessed  by  the  posterity 
of  Neill-Mor,  King  of  Ireland,  and  was  divided  into  many  inferior  territories." — Ware. 

t  Thus,  in  Annal.  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  838,  Connaught  is  called  the  fifth  part,  Choice,  or  Coige.  "  This  word," 
says  O'Brien,  "  being  prefl.xed  to  the  names  of  the  five  different  provinces  of  Ireland,  as  they  are  esteemed 
each  a  fifth  part  of  the  kingdom,  though  they  are  not  all  of  equal  extent."— in  voce,  Coiffe. 

I  Ware,  Anliq.  chap.  .\siv.  ad  ann.  807. 

5  Annals  of  Ulster,  ap.  Johnstone,  Antiq.  Scando  Celt. 

I  Dicuil,  who  flourished  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighth  and  beginning  of  the  ninth  century.  His  geogra- 
phical work  is  entitled,  "  A  Survey  of  the  Provinces  of  the  Earth." 


166  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

they  left  behind  them,  says,  that,  in  many  of  the  smaller  islands  of  these  seas,  not  even  a 
hermit  was  to  be  found. 

At  lenfth  rousing  themselves  from  the  state  of  panic  and  dismay  into  which  visitations 
so  new  and  alarming  had  at  first  thrown  them,  the  natives  ventured  to  front  their 
Q*,^'  invaders  in  the  field;  and,  in  two  or  three  instances,  with  complete  success.     In 
the  year  810  the  annals  of  Ulster  record  a  slaughter  of  the  Gals,  or  foreigners,  in 
that  province.     The  year  following,  they  are  said  to  have  been  defeated  by  an  army  of 
Thomonians,  under  the  "king  of  the  Lake  of  Killarney;"  and,  in  812,  a  sanguinary  bat- 
tle took  place,  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  mentioned  by  foreign  chroniclers,*  one  of 
whom  states  that  the  Northmen,  after  losing  a  considerable  part  of  thoir  force,  were 
compelled  to  betake  themselves  to  a  disgraceful  flight,  and  return  to  their  own  country. 

Among  those  usurpations  on  the  historical  fame  of  the  Irish,  which,  under  cover  of  the 
ambiguous  title  of  Scots,  their  descendants  in  North  Britain  have  so  often  and  dexterously 
practised,  must  be  numbered  the  claim  set  up  by  Scottish  antiquarians  to  the  honour  of 
an  alliance  of  some  kind,  at  this  period,  between  one  of  their  kings  and  Charlemagne;! 
whereas,  it  was  with  Ireland  that  this  league,  whatever  may  have  been  its  extent  or 
object,  was  formed, — the  name  of  Scotia  not  having  been  extended  to  the  Irish  settle- 
ment of  Albany  for  nearly  two  centuries  after  this  period.  We  have  already  seen  by 
how  many  learned  and  eminent  Irishmen  the  schools  of  France  and  Italy  were,  in  the 
reign  of  Charlemagne,  adorned;  and  it  appears  from  a  passage  in  the  life  of  that  prince 
by  Eginhart,!  that,  in  addition  to  this  literary  intercourse,  some  understanding  also  of  a 
political  nature  had  been  at  that  time  entered  into  between  France  and  Ireland.  In 
referring  to  instances  of  the  extended  fame  of  Charlemagne,  nis  secretary  says,  "  So 
devoted  to  his  will  had  he  rendered  the  kings  of  the  Scots,  by  his  munificence,  that  they 
never  addressed  him  otherwise  than  as  their  lord,  and  declared  themselves  his  faithful 
subjects  and  vassals."  He  adds,  that  there  were  letters  extant,  addressed  by  these  kings 
to  the  emperor,  in  which  their  submission  and  allegiance  were  in  express  terms  announced. 
There  is  yet  another  proof  adduced  of  this  alliance,  which,  if  not  convincing,  is  at  least 
curious.  We  know  that  the  historians  of  the  Norman  conquest  have  found  materials  for 
their  task  in  the  tapestry  of  Bayeux;  and,  in  like  manner,  a  confirmation  of  the  account 
of  this  league  between  Charlemagne  and  the  Irish  has  been  sought  for  in  an  ancient 
piece  of  tapestry  at  Versailles,  where  the  King  of  Ireland  is  represented  as  standing  in  a 
row  of  princes  all  in  amity  with  Charlemagne,  and  is  drawn,  as  a  mark  of  distinction, 
with  the  Irish  harp  by  his  side.^ 

Constant  as  was  the  state  of  alarm  in  which  these  incursions  had  kept  every  part  of 
the  kingdom,  still  this  harassing  scourge  from  without  had  no  efl^ect  whatever  in  suspend- 
ing their  mutual  animosities  within.  Twice  in  one  month,  as  we  are  told  by  the  annal- 
ists, the  lands  of  the  Lagenians,  or  people  of  Leinster,  were  laid  waste  by  the  monarch; — 
the  resistance  made  by  them  to  the  old  Boarian  tax  being  assigned  as  the  cause  of  this 
infliction  ; — though  it  seems  even  then  to  have  been  felt  how  disgraceful  and  melancholy 
was  all  this  waste  of  the  national  strength  in  discord,  as  a  verse  cited  by  the  Four  Mas- 
ters says,  in  reference  to  a  battle  fought  on  one  of  these  occasions,  "  The  poet  sung  not 
the  slaughter  of  that  field,  for  he  came  away  from  it  with  sadness  in  his  heart."|| 

It  was  in  proceeding  upon  one  of  these  expeditions  against  Leinster  that  an  occur- 
rence is  recorded  to  have  taken  place,  afl^ecting  materially  the  discipline  and  privileges 
of  the  Irish  clergy.     According  to  the  practice,  for  some  time  prevalent  in  Ireland,  of 

*  Rhegino,  Hermannus  Contractus,  Eginliait.  The  last  of  these  chroniclers  thus  records  the  event: — 
"  Classis  Nordmannoruni  Hiberniam,  Scotorum  insulam,  aggrefsa.commisdoque  cum  Scotis  priclio,  parte  non 
inodica  Nordniaiinorum  interfecta,  turpiter  fugiendo  domura  reversa  est." 

t  To  their  king,  Eocha  IV.,  or  Achaius,  the  Scotch  attributed  this  league;  and  the  double  tressure  in  the 
Scottish  arms  was  supposed  to  have  originated  in  the  event.  But  one  of  their  own  countrymen,  Lord  Hailes, 
and,  before  him,  a  learned  German,  Schoepflen,  have  abundantly  exposed  the  utter  groundlessness  of  the  pre- 
tension. See  Pinkerton,  also,  on  tlie  subject.  Inquiry,  part  iv.  c.  v.  "  It  is  certain,"  says  lliis  writer,  in  ano- 
ther part  of  the  same  work,  "  that  the  Irish  alone  are  the  Scots  of  Eginhart,  and  that  the  correspondence  he 
mentions  between  Charlemagne  and  the  reges  Scottorum,  King  of  the  Scots,  refers  solely  to  Ireland.  That 
emperor  procured  learned  men  from  Ireland,  but  did  not  probably  know  even  of  the  existence  of  tlie  Dalreu- 
dini,  or  British  Scots." 

I  "  Scotorum  ipjoque  Reges  sic  habuit  ad  suam  voluntatem  per  suam  munificentiam  inclinatos,  ut  cum 
nunquam  aliter,  quam  dominum  seque  subditos  ac  servos  ejus  pronunliarent.  Extant  Epistola;  ab  eis  ad 
ilium  missffi,  quibus  hujusniodi  affectus  eorum  erga  ilium  iiKlicatur."— Eginliart,  de  Vit.  et  Oest.  Carol. 
Magvi. 

§  Kennedy,  Ocnealog.  Stuart.  That  there  existed  a  tradition  of  some  of  Ihe  Irish  kings  having  made  their 
appearance  at  tlw  court  of  Charlemagne,  seems  not  improbable,  from  the  introduction  of  Oberto,  "  il  re 
d'Ibernia,"  by  Ariosto,  and  the  account  he  gives  of  this  young  Irish  prince  having  been  brought  up  in 
France. — Orlando  Furioso,  canto  xi.  61. 

II  IV.  Mag.  ad.  ann.  799. 

"  Ni  ran  an  tctri  lad  each,  con  do  furcaibh  ini  brogh  iiu." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  167 

eummoning  bishops  and  abbots  to  attend  the  kings  in  their  martial  enterprises,  the 
monarch,  on  the  present  occasion,  was  accompanied  by  Conmach,  archbishop  of  Armagh, 
and  the  abbot  Fothadius;  the  latter  of  whom,  on  account  of  his  great  knowledge  of  the 
canons  of  the  church,  was  called  Fothadius  de  Canonibus.     Arrived  on  the  frontiers  of 
Leinster,  the  clergy  in  attendance  having  represented  to  the  monarch  hovv  great 
was  the  injury  to  ecclesiastical  discipline  arising  from  tiie  custom   of  requiring  Jqq' 
persons  of  their  profession  to  attend  on  military  expeditions,  besought,  for  them- 
selves and  their  successors,  an  exemption  from  the  duty.     The  king,  appealing  to  the 
authority  of  Fothadius,  professed  himself  ready  to  abide  wholly  by  his  decision  ;*  and  that 
learned  canonist,  having  drawn  up  a  treatise  in  favour  of  the  claims  of  the  clergy,  of 
which  the  title  alone  is  preserved,!  they  were  declared  to  be  tlienceforlh  exempt  from  all 
military  service. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


Traditions  of  the  Northmen  respecting  Ireland. — Achievements  of  the  Sea-king,  Ragnar  Lod- 
brog. — Arrival  of  Turgesius  witii  a  large  fleet  in  Ireland. — Hatred  of  the  Northmen  to 
Christianity. — Persecution  of  the  Saxons,  its  cause, — Reign  of  the  Monarch  Concobar. — 
Depredations  of  tiie  Danes. — Dissensions  of  the  Irish  among  themselves. — Life  and  Tri- 
umphs of  Feidlim,  Kingof  Munster. — Death  of  Turgesius,  and  expulsion  of  the  Foreigners. 

Though  the  Northmen  had  been  taught  by  those  frequent  and  signal  defeats,  which 
at  length  forced  them  to  quit  the  country,  that  they  had  an  enemy  to  deal  with  of  no 
ordinary  stamp,  and  who  wanted  but  concert  and  coalition  to  be  unconquerable,  they  had 
been  also,  on  the  other  side,  made  too  fully  acquainted  with  the  disunited  state  of  the 
people  among  tliemselves  to  abandon  the  hope  of  being  able  ultimately  to  master  them. 
They  were  likewise  sensible,  it  is  clear,  of  the  weakening  effects  of  their  own  scattered 
mode  of  warfare.  Acting  in  detached  expeditions,  each  under  its  own  separate  chief, 
there  was  wholly  wanting  among  them  that  concentration  of  means  which  alone  produces 
great  and  permanent  effects;  nor  had  any  names  sufficiently  eminent  to  descend  to  pos- 
terity been  as  yet  placed  at  the  head  of  their  rude  desultory  enterprises. 

Among  the  adventures  told  of  their  romantic  hero,  Ragnar  Lodbrog,  it  is  related  that, 
after  a  series  of  victories  in  England,  he  carried  his  arms  into  Ireland ;  where,  having 
slain  the  king  of  that  country,  whose  name,  as  given  by  the  Danish  historians,  was  Mael- 
bric,  he  honoured  Dublin  for  a  whole  year  with  his  heroic  presence.^:  In  the  famous 
Death-Song,^  attributed  to  this  champion,  his  adventures  in  Ireland  are,  with  peculiar 
pride  commemorated; — his  combat  with  "  Marstein,  Erin's  king,  who,  whelmed  by  the 
iron-sleet,  allayed  the  hunger  of  the  eagle  and  wolf;"  his  "  stubborn  struggle  against 
three  kings  in  Leinster,  when  few,  we  are  told,  "  went  joyous  from  the  conflict;"  and 
when  "  Erin's  blood,  streaming  from  the  decks,  flowed  on  the  deep  beneath. "|| 

These  romantic  accounts  of  the  great  northern  heroes  resemble,  in  so  far,  the  ancient 

*  Annal  ult.  ad  an.  803.  From  a  circumstance  related  with  reference  to  this  treatise  of  Fothadius,  it  is 
concluded  that  ^nsus,  the  niartyrologist,  was  his  contemporary.  The  latter  having  lent,  as  we  are  told,  his 
metrical  works  to  Fothadius,  the  canonist  returned  the  compliment  by  communicating  to  the  poet  his  own 
Treatise  on  the  Rights  of  the  Clergy.  [Rcr.  Ilib.  Script.  Ep.  JVunc.)  The  name  of  yEngus,  however,  appears 
to  have  been  common  to  more  than  one  hagiologist  about  this  period ;  and  hence  arises  some  confusion  as  to 
their  respective  dates. 

t  Opusculumpro  Cleri  dcfensione  et  immunitate. 

X  '•  Cumque  in  Aiiglia  annum  victor  exegisset,  arma  in  Hiberniam  transtulit;  occisoque  insuls  rege 
Melbrico  per  integrum  annum  Dublini  coramoratus  est." — Tbr/i^us,  lib.  iii.  c.  10.  Thus,  too,  in  another  of 
the  Danish  historians,  it  is  said  of  Lodbrog,  "  Post  hoc  in  Hiberniam  arma  movit  cujus  rege  occiso  Dubliniam 
civitatem  obsedit  et  Ciepit." — Thomas  Gheysmer,  Compend.  Hist.  Dan.  See  also  Langebek's  Script.  Rer.  Danic. 
for  the  Chronicon.  Erici  Regis,  and  the  Chronicle  of  Peter  Olaus,  in  both  of  which  the  same  fable  is,  in  much 
the  same  terms,  repeated.  Tlie  original  source,  however,  of  all  these  fictions  respecting  Ragnar's  Irish  adven- 
tures, is  to  be  found  in  Saxo  Grammaticus,  lib.  ix. 

§  Lodbrokar  Quida,  translated  by  the  Rev.  James  Johnstone. 

\l  "The  fertile  Erin  was  long  the  great  resort  of  the  Scandinavians,  who,  from  the  internal  dissensions  of 
the  natives,  gained  considerable  footing.  They,  however,  met  with  a  stubborn  resistance.  Hence,  the 
Islandic  authors  represent  the  Irish  as  most  profuse  of  life,  and  tlie  Ira  far  was  no  less  terrible  to  the  sons  of 
Lochlin,  than  the  'furor  Norniannorum'  to  the  rest  of  Europe.  Some  of  the  Norwegian  kings  were  fond  of 
imitating  the  Irish  manners,  and  one  of  (hem  could  speak  no  language  perfectly  but  the  Cwlic.  Several  Runic 
pillars  are  inscribed  to  Swedes  who  fell  in  Erin,"— Lodbrokar  (^uida.    M)tc  by  the  Translator. 


168  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Greek  traditions,  tliat  they  may  be  depended  upon  for  the  reality  of  the  events  which 
they  relate  far  more  than  tor  that  of  the  personages  to  whom  they  attribute  them:  and, 
in  like  manner  as  the  genius  of  Grecian  fable  has  collected  round  the  head  of  one  deified 
Hercules  the  scattered  glory  of  various  achievements  performed  by  different  heroes  at 
different  periods,  so  in  the  northern  Sages  and  songs,  for  the  purpose  of  glorifying  one 
great  national  champion,  events  that  chronology  would  have  widely  separated,  tradition 
has,  without  scruple,  brought  together ;  and  the  single  life  of  their  royal  sea-rover, 
Ragnar  Lodbrog,  is  made  to  condense  within  its  compass  the  achievements  of  many  a 
heroic  career,  spread  over  a  long  tract  of  time.*  In  a  similar  way,  the  adventures  cele- 
brated in  the  supposed  Death-Song  of  the  same  hero,  are  probably  but  a  series  of  poetical 
glimpses  of  the  Danish  warfare  in  these  seas,  and  therefore  little  to  be  trusted  as  authority 
for  the  actual  agency  of  Ragnar  himself  in  those  scenes. 

It  is  clear  that  the  Danes  had,  up  to  this  period,  considered  Ireland  but  as  a  temporary 
field  for  their  depredations;  and  the  bitter  hatred  of  the  Christian  creed,  which  so 
strongly  marked  their  whole  career,  could  not  have  been  gratified  more  appropriately 
than  in  thus  desolating  a  country  which  had  become  so  distinguished  for  Christian  zeal, 
as  to  have  been  styled  by  the  nations  of  Europe  the  Island  of  Saints.  When  they  came 
to  be  acquainted,  however,  with  the  interior  of  the  kingdom,  and  saw  all  its  means  and 
resources,  experienced  the  mildness  of  the  climate,  and  the  great  fertility  of  the  soil,  it 
was  natural  that  a  wish  for  the  permanent  possession  of  so  fine  a  country  should  arise 
forcibly  in  their  minds;  and  the  scale  of  their  subsequent  expeditions  to  its  shores  evinced 
a  resolution  to  see  that  wish  accomplished.  They  were  fully,  it  is  evident,  aware,  that  a 
more  extended  and  combined  plan  of  invasion  was  now  called  for,  as  well  by  the  difficulty 
as  by  the  value  of  the  conquest.  Accordingly,  about  the  year  815,  as  the  common 
accounts  state,  but,  according  to  other  authorities,  later  in  the  century,  the  Norwegian 
chief,  Turges,  or  Turgesius,  arriving  with  a  large  fleet  of  ships  and  a  considerable  force, 
made  a  descent  upon  this  island ;  and  having  succeeded,  no  less  through  the  treacherous 
alliance  of  the  Irish  themselves  than  by  means  of  reinforcements  poured  in  from  the 
north,  in  establishing  settlements  on  the  coasts,  continued,  through  thirty  long  years  of 
tyranny  and  persecution,  to  retain  possession  of  the  country. 

In  addition  to  the  naturally  fierce  character  of  these  Scandinavians,  and  their  habitual 
recklessness  of  the  lives  of  others,  as  well  as  of  their  own,  they  were  also  stung  into  still 
more  savage  animosity  against  those  countries  in  which  Christianity  flourished,  by  the 
remembrance,  still  fresh  in  the  hearts  of  themselves  and  their  fellow  Northmen,  of  the 
cruelties  inflicted  on  them  by  professed  champions  of  that  creed  :t  and  such  a  visitation, 
following  so  quick  upon  the  wrong, — even  where,  as  in  this  case,  the  penalty  lights  upon 
the  innocent, — is  one  of  those  dispensations  full  of  warning  to  the  world,  as  showing  that 
the  bolt  of  offended  justice  will  fall  somewhere;  and  thus  rendering  responsible,  by  a  sort 
of  frank-pledge,  the  whole  community  of  nations  for  all  such  outbreaks  of  violence,  civil 
or  religious,  in  any  one  of  its  members,  as  may  be  likely  to  lead  to  so  desperate  and  in- 
discriminate a  reaction. 

It  is  to  be  recollected  that,  from  kindred  descent,  similarity  of  language,  and  long 
habits  of  confederation,  the  Danes,  or  Normans,f  and  the  Saxons,  were  become  as  one 

*  Thus,  while  in  some  of  these  northern  histories  it  is  said  that  Ragnar  was  killed  in  Ireland  in  the  ninth 
century,  others  state  that  one  of  his  sons  was  the  first  founder  of  the  city  of  London.  "  duin  si  vera  sunt 
(says  TorfaBus)  qua;  iiostrates  de  conditd  per  Lodbrochis  filium  urbe  Londinensi  referunt,  istuin  Lodbrochem 
a  duobua  aliis  diversuni  esse  oportet."  Lib.  iii.c.  12.  The  confusion  that  has  arisen  between  the  Ragnar 
Lodbrog  of  romance,  and  a  chief  of  tlie  same  name  supposed  to  have  flourished  in  the  ninth  century,  is  e.\- 
plaincd  thus  by  Mallet:—"  A  legard  des  autres  raerveilleuses  aventures  que  Sa.xon  met  sur  le  compte  de  ce 
prince,  il  faut  observer  que  selon  loutes  les  apparences,  elles  doivent  appartenir  en  grande  partie  a  un  autre 
Regner  egalcmeut  surnommi;  Lodbrog,  qui  n'a  vecu  que  vers  la  fin  du  neuvieme  siecle,  el  qui  n'a  Jamais 
regnf'^  ;i  Danemarc,  quolqu  'il  descendit  peut-etre  du  roi  ce  nom." 

t  The  open  avowal  of  the  persecuting  spirit,  in  the  following  monkish  verses,  cited  by  Mallet  from  the 
^cessiones  Historia  of  Leibnitz,  amounts,  in  its  boldness,  almost  to  the  sublime: — 

"  Hinc  statuit  requies  illis  (Saronibvs)  ut  nulla  daretur 
Donee,  Gentili  culm  rituque  relicto, 
Christicolie  fierent,  aut  delerentur  in  avura. 
O  pietas  bcnedicta  Deo! 
Sicque  vel  invitos  salvari  cogeret  ipsos." 

t  I  have  preferred  using,  in  general,  the  term  Danes,  as  being  at  once  precise  and  sufficiently  comprehen- 
sive. The  term  Ostmen,  empir  d  by  so  many  of  the  writers  on  Irish  history,  is  of  comparatively  recent 
introduction,  and  not  found  in  a  y  of  our  native  annals.  In  Johnstone's  E.\tracts,  indeed  from  the  Annals 
of  Ulster,  the  Danes  are  called  Ostmen  (ad  an.  799,)  but  without  any  authority  from  the  text- 

A  distinction  between  Danes  and  Normans  is  thus  drawn  by  M.  Thierry:—"  Appel^s  Danois  ou  Normands 
selon  qu'ils  venoient  des  isles  de  la  mer  Baltique  ou  de  la  cate  moniagneuse  de  Norwege."— Ww<.  de  la  Lon- 
queudeVAngleierrc.  "The  Northmen,"  says  Sir  F.  Palgrave, "  whom  our  historians  usually  term  Danes, 
were  Anglo-Saxons  under  another  name." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  169 

people.  In  the  nominally  Saxon  conquest  of  Britain,  the  majority  of  those  who  achieved 
it  were  Danes; — the  Angles  and  Jutes  having  been  tribes  of  that  people  from  Jutland, 
and  the  present  Duchy  of  Sleswick.*  But,  among  the  ties  that  so  closely  connected  and 
almost  identified  the  nations  of  the  north  with  each  other,  the  very  strongest,  perhaps, 
was  their  common  religion;  and  the  same  fidelity  to  their  ancient  gods,  which  the  brave 
Saxons  preserved  unbroken  through  a  long  struggle  of  thirty  years  against  the  armies  of 
Charlemange,  was  equally  felt  and  responded  to  along  all  the  shores  of  the  Baltic.  Al- 
ready one  King  of  Denmark  had  taken  up  arms  in  aid  of  their  national  cause;  at  the 
court  of  another,  their  hero,  Wittikind,  had,  in  the  intervals  of  his  glorious  bursts  against 
their  oppressor,  found  shelter  and  counsel ;  and  when  every  eflx)rt  proved  unavailing,  and 
the  doom  of  Saxony  was  finally  sealed,  to  the  Danes  fell  the  tremendous  task  of  t'aking 
vengeance  for  her  sufferings,  not  merely  on  France  itself,  but  on  almost  every  Christian 
kingdom  of  Europe.  The  dominant  feeling  in  all  their  ravages,  was  evidently  hatred  to 
the  creed  of  their  country's  despoilers ;  and  the  blood  of  priests.f  and  the  plunder  of 
churches,  were  in  all  places  their  most  powerful  incentives  and  rewards.  In  the  sono-s 
describing  their  murderous  forays,  it  was  said,  with  bitter  mockery,  "  We  chaunted  the 
Mass  of  lances  with  the  uprising  sun;"J  and  the  proudest  boast  of  some  of  their  chief- 
tains was,  that  they  had  stabled  their  horses  in  the  chapels  of  kings.^ 

There  have  been  found  writers  so  much  under  the  influence,  some  of  the  religious, 
some  of  the  heroic,  qualities  of  Charlemange,  as  to  have  attempted  not  merely  to  palliate, 
but  even  to  vindicate  the  atrocious  measures  resorted  to  by  him  for  the  forcible  subjection 
of  the  Saxons  to  his  own  creed  and  yoke.  But  Religion  herself  abhors  such  modes  of 
advancing  her  temporal  triumphs;  and  how  little  the  result  can  be  pleaded  in  favour  of 
this  method  of  propagating  truth,  appears  convincingly  from  the  fact,  that,  of  all  the 
Gothic  nations,  tiie  Scandinavians  were  the  very  last  to  embrace  the  Christian  creed. 

Of  the  Norwegian  chief,  Turgesius,  who,  at  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century,  com- 
menced his  oppressive  and  desolating  dominion  in  Ireland,  not  a  vestige  is  to  be  found 
under  this  name  in  any  of  the  northern  chroniclers.  An  effort  has  been  made,  indeed,  as 
if  in  rivalry  of  the  gross  anachronisms  of  the  Sagas,  to  identify  him  with  a  prince  named 
Thorgils,||  who  is  said  by  Snorro  to  have  reigned  in  Dublin,  but  whose  father,  Harold 
Harfager,  according  to  the  same  authority,  was  not  born  till  many  years  after  Turgesius 
died. IF  The  name,  whatever  may  have  been  its  Scandinavian  reading,  continued  to  be 
long  after  in  use  among  the  Danes  of  Ireland;  as  we  find,  in  the  eleventh  century,  an 
Ostman  Bishop,  who  assisted  at  the  synod  convened  at  Kells  by  cardinal  Paparo,  bearing- 
the  name  of  Torgesius. 

In  the  year  618,  the  monarch  Aodh,  after  a  reign  of  fifteen  years'  duration,  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Concobar,  or  Connor,  son  of  Donchad.  A  circumstance  recorded  amoncr  the 
minor  events  of  the  former  reign,  shows  with  what  reverence,  even  in  the  midst  of  scenes 
so  stormy  and  calamitous,  all  that  related  to  the  power  and  immunities  of  the  church  was 

*  "  On  salt  que  les  Angles  et  les  Jutes,  qui  partagerent  avec  les  Saxons  I'honneur  de  cetle  conquete,  6toient 
des  iieuples  Danois  sortis  de  la  Jutlaude  et  du  Sleswick."— Mallet.,  Introduct. 

t  "  Clerici  et  monachi  crudelius  ilaninabantur  " — Hcripl.  Rer.  JVot7iian.  I  Lodbrokar  Qiiida. 

§  "  Hie  (Ragnei)  per  xi.  annos  urbes  Francia  vastavit,  et  Parisiis  veiiiens  in  ecclesia  S.  Germani  et  Aquis- 
grani  inpalalio  Imperatoris  stabulura  equorum  fecit."— Chronic.  Erici. 

For  professedly  historical  details,  respecting  Ragnar,  see  Hist,  of  Jlngln-Saxons,  book  3.  c.  4.  In  spite  of  the 
efforts  of  Mr.  Turner  to  invest  this  phantom  with  a  substance,  tlje  personal  identity  of  Ragnar  Lodbrog  must 
still  continue  to  evade  the  grasp  of  history. 

I  may  take  this  opportunity  of  observing  that,  having  followed  Mr.  Turner  through  most  of  his  northern 
authorities,  for  the  purpose  of  gleaning  such  scattered  notices  as  might  be  found  in  tliem  respecting  Ireland, 
I  am  in  so  far  qualified  to  bear  humble  testimony  to  the  diligence  and  accuracy  with  which  his  valuable 
historical  materials  have  been  collected. 

II  One  of  Ledvvich's  crude  and  self-sufficient  conjectures.  In  a  long  note  upon  the  "  Vita  S.  Elphegi,  a 
Danish  Martyr,"  Langebek  has  entered  into  an  elaborate  inquiry  on  the  subject  of  Thorkill,  or  Torkill ;  but, 
among  the  various  chiefs  of  that  name  whom  he  enumerates,  does  not  once  glance  at  the  possibility  of  any 
one  of  them  being  the  same  with  the  Turgesius  of  Ireland.     That  the  original  name,  however,  of  this  tyrant 

might  have  been  Thorgills,  or  Thorkill,  in  his  own  country,  the  same  learned  authority  thus  intimates: 

"Turgesius  ann.  815.  835.  845  ,  Norwegus  forte,  cujus  nomen  in  patria  Thurgils  sive  Thorkillus."— Abie  are 
ike  Oenealog.  Stirp.  Reg.  Dan.  Svo.  Anschariano. 

IT  Both  in  England,  and,  it  is  said,  also  in  Ireland,  some  strange  traditions  were  for  a  long  time  preserved, 
respecting  a  personage  named  Gurmundus,  the  son  of  an  African  prince,  of  whose  achievements,  in  both 
countries,  many  wonders  are  related.  See  Giraldus  Cambrensis  {Topograph.  Hib.  Dial.  iii.  c.  38,  39,  40..)  who 
has  been  guilty  of  the  absurd  anachronism  of  making  this  Gurmundus  a  contemporary  of  the  British  king, 
Carelicus,  who  flourished  about  a.  d.  5SG,  and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  supposing  him  to  have  acted  under 
Turgesius,  and  to  have  been  sent  by  that  chief  as  his  lieutenant  to  Ireland.  The  reader  will  find  all  that 
needs  to  be  known  on  this  subject  in  Usher  {Eccles.  Primord.  p.  568.,)  who  attempts  to  trace  to  the  traditions 
respecting  Gurmundus.  the  names  of  some  of  the  streets  of  Dublin,  as  well  as  those  of  Grange-Gorman,  Gor- 
manstown,  &c.  &c.  The  name  Gormo,  applied  by  Usher  to  this  chief  (-'Gormonis  sive  Gurmundi,")  rather 
strengthens  the  conjecture  respecting  him  which  I  find  in  a  northern  authority,  though  still  leaving  the 
chronology  as  irreconcileable  as  ever.—"  Anno  Domini  738,  Gormo  I.,  Haraldi  films,  Biornonis  nepos,  regnat 
annos  33.  Hie  a  Sylvestri  Giraldo  Oambrensi  Gurmundus  et  ipsius  legatus  leruni  bellicarum  Torchillus  Tur 
chesius  appellari  yidelui. "—Hanu<fortii  Chronologia. 

21 


170  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

regarded.  In  the  year  806*,  say  the  annalists,  a  violent  interruption  of  the  Taltine 
Sports  took  place,  owing  to  the  seizure  and  retention,  by  the  monks  of  Tallagh,  of  the 
monarch's  chariot  horses: — this  step  having  been  taken  by  them  in  consequence  of  the 
violation  of  their  free  territory  by  the  O'Niells.  It  is  added,  that  ample  reparation  was 
made  to  the  monastery  of  Tallagh,  as  well  as  gifts  in  addition  bestowed  upon  it  by  the 
king. 

The  first  year  of  the  monarch  Concobar's  reign  was  distinguished  by  an  event  so  mar- 
vellously peaceful  in  its  character,  so  widely  departing  from  the  natural  course  of 
"l"  ^'  affairs  in  Ireland,  as  to  be  attributed  by  the  Four  Masters  to  "  a  miracle  of  God." 
In  consequence  of  some  factious  feud,  the  immediate  cause  of  which  is  not  specified, 
an  army  of  the  O'Niells  of  the  north,  commanded  by  Murtach,  son  of  Maildun,  marched  in 
battle  array  to  meet,  on  the  plain  near  the  Hill  of  the  Horse,  an  army  of  southern  O'Niells, 
led  by  the  new  monarch  Concobar.    But,  no  sooner  had  these  two  hostile  forces  come  face 
to  face,  than  each  army,  at  the  same  moment,  turned  away  from  the  other,  and,  without 
a  drop  of  blood  spilt,  or  even  a  blow  exchanged,  separated.f 

The  history  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Danes  in  Ireland,  during  the  long  and  afflicting 
tyranny  of  Turgesius,  presents  but  one  dark  and  monotonous  picture  of  plunder,  massacre, 
and  devastation ;  and  though  for  thirty  years  the  whole  island  may  be  said  to  have  groaned 
under  their  yoke,  it  is  plain  that  the  footing  they  had  acquired  was  not  without  much 
difficulty  maintained.  In  the  very  amount  and  long  continuance  of  their  cruelties,  we 
find  a  proof  of  the  constant  resistance  they  experienced ;  since  not  even  fiends  could  so 
long  have  persisted  in  the  persecution  of  a  quelled  and  submissive  people.  Their  fre- 
quent plunder  of  the  same  shrines,  and  destruction  of  the  same  monasteries,  shows  at 
once  the  religious  zeal  of  the  natives,  who  were  constantly  repairing  and  rebuilding  these 
holy  places,  and  the  persecuting  industry  of  their  oppressors,  who  were  as  constantly 
employed  in  destroying  them.  The  monastery  of  Banchor,  which  could  boast  at  one 
period  of  no  less  than  3000  monks  observing  its  rule,  and  from  whose  schools  those  two 
remarkable  men,  St.  Columba,  and  the  heresiarch,  Pelagius,  were  sent  forth, — this  cele- 
brated monastery,  which  had  been  once  before  the  object  of  their  fury,  was  now  again 
despoiled  and  plundered  by  these  ravagers;t  who^  having  broken  open  the  rich  shrine  of 
its  founder,  St.  Comgall,  wantonly  scattered  about  the  relics  that  were  there  enclosed. 
On  this  latter  occasion  the  venerable  abbot,  and,  it  is  said,  900  monks,  were  all  murdered 
in  one  day 

The  seat  of  the  primacy,  Armagh,  appears  to  have  been,  more  frequently  than  any 
other  place,  the  object  of  their  attacks ;5  owing,  most  probably,  to  the  wealth  collected 
in  that  city  from  the  annual  tribute  sent  thither  under  the  Law  of  St.  Patrick.  Nor 
would  the  richly  decorated  tomb  and  pictured  walls  of  Kildare  have  attracted  so  fre- 
quently the  visits  of  these  plunderers,  did  it  not  likewise  present  some  temptations  of  the 
same  substantial  kind.  Wherever  pilgrims  in  great  numbers  resorted,  thither  the  love 
at  once  of  slaughter  and  of  plunder  Jed  these  barbarians  to  pursue  them.  The  monastery 
of  the  English  at  Mayo;  the  holy  isle  of  Iniscathy,  in  the  mouth  of  the  Shannon;  the 
cells  of  St.  Kevin,  in  the  valley  of  Glendalough;  the  church  of  Slane,  the  memorable 
spot  where  St.  Patrick  first  lighted  the  Paschal  fire;|l  the  monastery  of  the  Seelig  Isles, 
on  the  coast  of  Kerry,  a  site  of  the  ancient  well-worship;  all  these,  and  a  number  of 
other  such  seats  of  holiness,  are  mentioned  as  constantly  being  made  the  scenes  of  the 
most  ruthless  devastation. 

It  would  not  have  been  wonderful  if,  by  such  an  uninterrupted  course  of  oppression  and 

cruelty,  the  spirit  of  the  people  had  been  as  much  broken  and  subdued  as  was  that  of  the 

English,  by  the  same  scourge,  at  a  later  period.     But,  throughout  the  whole  of  this  long 

course  of  persecution  the  Irish  had  never,  it  is  plain,  ceased  to  resist;  and,  on  more  than 

one  occasion  during  this  reign,  we  find  them  resisting  with  success.     In  repelling 

on-,*  an  invasion  of  their  province  by  the  Danes,  the  brave  Ultonians,  commanded  by 

Q27*   Lethlobar,  King  of  Dalaradia,  gained  a  decisive  victory;  and,  at  the  same  period, 

Carbry,  King  of  Hy-Kinsellagb,  was,  in  an   encounter  with  these  foreigners, 

equally  successful. II     Could  the  contentions  of  the  Irish  princes  among  themselves  have 

been,  even  for  a  short  time,  suspended,  the  galling  yoke  under  which  all  equally  suffered 

might  have  been  broken.     But  the  curse  oif  discord  was  then,  as  it  has  been  ever,  upon 

*  Annal.  IV.  Ma"?.    The  Annals  of  Ulster  place  tliis  event  in  the  year  810. 

t  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.8l8. 

t  Annal.  IV.  Mas  and  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  823. 

§  Its  first  time  nf  devastation  was  in  830. 

11  See  chap.  .\.  p.  JJ5,  of  this  Work. 

V  Annal.  IV.  Mag.  and  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  820,  827. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  171 

this  land;*  and,  in  selfish  struggles  between  rival  factions,  the  cause  of  the  common 
country  of  all  was  sacrificed.  It  is,  indeed,  lamentable  to  have  to  record,  that  the  prince 
who  shines  at  this  period  most  prominently  in  our  annals,  is  one  whose  renown  had  been 
all  acquired  by  victories  over  his  own  countrymen ;  and  of  whom  not  a  single  hostile 
movement  against  the  common  foe  is  recorded. f 

This  selfishly  ambitious  ruler  was  the  renowned  Feidlim,  King  of  Cashel;  and  a  brief 
sketch  of  his  bold  unprincipled  career  will  show  that,  in  addition  to  what  Ireland  had  to 
suffer  from  her  tormenting  invaders,  she  was  also  cursed  with  rival  tormentors  within 
her  own  bosom. 

The  extent  of  power  attained  by  tiie  provincial  throne  of  Munster  comprising  in  its 
range  almost  the  whole  of  tlfe  southern  moiety  of  Ireland,  has  already  been  fully  shown; 
as  well  as  the  manner  in  which  the  succession  to  tiiis  throne  was  shared  alternately  by 
the  Eugenian  and  Dalcassian  princes.  It  was  shortly  after  the  landing  of  Turgesius, 
that  Feidlim  Mac-Crimthan,  by  right  of  his  Eugenian  descent,  came  into  possession  of 
the  crown  of  Cashel;  and  his  course  from  thenceforth  was  marked  with  the  worst  ex- 
cesses of  rude  and  lawless  power.  While,  in  one  part  of  the  country,  the  Northmen 
were,  as  we  have  seen,  visiting  with  all  the  horrors  of  fire  and  sword^  such  devoted 
monasteries  and  religious  houses  as  offered  temptatiens  to  the  spoiler,  this  Irish  prince 
was  to  be  found  in  another,  pursuing  zealously  the  same  sacrilegious  course.  In  many 
instances,  too,  the  same  holy  communities  which  had  served  as  victims  to  the  rage  of  the 
foreign  barbarians,  were  those  selected  for  fresh  ravage  by  their  no  less  barbarous  coun- 
trymen. Thus  the  monastery  of  Clonmacnois,  which  was  one  of  those  laid  desolate  by 
the  Danes,  had  to  experience  a  similar  fate  at  the  hands  of  the  ruthless  King  Feidlim; 
who,  besides  burning  all  the  lands  of  the  abbey,  "  up  to  the  church  door,"5  put  numbers 
of  its  holy  inmates  to  death.  In  like  manner, — except  that,  in  this  case,  the  native  de- 
predators had  the  first  fruits  of  the  spoil, — a  party  of  the  Danes  attacked  and  devastated 
Kildare  but  a  short  time  after  it  had  been  forcibly  entered  by  King  Feidlim,  and  the 
clergy  carried  off  from  thence  in  captivity  along  with  his  own  slaves. 

In  this  year  (832-3)  died  the  monarch  Conquovar,  after  a  reign  of  about  fourteen  years, 
and  was  succeeded  on  the  throne  by  Niell  Calne,  son  of  Aodh  Ornidhe. 

It  has  been  shown  how  immensely  the  power  of  the  kings  of  Leath-Mogh  had,  in  the 
course  of  time,  gained  upon  that  of  the  monarchy;  and  a  stirring  ambitious  prince  like 
Feidlim  could  not  fail  to  advance  still  farther  the  usurpation.  So  daring  were  his  inroads 
into  the  monarch's  territory,  that,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  the  whole  country  from 
Birr  to  Tara,  was  laid  waste  by  his  arms.  Having  revived  also  the  ancient  and  bitter 
feud  between  the  provinces  of  Munster  and  Connaught,  respecting  their  claims  to  the 
territory  now  called  Clare,  he  gained,  in  the  course  of  this  contest,  a  sanguinary  victory 
over  an  army  of  Conacians,  led  by  the  O'Niells;  and  it  is  recorded  of  him,  as  a  double 
triumph,  that,  on  the  very  same  day  when  he  received  hostages  from  the  princes 
^qq'  of  Connaught,  he  swept  with  his  army  over  the  rich  plains  of  Meath,  and  seated 
*  himself  proudly  in  the  ancient  precincts  of  Temora.||  A  council  was  held  imme- 
diately after,  at  Clonmacnois,  where  Niell  the  monarch  delivered  to  him  hostages;  and 
on  that  day,  says  the  Munster  annalist,  Feidlim  was  supreme  king  of  all  Ireland.  But 
his  turbulent  career  was  soon  brought  to  a  miserable  end.  A  few  years  after  these  bril- 
liant events,  which  a  poet  of  his  own  times  commemorated,  he  received,  while  devas- 
tating the  lands  of  the  abbey  of  St.  Ciaran,  a  wound  from  the  staff  of  the  abbot,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  a  curse  from  the  holy  man's  lips,  of  the  effects  of  which  he  never  after 

*  A  writer,  whom  none  can  justly  accuse  of  ill-will  or  unfairness  towards  his  own  countrymen,  thus  speaks 
of  this  lamentable  stain  on  their  historical  character: — "Pendant  qu'une  partie  de  ce  peuple  se  consacroit 
entierement  a  Dieu  par  un  renoncement  parfait  au  monde,  et  servoit  en  cela  de  modele  aux  nations  voisines, 

I'esprit  de  discorde  fut  toujoursnourri  cliez  eux ils  etoienttoujours  armes  les  uns  contre  lesautres, 

sans  que  I'fevangile  qu'ils  venoient  de  recevoir  avec  tant  de  respect  eut  pu  corriger  cet  esprit  de  discorde,  qui 
fut  cause  de  tant  de  desordres."— ^ftftc  MacQeoghegan,  Hist.  d'Irlande,  part  2.  c.  4. 

t  One  historian  (O'Halloran,  book  x.  c.  1,)  attributes  to  this  prince  a  successful  attack  upon  the  Danes, 
but  without  any  authority  for  the  assertion.  The  Polychronicon,  indeed,  states  that,  at  the  time  when  Tur- 
gesius landed,  Feidhlim  was  king  of  Munster;—"  tempore  Feldmidii  Norwegenses,  duce  Turgesio,  terram 
banc  occuparunt,"— but  of  any  conflict  between  this  prince  and  the  Danes,  neither  the  Polychronicon  nor  any 
other  records  make  mention. 

t  Cum  ducibus  solitis  Marte  et  Vulcano. — Bromton. 

§  The  words  of  the  annalist,  "  Go  dorus  a  cille."— Annal.  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  832. 

"  Umhlacht  do  ionnas  gur  ab  Ian  Righ  Eirionn  an  la  sni  e." — Jinnal  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  840.  In  this  boast  of 
the  Munster  annalist,  originated,  no  doubt,  the  impression  which  led  Giraldiis  to  rank  Feidlim  among  the 
monarchs  of  Ireland.  ■' De  gente  igitur  ista  ab  adventu  Patricii  usque  ad  Felmidii  regis  tempora  33  reges 
per  400  annos  in  Hibernia  regnaverunt."  See  Archdall  (Monast.  Hibern.,  at  Clonmacnoise,)  where,  likewise 
on  the  authority  of  the  Munster  Annals,  the  same  dignity  is  attributed  to  Feidlim. 

II  Annal.  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  839,  (849.)  The  annals  of  Inisfallen  add  that,  in  the  course  of  this  inroad  he 
carried  ofrGormflatha,  daughter  of  the  King  of  Meath,  together  with  all  lier  iiandmaids. 


172  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

recovered.     Devoting  the  close  of  his  days  to  penitence  and  the  Church,  he  died  in  the 
followinsf  year  ;*  and,  in  the  very  tiice  of  all  the  enormities  which  their  own  pages 
04^'  have  recorded  of  him,  is  described  by  his  ecclesiastical  historians  as  "  the  most 
•   religious  and  learned  anchoret  that  Erin  could  boast  in  his  day."f 

In  the  year  837,  a  considerable  addition  had  been  made  to  the  Danish  force  in  Ire- 
land ; — two  fleets  from  the  Baltic,  consisting  altogether,  it  is  said,  of  120  sail,  having 
arrived,  one  in  the  river  Boyne,  and  the  other  in  the  Liffey;  from  whence,  pouring 
forth  their  swarms  over  the  plains  through  which  these  rivers  flow,  they  inflicted  on  the 
already  sacited  and  exhausted  country  new  varieties  of  desolation  and  ruin.  It  was  their 
custom  to  avail  themselves  of  the  facilities  which  the  fine  inland  waters  of  Ireland 
afibrded  ;  being  enabled,  by  means  of  liglit  barks  which  they  launched  on  the  rivers  and 
lakes,  to  penetrate  far  into  the  country,  and,  by  sudden  landings,  take  the  unguarded  and 
panic-struck  natives  by  surprise. 

To  attempt  to  follow,  through  all  its  frightful  details,  the  course  of  outrage  and  mas- 
sacre which  continued  to  be  pursued  by  the  bands  of  Turgesius  throughout  the  remainder 
of  that  tyrant's  turbulent  life,  would  be  a  task  as  wearisome  as  revolting.  Let  it  suffice, 
therefore,  to  state  that  there  is  not  a  single  spot  of  renown  in  the  ecclesiastical  history 
of  our  country,  not  one  of  those  numerous  religious  foundations,  the  seats  and  monuments 
of  the  early  piety  of  her  sons,  that  was  not  frequently,  during  this  period,  made  the  scene 
of  the  most  fearful  and  brutal  excesses.  The  repeated  destruction  by  fire,  year  after 
year,  of  the  same  monasteries  and  churches,  may  naturally  be  accounted  for  by  the  mate- 
rial of  these  structures  having  been  wood.  But,  as  few  things  of  any  value  could  have 
survived  sucii  conflagrations,  the  mere  wantonness  of  barbarity  alone,  could  have  tempted 
them  so  often  to  repeat  the  outrage.  The  devoted  courage,  however,  of  those  crowds  of 
martyrs  who  still  returned  undismayed  to  the  same  spot,  choosing  rather  to  encounter 
sufferings  and  death  than  leave  the  holy  place  untenanted,  presents  one  of  those  aflTecting 
pictures  of  quiet  heroism  with  which  the  history  of  the  Christian  church  abounds. 

Though,  in  their  assaults  upon  religious  houses,  the  Danes  in  general  put  most  of  the 
inmates  to  death,  they  in  some  cases  carried  off"  the  chief  ecclesiastics,  either  as  hostages, 
or  for  the  sake  of  ransom.  Thus  Farannan,  the  primate  of  Armagh,  was,  together  with 
all  the  religious  and  students  of  the  house,  as  well  as  the  precious  church  relics,  taken 
away  to  the  Danish  ships  at  Limerick  ;|  and,  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  Maelcob,  the 
Bishop  of  Armagh,  and  Moctcus,  the  Reader,  were  in  like  manner  made  prisoners  by 
the  invaders. 

That  the  Northmen,  in  their  first  plundering  incursions,  may  have  found  a  quantity  of 
gold  and  silver  in  Ireland,  appears  by  no  means  improbable.  Though  coined  money  was 
not  yet  introduced  among  the  natives,^  and  the  word  "  pecunia,"  which  is  often  supposed 
to  have  implied  coin,  was  employed  in  those  days  to  express  cattle  and  all  other  sorts  of 
property,  the  use  of  the  precious  metals,  in  ingots,  had  long  been  generally  known;  and 
the  ornaments  of  the  shrines  in  which  saintly  relics  were  enclosed,  appear  to  have  been, 
in  many  instances  valuable.||  The  tomb  of  St.  Brigid,  at  Kildare,  was  overhung,  we  are 
told,  with  crowns  of  gold  and  silver ;ir  and  the  relics  of  St.  Columba,  which  the  abbot  of 
lona  removed  for  safety,  in  the  year  830,  to  Ireland,  are  stated  to  have  been  enclosed  in 
a  shrine  of  gold.**  The  luxury  of  ornament,  indeed,  which  we  have  reason  to  believe 
was  bestowed  on  the  illumination  and  covering  of  manuscripts  at  that  period, ff  would 
lead  us  to  give  credit  to  much  of  what  is  related  of  the  richness  of  the  utensils  found  in 
monasteries  by  the  Danes. 

The  power  which  these  foreigners  had  now  so  long  exercised,  owed  clearly  its  con- 
solidation and  continuance  to  one  single  directing  mind;  and  the  standard  raised  by 
Turgesius,  however  uneasily  and  amidst  constant  conflict  upheld,  presented  a  rallying 
point,  not  merely  to  the  multitude  of  Northmen  already  in  the  country,  but  to  all  such 
swarms  of  new  adventurers  as  were  from  time  to  time  attracted  to  its  shores.     To  these 


*  Annal.  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  843.  (yRrs  Com.  846.)  Rcr.  Ilib.  torn  i.,  in  Calel.  Regum. 

t  Annal.  IV.  Mag.  Tho  Chronicon  Scotornm  calls  him  "  the  last  king  of  the  Scots."  M'Curtin  quotes,  for 
his  flattering  character  of  Feidhlim,  the  Leabhar  Irse,  or  Book  of  Records. 

I  The  Four  Masters  place  this  event  in  843.     Usher,  Ind.  Chron.  848. 

§  Simon  {Essay  on  Irish  Coins)  is  of  a  different  opinion  ;  but  having  no  authority  in  favour  of  his  notion 
except  the  Sagas,  his  reasons  are  of  but  little  weight. 

II  Shrines  of  gold  and  silver  are  mentioned  in  the  Annals  of  Ulster,  under  the  dales  a.  d.  799  and  800. 

IT  Coronis  aureis  et  argenlcis  desupcr  predrntibus.  Cogitosus,  dc  Kita  S.  Brigid ,  a  work  which  Vossiiis 
(de  Hist.  Lat.  1.  3,)  pronouuce.s  to  ho  of  great  antiquity;  but  whether  of  so  early^a  date  as  is  assigned  to  it, 
namely,  the  si.\th  century,  appears  doubtful.    See  Ware,  IVriUrs. 

**  Rer.  Hib.  Scrip,  torn.  iv.  p.  205,  note. 

tt  For  an  account  of  the  early  manuscripts  thus  embellished,  see  r>r.  O  Connor,  Kp-  JVuvc. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  173 

fierce  and  hardy  assailants,  combined  under  one  head,  and  having  one  common  object, 
was  opposed  a  brave  but  divided  people,  whose  numerous  leaders  followed  each  his  own 
persoual  interest  or  ambition;  and  who,  from  long  habits  of  indiscriminate  warfare,  had 
almost  lost  the  power  of  distinguishing  between  enemies  and  friends.  Yet,  notwith- 
standing all  this,  such  was  the  unconquerable  spirit  of  the  Irish  people,  that  while,  about 
this  very  period,  one  of  the  fairest  portions  of  France  became  the  fief  of  the  Northmen, 
and  while  England  twice,  in  the  course  of  a  few  centuries,  passed  tamely  under  their 
yoke,  it  was  only  during  the  short  interval  of  the  Turgesian  persecution  that  their  domi- 
nion can  fairly  be  asserted  to  have  prevailed  over  Ireland. 

That  upon  the  life  of  their  able  leader  the  power  of  the  Danes  in  this  country  chiefly 
depended,  is  proved  by  the  rapid  dissolution  of  their  union,  and,  consequently, 
strength,  which  succeeded  immediately  upon  his  death.  The  obscurity  which  q'..' 
involves  the  details  of  this  latter  event  has  been  turned  to  account  by  those  ready 
and  fluent  historians  who,  when  most  stinted  in  facts,  are  then  always  most  prodigal  in 
details;  and  a  story,  briefly  related  by  Cambrensis,  respecting  the  circumstances  which 
led  to  the  Norse  chief's  death,  has  become  amplified  in  this  manner  by  successive  histo- 
rians, each  adding  some  new  grace  or  incident  to  the  original  tale.  The  following  is 
the  substance  of  the  anecdote,  as  told  by  Giraldus  :* — The  beauty  of  the  daughter  of 
O'Melachlin,  King  of  Meath,  having  awakened  a  passion  in  the  breast  of  Turgesius,  that 
tyrant,  accustomed  to  the  ready  accomplishment  of  all  his  desires,  made  known  to  her 
father  the  unlawful  views  which  he  entertained.  Concealing  his  horror  at  such  a  pro- 
posal, the  king,  in  appearance,  consented  to  surrender  to  him  his  daughter;  and  a  small 
island  upon  Loch-var,  in  the  county  of  Meath,  was  the  place  appointed  for  the  desired 
interview.  Thither  it  was  fixed  that  the  princess,  attended  by  fifteen  maidens,  should 
come  at  an  appointed  hour;  and  there  Turgesius,  with  as  many  young  Danish  noblemen, 
was  waiting  impatient  to  receive  her.  The  supposed  handmaids,  however,  of  the  princess 
were,  in  reality,  fifteen  brave  and  beardless  youths,  selected  for  the  purpose,  who,  hiding 
each  a  skianor  dagger  under  his  robe,  took  advantage  of  the  first  opportunity  that  oftered, 
and,  falling  upon  the  tyrant  and  his  followers,  despatched  the  whole  party.  It  is  added, 
that  the  fame  of  tliis  gallant  achievement  having  spread  rapidly  through  the  country,  the 
Danes  were  in  every  quarter  attacked,!  ^"d  either  got  rid  of  by  the  knife  or  sword,  or 
else  compelled  to  return  to  Norway  and  the  diflx;rent  isles  from  whence  they  came.j 

This  romantic  account  of  the  death  of  Turgesius,  resembling,  in  some  of  its  particulars, 
a  stratagem  recorded  by  Plutarch  in  his  Life  of  PeJopidas,  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  of 
the  Irish  books  of  annals;  wherein  it  is  simply  stated,  that  the  tyrant  fell  into  the  hands 
of  O'Melachlin,  and  was  by  him  drowned  in  Loch-var.^  But,  whatever  may  have  been 
the  real  circumstances  attending  the  death  of  this  pirate-king,  of  the  great  importance  of 
its  results  there  is  not  any  reason  to  doubt;  and  although,  to  the  wholesale  assertion  of 
Giraldus,  that  Ireland  was  from  thenceforth  entirely  free  from  the  yoke  of  the  Danes,  her 
subsequent  history  aflbrds  but  too  downright  a  contradiction,  it  is  certain  that  their  power 
was  from  thenceforth  considerably  reduced ;  and  that,  however  harassing  at  all  times, 
and  even  occasionally  formidable,  they  never  afterwards  regained  their  former  strength 
or  sway. 

*  "  Fabulani  olent  (says  Dr.  O'Connor)  quae  de  morte  Turgesii  a  15  pueUis  interfecto  refert  Giraldus." 

t  Annal.  iv.  Mag.  843.(844.)  In  the  Chronic,  de  Oest.  Morthman.  published  by  Andre  du  Chesne,  this 
victory  of  the  Irish  over  the  Danes  (which  the  chronicler  places  in  the  year  848,)  is  thus  triumphantly  re- 
corded:— "Scoti  super  Northmannos  irruentes,  auxilio  Dei  victores,  eos  a  suis  finibus  expellunt."— i/ist. 
Franc,  et  JVorman.  Script.  Antiq. 

X  Pama  igitur  pernicibus  alis  totam  statim  insulam  pervolante,  et  rei  eventum,  ut  assolet,  divulgante 
Norwagienses  ubiqiie  truncantur,  et  in  brevi  omnes  omnino  seu  vi,  seu  dolo,  vel  morti  traduntur ;  vel  iterum 
Norwaeiam  etinsulas  unde  venerant,  navigio  adire  compelluntur.— Girald.  Cambrens.  Topog.  Hibern.  Dist. 
iii.  c.  41. 

§  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  844.  This  lake  is,  by  Seward  (Topograph.  Hibern.,)  placed  near  Mullingar.  According 
to  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen,  however,  the  scene  of  the  tyrant's  death  was  Lake  Annin  in  Meath.  Much 
doubt  has  arisen  as  to  the  exact  year  in  which  this  event  happened;  some  placing  it  in  844,  when  Malachy 
was  still  but  King  of  Meath,  while  others  (Usher,  Ind.  Chron.)  advance  it  to  848,  when  he  had  been  raised  to 
the  throne  of  Ireland.  I  have  followed,  as  the  reader  will  see,  the  ordinary  date  of  our  own  annals;  though 
the  record  cited  above  from  the  Norse  Chronicles,  fi.xing  the  reduction  and  expulsion  of  the  Danes  from  Ire- 
land at  A.  D.  848,  would  incline  me  to  think  that  the  date  of  the  death  of  Turgesius  should  be  referred  to  the 
same  year. 


174  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Arrival  of  reinforcements  to  the  Danes, — Alliances  between  these  foreigners  and  the  natives. 
— Demoralizing  effects  thereof. — Divisions  among  the  Northmen  themselves. — Arrival  of 
these  Norwegian  brothers. — Tax  called  nose-money  imposed  on  the  Irish. — Reign  of  the 
monarch  Aod  Finliath. — Exploits  of  Anlaf  the  Dane. — Reign  of  the  monarch  Flan  Siona. — 
Retrospect  of  the  affairs  of  the  Scots  of  North  Britain.—  Reign  of  Cormac  Mac  Culinan, 
King  of  Munster. — Death  of  Cormac  in  the  great  Battle  of  Moyalbe. — His  character. 

So  signal  and  decisive  appeared  the  advantage  which  had  been  gained  over  the  com- 
mon enemy,  that  Melachlin,  who  had  now  succeeded  to  the  tlirone  of  Ireland,*  despatched 
ambassadors  to  the  court  of  France  on  the  occasion,  announcing  his  intention  to  go  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  City,  as  an  act  of  thanksgiving  for  such  a  deliverance,  and  asking 
permission  to  pass  through  France  on  his  way.f  The  constant  influx  of  Irish  mission- 
aries into  France  during  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  had  brought  the  two  countries, 
as  has  been  already  remarked,  into  amicable  relations  with  each  other;  and  the  high 
repute  which  the  learned  Irishman,  John  Erigena,  now  enjoyed  at  the  French  court,  must 
have  still  more  conciliated  for  his  countrymen  the  good  opinion  both  of  the  monarch  and 
his  subjects.  The  ambassadors  sent  on  the  solemn  mission  just  referred  to,  were  the 
bearers  of  costly  presents  to  the  French  King;  but  the  intended  visit  of  the  royal  pil- 
grim, which  they  came  to  announce,  was,  by  a  return  of  the  troubles  of  his  kingdom, 
frustrated. 

The  Danes,  though  dispersed  and  apparently  subdued,  were  still  numerous  in  those 

parts  of  the  island  they  had  so  long  possessed ;  and  waited  but  a  reinforcement  from  the 

shores  of  the  Baltic, i  to  enable  them  to  reappear  in  the  field  as  formidable  as  ever. 

/q  *  With  so  strong  a  sense  of  the  value  of  the  possession  they  had  lost,  they  were  of 

*     course  not  slow  in  devising  means  for  its  speedy  recovery;  and  accordingly,  in 

the  year  849,5  ^  A^et  from  the  north,  consisting  of  140  sail,  landed  a  fresh  supply  offeree 

upon  the  coast  of  Ireland  :||  and  the  war,  which  had  slumbered  but  from  want  of  fuel, 

was  now  with  all  its  former  vigour  rekindled. 

While  the  violence,  too,  of  the  contending  parties  continued,  in  its  renewed  shape,  as 
fierce  and  barbarous  as  ever,  there  was  now  introduced  in  their  relations  to,  each  other 
a  material  and  demoralizing  change, — a  readiness  to  merge  their  mutual  hostility  in 
the  joint  pursuit  of  plunder  or  revenge;  and  to  fight  side  by  side  under  the  same 
banner,  regardless  of  aught  but  the  selfish  interests  of  the  moment; — a  change,  which, 
it  is  evident,  to  the  moral  character  of  both  parties  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
deeply  and  lastingly  injurious.  Upon  the  public  mind  of  Ireland,  in  particular,  the 
effects  of  such  warfare  must  have  been  to  the  deepest  degree  degrading.  The  dissen- 
sions of  a  people  among  themselves,  however  fatal  to  the  national  strength,  may  not  be 
inconsistent  with  a  generous  zeal  for  the  national  glory  and  welfare;  but  when,  as  in 
this  instance,  they  invite  the  foreigner  to  cast  his  sword  into  the  scale,  they  not  only 
blindly  invite  slavery,  but  also  richly  deserve  it. 

The  first  example  of  such  degeneracy  at  this  period  was  set  by  the  Irish  monarch, 
ocQ  ■  Melachlin  himself;  who  achieved,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Danes,  a  dishonour- 
able victory  over  his  own  countrymen.     In  like  manner,  a  prince  named  Keneth, 
the  lord  of  the  CianachtalT  of  Meath,  was  enabled  by  the  same  base  sort  of  confederacy 

*  It  would  appear,  from  tlie  instance  of  Malachy,  that  even  when  lord  of  all  Meath  by  inheritance,  the 
luonarch  was  not  suftered  to  retain  that  principality  after  his  succession  to  the  supreme  throne  ;  as  we  shall 
find  that,  during  Malachy's  reign,  Meath  was  held  jointly  by  two  other  princes. 

t  "  Rex  Scotoruin  ad  Carolum,  pacis  et  amicitire  gratia,  legates  cum  rauneribus  mittit,  viam  sibi  petendi 
Romam  concedi  deposcens. "—CAron.  de  Oest.  JVorman. 

X  With  an  easterly  wind  the  northern  navigators  calculated  but  three  days  as  the  average  duration  of  a 
voyage  to  the  British  Isles:— "Triduo,  flantibus  Euris,  vela  panduntur." — Script.  Rer.  Dan. 

6  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  849. 

[j  Ware,  .^nliq.  c.  24.— Annals  of  Ulster,  ap.  Johnstone,  Antig.  Scand.  Celt. 

IT  There  were  several  other  Cianachtas  throughout  Ireland  ;  but  this  in  Meath,  and  the  other,  called  the 
Cianachla  of  Glingiven,  in  the  North  Hy-Nial,  were  the  most  noted.  See  Dissert,  on  Hist,  of  Ireland.— Theie 
was  also  another  in  Derry,  from  whence  a  sept  of  the  O'Connors  derived  the  title  of  O'Concubar  Kianachia. 
O'Brien  {in  voce  Cianachta)  interprets  the  use  of  the  word,  in  this  instance,  as  meaning  that  these  O'Connors 
were  descended  from  Clan,  the  son  of  the  great  OlliolOllum;  and  this  derivation  of  the  term  would  seem  to 
be  countenanced  by  a  similar  application  of  the  word  Eoganacth  to  territories  belonging  to  the  descendants 
of  Eogan  More  (See  Ware,  Antiq.  c.  7.)  But  Cianachta  appears  to  me  to  have  had  a  more  general  import ; 
and,  from  the  manner  in  which  it  is  used  by  Tigernarh  {Rer.  Hib.  Script,  p.  44.,)  must  have  meant,  I  think,  a 
particular  measure  of  land,  as  he  speaks  there  of"  a  thirty-fold  Cianachata."— TVicAoc.  Ciansa. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  175 

to  lay  waste  the  territories  of  the  princely  Hy-Niells  from  the  source  of  the  Shannon  to 
the  sea.* 

Had  this  spirit  of  disunion  and  faithlessness  been  confined  to  the  natives  alone,  they 
must  at  once  have  fallen  an  easy  prey  to  the  stranger;  but,  luckily,  the  habit  of  serving 
as  mercenaries  soon  estranged  the  loyalty  of  the  Danes  from  their  own  cause  :  and, 
according  as  they  became  divided  among  themselves,  they  grew  less  formidable  as 
enemies.  There  occurred  an  event,  also,  about  the  middle  of  this  century,  which  added 
a  new  source  of  internal  division  to  the  many  that  already  distracted  and  weakened  their 
strength.  An  army  of  Northmen,  called  the  Dubh-Gals,  or  Black  Strangers,  as  being  of 
a  different  race  from  those  hitherto  known  in  Ireland,  having  landed  in  considerable  force 
in  the  year  850,t  made  an  attack  on  the  Fin-Gals,  or  White  Strangers,  already  in  pos- 
session of  Dublin  ;J;  and,  after  defeating  them  with  great  slaughter,  made  themselves 
masters  of  that  city  and  its  adjoining  territories.  In  the  following  year,  however,  the 
Fin-Gals,  being  reinforced  from  their  own  country,  attacked  the  Black  Gentiles,  by  whom 
they  had  been  driven  from  Dublin;  and,  after  a  battle  which  lasted,  according  to  the 
annalists,§  three  days  and  three  nights,  compelled  them  to  abandon  their  ships,  and 
regained  possession  of  the  city. 

It  was  soon  after  this  latter  occurrence  that  the  three  brothers,  Anlaf,  Ivar,  and  Sitric, 
of  the  royal  blood  of  Norway,  arriving  with  a  large  army  collected  from  the  different  isles 
of  the  North,  took  possession  of  the  three  great  maritime  positions, — Dublin, 
Limerick,  and  Waterford ;  [[  and  while  Anlaf  and  Ivar,  to  whom  fell  the  sovereignty  gcg* 
over  the  former  two  cities,  enlarged  considerably  their  boundaries,  and,  it  is  not 
improbable,  fortified  them,  the  remaining  brother,  Sitric,  is  generally  allowed  to  have 
been  the  first  founder  of  Waterford. U 

However  suspicious,  in  most  of  its  circumstances,  is  the  tale  told  by  Cambrensis,** 
respecting  the  stratagems  of  these  brother  chieftains,  in  coming  under  the  assumed  guise 
of  merchants,  and  thus  obtaining  for  themselves  and  their  followers  a  friendly  footing  in 
difl^erent  parts  of  the  country,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  to  their  skill  and  success 
in  commercial  pursuits,  as  well  as  to  that  command  over  the  Irish  sea-coasts  which  their 
position  and  practice  in  seamanship  gave  them,  they  were  mainly  indebted  for  the  ac- 
knowledged influence  they  so  soon  attained  throughout  the  kingdom.  How  considerable 
was  the  amount  of  this  power  may  be  judged  from  two  pregnant  facts  stated  by  the 
annalists, — that  to  these  brothers  not  only  the  foreigners  throughout  the  whole  island 
submitted,  but  likewise  the  natives  were  all  compelled  to  pay  them  tribute. ft 

What  was  the  nature  of  the  tribute  they  exacted  from  the  Irish,  or  whether  it  resem- 
bled the  famous  Danegelt  in  its  first  form,  when  paid  by  the  English  to  purchase  a  respite 
from  Danish  plunder,  does  not  appear  from  any  of  the  records.  We  are  told,  indeed,  of 
a  tax  imposed  by  Turgesius,  called  Argiod-Sron,  or  Nose-money,  from  the  penalty  at- 
tached to  its  non-payment  being  no  less  than  the  loss  of  the  defaulter's  nose.  A  sort  of 
tax,  bearing  the  same  name,  but  not  enforced  by  the  same  inhuman  forfeit,  appears,  from 

*  Annal.  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  848. 

t  Ann.  Ult. — Ware  and  Lanigaii  place  it  in  the  year  85].  The  Four  Masters,  as  usual,  antedate  the  event, 
making  it  in  849. 

t  In  Harris's  Annals  of  Dublin,  x.  d.  838,  it  is  said,  "Dublin  now  submitted  to  them  (the  Ostmen,  or 
Danes)  for  the  first  time,  in  which  they  raised  a  strong  rath,  and  thereby  curbed  not  only  the  city,  but,  in  a 
little  time,  extended  their  conquests  through  Fingal  to  the  north,  and  as  far  as  Bray  and  the  mountains  of 
Wicklow  to  the  south.  These  parts  seem  to  have  been  soon  after  made  the  head  of  the  Danish  settlements 
in  Leinster;  and  from  them  Fingal  took  its  name,  as  much  as  to  say.  The  Territory  of  the  While  Foreigners, 
or  Norwegians,  as  the  country  to  the  south  of  Dublin  was  called  Dubh-Oall,  or  the  Territory  of  the  Black 
Foreigners,  from  the  Danes.  This  last  denomination  is  not  preserved  in  history,  that  we  know  of;  but  it 
remains  by  tradition  among  the  native  Irish  of  these  parts  to  this  day."  The  writer  would  have  found,  in 
the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  the  name  of  Dubh-ghall  applied  to  these  strangers  ,  while  in  the  Annals  of 
Inisfallen  and  of  Ulster,  they  are  styled  Dubh-gentie,  or  Black  Gentiles,  and  the  others,  Fionn-geinte,  or  White 
Gentiles. 

§  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  851.  (852.)    Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  852. 

f  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  852  (853.)    Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  853. 

IT  Smith,  Mist,  of  Waterford,  c.  4 — "  Were  we  to  believe  Giraldus  Cambrensis,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  Sitric 
was  the  founder  of  Limerick"  (c.  x.\i.  sect.  14,  note  143.)  But  this  is  an  oversight;  for  it  is  to  Ivar  that 
Giraldus  attributes  the  construction  of  this  city.  "  Consti-uctis  itaque  primo  civitatibus  tribus,  Dublinia, 
Gwaterfordia,  Limerico,  Dublinia;  principatus  cessit  Amelao,  Gwaterfordiae  Sytaraco,  Limerici  Yuoro." — 
Topog.  Hib.  Dist.  iii.  c.  43.  It  is  clear  that  Dublin,  of  which  Giraldus  attributes  the  building  to  Amlaf.  had 
been  in  e.xistence,  though  probably  but  an  inconsiderable  place,  long  before  this  time;  and  the  Annals  of 
Inisfallen  fix  the  first  occupation  of  it  by  the  Danes,  in  the  year  827.  Of  Lrinierick,  its  historian,  Ferrar,  says, 
"  According  to  a  manuscript  in  the  editor's  possession,  the  Danes  got  possession  of  Limerick  in  the  year 
855."  But  we  have  seen  that,  about  a  dozen  years  earlier,  that  place  had  been  used  by  the  Northmen  as  a 
station  for  their  ships. 

**  Topograph.  Hibern.  Dist.  3.  c.  43. 

tt  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  851.  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  852.  The  latter  annalist  thus  states  tlie  fact:— Gur 
gbiallsat  Lochlannaicch  Eirionn  do,  7  cios  o  Ghadhalaibh  do. 


176  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

one  of  the  Sagas,*  to  have  been  in  use  among  the  ancient  Scandinavians;  and  such,  most 

nrobably,  vi'as  the  nature  of  the  tribute  now  exacted  by  their  descendants,  though  thus 

misrepresented,  according  to  the  usual  bias  of  history  when  the  hand  of  an  enemy  holds 

the  pen. 

On  the  death  of  the  monarch,  Melachlin,  he  was  succeeded  in  the  throne  by  Aodh 

Finliath,  a  prince,!  of  the  northern  Hy-Niell,  who  had,  just  before  his  accession,  in 

qUo"  concert  with  the  Danes,  overrun  and  ravaged  the  kingdom  of  Meath.     This  prin- 

cipality,  which  formed  no  longer  an  inseparable  adjunct  of  the  monarchy,  was,  at 

the  time  of  Aodh's  succession,  held  in  partition  between  the  two  princes,  Lorcan  and 

Concobar;  on  the  former  of  whom  the  new  monarch  laid  violent  hands  and  deprived  him 

of  his  eyes;  while  the  latter  was  drowned  at  Clonard  by  Aodh's  accomplice  and  ally, 

Anlaf  the  Dane.f 

The  deeds  of  this  adventurous  Northman  occupy  a  conspicuous  space  in  the  records  of 
his  time.  Besides  his  various  exploits  in  Irish  warfare,  among  which  the  spoliation  of 
the  rich  city  of  Armagh,  and  the  burning  of  its  shrines  and  hospitals,  was  not  the  least 
memorable,  he  also  refreshed  his  veteran  followers  with  an  occasional  inroad  into  North 
Britain,  where  the  now  weakened  Britons  of  Strath-Clyde  opposed  but  a  feeble  resistance; 
and  the  renowned  fortress  of  Alcluyd,  after  a  blockade  of  four  months,  fell  into  his 
siq'  power.j     At  length,  in  one  of  these  incursions  into  the  Albanian  territory,  he  was 

surprised  by  a  stratagem  of  the  Scots  and  slain. 
The  fame  of  Ireland,  as  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  exile  and  sufferer,  was,  even  in  these 
dark  times,  maintained;  and  we  find  Roderick,  King  of  Wales,  when  compelled  to  aban- 
don his  own  dominions  to  the  Danes,  seeking  an  asylum  on  tlie  Irish  shores.|| 

After  a  reign  of  sixteen  years,  the  monarch,  Aodh  Finliath,  departed  this  life ;  and 

Flan  Siona,  a  prince  of  the  South  Hy-Niell,  succeeded  to  the  throne.     It  has  been 

^~q'  seen,  from  the  time  of  the  first  establishment  of  an  Irish  colony  in  North  Britain,iy 

how  close  and  friendly  continued  to  be  the  intercourse  between  that  settlement 

and  the  mother  country, — cemented  as  it  was  by  all  those  ties  which  consanguinity,  per-  . 

petual  alliance,  and  frequent  intermarriages,  could  create.     To  this  connexion  between 

the  two  kingdoms  a  new  link  had,  during  the  late  reign,  been  added  by  the  marriage  of 

the  Irish  monarch,  Aodh  Finliath,  with  Malmaria,  the  daughter  of  the  renowned  Keneth 

Mac-Alpine. 

Some  time  having  elapsed  since  I  last  submitted  to  the  reader  any  notice  of  the  affairs 
of  the  Scots  of  North  Britain,** — a  people  whose  annals  the  parent  country  long  identi- 
fied with  her  own.ff — it  may  not  be  amiss  to  review  briefly  the  course  of  that  colony 
since  the  period  at  which  our  last  notice  of  it  terminated.  The  ruler  of  the  Scoto-Irish 
settlement  at  that  time  was  Aidan,  the  royal  friend  of  St.  Columba,  under  whose  sway 
(a.  d.  590,)  it  ceased  to  be  tributary  to  the  Irish  crown.J]:  and  became  an  independent 
kingdom.  On  the  small  stage  of  this  miniature  realm, ^^  we  find  acted  over  again  most  of 
the  dark  and  troubled  scenes  of  the  Irish  pentarchy ;  the  same  lawlessness  and  turbulence, 


*  In  the  Ynglinga  Sa!»a,  it  is  said  that  Odin  introduced  such  laws  as  before  were  in  use  among  the  Asi; 
and,  "  throughout  all  Swedland,  the  people  paid  unto  Odin  a  Scotponny  for  each  nose." 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  8(33.  According  to  these  annals,  it  was  through  the  aid  of  Anlaf  and  the  Danes, 
that  Aodh  Finliath  was  raised  to  the  throne. 

t  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  8G2  (863.) 

§  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  869,  and  870.  "  Alcluyd  was  wholly  razed  to  the  ground.  The  '  Black  Strangers' 
were  resistliiss ;  and  the  Britons,  Saxons,  Angles,  and  Picts,  were  mingled  in  captivity  beneath  the  yoke  of 
Anlaf  and  Hingvar  (Ivar.") — Palgrave,  English  Commonwealth,  c,  .\iv. 

|l  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  876. 

IT  For  accounts  of  the  original  settlements  of  the  Irish  in  North  Britain,  see  c.  vii.  p.  78,  and  c.  .^i.  p.  123 
of  this  Work. 

•*  See  c.  12,  p.  128  of  this  Work. 

tt  Not  unfrequently,  too,  the  records  of  the  affairs  of  Albany  have  been  corrected  by  reference  to  those  of 
the  mother  country:  for  an  instance  of  this,  see  Rcr.Hib.  Script  toni.  i.  p.  83.,  and  torn.  iv.  p  357.  "  In  rebus 
Albanicis,"  says  Dr.  O'Connor,  "  longe  accuratiores  sunt  Hibernici  Annales."  He  adds,  that  if  Kennedy,  in 
his  Chronological  Genealogy  of  the  Stuarts,  had  been  more  diligent  in  consulting  the  Irish  annals,  he  would 
not  have  fallen  into  so  many  errors. 

tt  See,  for  an  acount  of  the  convention  held  at  Dromceat  in  the  year  590,  pagw  129  of  this  Work, 
"  At  that  convention,"  says  O'Flaherty,  "  Aidan  obtained  an  e.temption  from  paying  tribute  to  I  he  kings  of 
Ireland;  and,  consequently,  the  honours  and  dignities  attendant  on  a  free  and  absolute  sovereignty." — 
Chronol.  and  Ocncal.  Catalogue  of  the  Kings  of  Scotland,  Oxygia  Vindicated,  c.  12. 

§§  The  region  occupieil  by  the  Scoto-Irish  colony,  comprised  only  Kentire,  Argyle,  and  some  of  the  islets. 
In  a  note  on  the  annals  of  Tigernach,  ad  an.  502,  Dr.  O'Connor  thus  describes  the  extent  of  this  small  king- 
dom:—"  Regiones  quas  filii  l<;rci  occupaverunt  tendebant  a  frcto  Dunbrittannico,  includentes  Ketitiream, 
Knapdaliam,  Ijoarnam,  Ardgatheliam,  et  Braidalban,  cum  viclnis  insulis  Hebridum."  Some  late  writers 
have  been  induced,  by  the  unsafe  authority  of  Whitaker,  to  refer  the  date  of  the  migrations  of  the  sons  of 
Erck  to  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century;  but  the  period  fued  for  this  event  (a.  d.  503.)  by  all  the 
best  writers  on  the  subject  will,  as  Pinkerton  justly  observes,  "  to  any  one  the  least  versed  in  Irish  history, 
or  in  the  old  Scottish  chronicles,  be  as  openly  evinced  as  any  date  of  Greek  or  Roman  history."— /nguirj/, 
part  iv.  c.  3. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  177 

redeemed  sometimes  by  the  same  romantic  heroism ;  a  similar  reverence  for  all  that  was 
sanctioned  by  the  past,  combined  with  as  light  and  daring  a  recklessness  of  the  future. 
That  rooted  attachment  to  old  laws  and  usages  which  marked  the  natives  of  the  mother 
country,  was  here  transmitted  in  full  force  to  their  descendants; — the  ancient  language, 
and  all  the  numerous  traditions  of  which  it  was  the  vehicle;  the  system  of  clanship,  and 
laws  of  succession ;  even  the  old  parti-coloured  dress  worn  by  the  ancient  Scots, — all 
continued  to  be  retained  in  North  Britain  to  a  much  later  period  than  among  the  original 
Irish  themselves. 

The  native  hardihood  of  the  early  colony  had  been  strongly  manifested,  not  only  in  the 
spirit  with  which  they  maintained  themselves  in  their  rude  mountain  holds,  in  despite  of 
an  ungenial  clime,  and  the  neighbourhood  of  a  fierce  enemy,  the  Picts,*but  also  in  their 
conversion  afterwards  of  this  enemy  into  an  ally,  and  the  gallant  stand  made  by  them 
jointly  against  the  legions  of  mighty  Rome.  In  the  reign  of  their  King  Aldan  (572 — 
605,)  the  longest  and  most  glorious  of  any  in  the  Dalriadic  annals,  these  highlanders 
encountered  the  Saxon  invaders  on  the  borders  of  Westmorland,  and  in  two  several 
engagements  defeated  them*  At  length,  elated  too  much  by  his  successes,  Aidan  ven- 
tured to  attack  the  Bernician  king,  jEthelfrid,  in  the  full  career  of  his  victories,  and  sus- 
tained, on  that  occasion,  so  signal  a  defeat,  that  he  himself  was  but  able  to  escape  with  a 
few  followers  from  the  field.f  This  was  the  last  effort  of  military  prowess.J  out  of  their 
own  immediate  region,  upon  which  the  Scots  of  North  Britain  are  known  for  some  cen- 
turies to  have  ventured.  After  the  death  of  this  able  prince,  not  merely  their  external 
influence  declined,  but  the  peace  and  union  which  he  had  managed  to  maintain  within 
his  small  dominions,  almost  entirely  vanished. 

The  elements  of  anarchy,  which  this  Irish  colony  had  imported  with  them,  in  their 
system  of  chieftainship  and  the  rivalry  of  septs  which  naturally  sprung  out  of  it,5  were, 
of  course,  not  tardy  in  developing  themselves;  and  there  arose  a  feud  between  the  two 
kindred  races  of  Fergus  and  Lorn,|l  which  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  divided 
this  small  community  into  two  fierce  and  irreconcileable  factions.  Throughout  the 
whole  time  during  which  this  division  lasted,  the  respective  tribes  were  kept  in  a  state 
of  perpetual  strife;  and  we  are  told  that,  on  one  occasion,  when  each  of  the  antagonist 
sovereigns  had  sent  out  a  fleet  composed  of  currachs,  or  small  leathern  boats,  to  attack 
the  dominions  of  the  other,  the  two  armaments  met  off  Ardanesse,  on  the  coast  of  Argyle- 
shire,  and  a  naval  battle  took  place  between  them,  which  ended  in  a  victory  on  the  side 
of  the  belligerant  who  boasted  his  descent  in  the  line  of  Fergus.  At  length  an  arrange- 
ment was  brought  about,  by  which,  as  in  the  alternate  succession  of  the  north  and  south 
Hy-Nielis  in  Ireland,  the  rival  races  of  Lorn  and  Fergus  were,  each  in  turn,  to  succeed 
the  other  on  the  throne. 

During  the  whole  of  this  state  of  affairs,  of  which  the  Picts,  it  might  be  supposed, 
would  gladly  have  taken  advantage,  as  opening  so  favourable  a  field  for  designs  against 
the  independence  of  their  Scottish  neighbours,  no  act  indicative  of  such  a  policy  appears 
to  be  recorded;  and  it  was  not  till  near  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  (a.,  d.  736,) 
that  that  series  of  fierce  conflicts  between  the  Scots  and  Picts  commenced,  which  ended, 
after  a  long  struggle  and  with  alternate  success,  in  placing  a  Scoto-Irisli  prince  on  the 
throne  of  the  Pictish  kings. 

With  the  expectation,  doubtless,  of  softening,  by  a  family  alliance,  the  mutual  hostility 
of  the  two  kingdoms,  a  marriage  was  contracted,  early  in  the  ninth  century,  between 

*  Both  these  victories  of  JE.\an  are  mentinned,  in  the  annals  of  Ulster,  at  531,  and  589.  In  the  curious 
Diian  ascribed  to  Malcolm  the  Third's  bard,  this  Scoto  Irish  king  is  called  "  ^Jan  of  the  extended  tern- 
lories."  . 

t  Bede  thus  speaks  of  the  second  battle:— "Motus  ejus  prnfeetibus  iEidan  rex  Scntorum  qui  Bntanniam 
inhabitant  venit  contra  eum  cum  immense  exercitu,  sed  cum  pancis  victus  aufugit."— i/jsL  F.cclesiasi.,  lib.  i. 
c.  34.  The  record  of  this  battle,  in  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  Is  thus  confusedly  rendered  by  a  late  trMuslator  :— 
"  The  Scots  fought  with  the  Dalreathians,  and  with  Ethelfrilh,  King  of  the  Northumbrians."  A  full  account 
of  the  achievements  of  thisScoto-Irish  king  may  be  found  in  Buchanan,  Rer.  Scot.  Hist.  lib.  5.  Hex  xlix. 

I  According  to  Sigebert  ad  an.  615,  this  defeat  of  the  Scoto-Irish  had  been  foretold  by  the  apostle'of  the 
English,  Augustin.  •'  Hsc  calamiras  Scottis  contingit  secundum  valicinium  Augustini  episcopi,  qui  inter- 
minatus  est  Scottos  ab  Anglis  fore  perimendos." 

Bishop  Lloyd  thus  marks  the  dates,  both  of  this  event  and  of  the  settlement  of  the  Scots  in  North  Britain:— 
"  In  the  year  G03  (which  I  reckon  to  have  been  just  a  hundred  years  after  their  coming  into  Britain,)  that 
prince,  Aidan,  having  a  jealousy  of  .^Ethelfrid,  &.c"—Oh  Church  Omern.  c.  i. 

§  Sine  rege  ac  certo  imperin  p;r  cognitiones  trihutim  sparsis.— B«cAan,  lib.  4. 

II  At  a  still  earlier  period,  the  race  of  Fergus  alone  had  supplied  sufficient  materials  of  discord  from  its  own 
stock,— the  septs  of  Comgal  and  of  Gauran,  b.ith  descended  from  Fergus,  having,  for  a  length  of  time,  con- 
vulsed this  small  realm  with  their  feuds.  At  length,  in  571,  a  sanguinary  battle  decided  their  respective  pre- 
tensions, leaving  the  tribe  of  Gauran  in  the  possession  of  Kintire,  while  Argyle  fell  to  the  tribe  of  Comgall; 
"  and  these  two  tribes,"  says  Chalmers,  "  are  sometimes  distinguished  in  the  Irish  annals  as  the  sept  of 
Kintire,  and  the  sept  of  Argail."— Vol.  I.  Book  ii.  c.  vi.  See  also  this  useful  work  (loc.  citat.)  for  a  Genealogi- 
cal Table  of  the  Dalriadic  Kings. 

22 


178  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Achy,  or  Achaius,  King  of  the  Scots,  and  a  Pictish  princess  named  Urgusia ;  and  this 
connexion,  though  it  had  not  the  effect  of  even  abating  the  mutual  enmity  of  the  two 
kingdoms,  was  the  means  ultimately  of  conducing  to  that  only  issue  of  such  a  contest  by 
which  it  could  be  summarily,  and  without  chance  of  revival,  extinguished.  About  the 
middle  of  the  same  century,  Keneth  Mac  Alpine,  the  grandson  of  the  Princess  Urgusia, 
furnished  with  the  double  claim  arising  from  military  prowess  and  his  maternal  descent, 
took  the  field,  assisted  by  Irish  auxiliaries,  against  the  Picts;  and,  after  a  battle,  renewed, 
as  the  chroniclers  tell  us,  no  less  than  seven  times  in  one  day,  gained  a  victory  over  that 
people  (a.  d.  843,)  so  complete  and  decisive,  as  to  have  been  exaggerated  by  panic  and 
fiction  into  their  total  extirpation.*  By  this  event  the  crowns  of  Albany  and  Pictland 
were  both  united  bn  one  head;  and  from  the  same  epoch  is  to  be  dated  the  foundation  of 
the  Scottish  kingdom  in  North  Britain; — although  it  is  certain  that  the  application  of  the 
name  of  Scotia  to  that  country  did  not  begin  to  come  into  use  before  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury.f 

At  this  time  the  celebrated  Lia  Fail,  or  stone  of  Destiny,'upon  which  the  ancient  kings 
of  Ireland  used  to  be  inaugurated.^  and  which  had  been  brought  over  into  Albany  by 
Fergus,  the  leader  of  the  Dalriadic  colony,  was  removed  by  the  conqueror  of  the  Picts 
from  Argyle  to  Scone,  where  it  remained  till  the  time  of  Edward  I.,  by  whom  it  was 
transferred  to  Westminster  Abbey. 

To  return  to  the  course  of  our  history. — The  marriage  of  Malmaria,  the  daughter  of 

the  conqueror  of  the  Picts  to  Aodh  Finliath,  the  monarch  now  ruling  over  Ireland,  was, 

as  we  have  seen,  a  continuance  of  the  ancient  ties  of  amity  between  the  two 

a-q    kindred  kingdoms  of  Ireland  and  of  Albany.     After  Aodh's  death, §  his  successor. 

Flan  Siona  (a.  d.  879,)  solicited  also  and  won  the  hand  of  the  widowed  Queen 

Malmaria,  who  became,  tiirough  this  double  alliance,  the  means  of  connecting  the  three 

great  branches  of  the  Ily-Niell  race,  the  Tyronian,  the  Clan-Colman,  and  the  Slanian, 

to  the  utter  exclusion  of  the  fourth,  or  Tyrconnel  branch,  from  the  succession  to  the 

monarchy.  II 

Among  the  deficiencies  most  to  be  complained  of  by  a  reader  of  our  early  history,  is 
the  want  of  the  interest  and  instruction  arising  from  the  contemplation  of  individual 
character, — the  rare  occurrence,  not  merely  of  marked  historical  personages,  but  of  any 
actors  in  the  tumultuous  scene  sufficiently  elevated  above  their  contemporaries  to  attract 
the  eye  in  passing,  or  form  a  resting  place  for  the  mind.     To  this  but  too  obvious  defect 
of  our  early  annals,  a  rare  exception  occurs  at  the  period  we  have  now  reached, 
^r^'  in  the  person  of  Cormac  Mac  Culinan,  King  and  Bishop  of  Cashel,  whose  con- 
nexion with  the  literary  as  well  as  the  political  history  of  his  country,  imparts  an 
qQo    interest  to  his  name  and  reign  but  seldom  attendant  upon  the  records  of  his  brother 

kings  and  bishops. 
The  union  of  the  regal  and  sacerdotal  powers  in  the  same  person  was  not  without  pre- 
cedent in  Cormac's  own  family ; — two  of  his  ancestors,  Oncobar  and  Cenfilad,  having 

*  The  original  source  of  this  extravagant  fiction  was  the  ancient  chronicler,  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  ac- 
cording to  whom  the  very  language  of  the  Picts  passed  suadenly  into  oblivion  : — "  Non  solum  reges  eorum.et 
principes,  et  populumdeperiisse,  varum  etiam  sttrpem  omnem,  et  linguam  et  menlionem  simul  defecisse." — 
Lib.  i.  Buchanan  mentions  an  ancient  prophecy,  which  had  foretold  this  utter  extinction  of  the  Picts  by  the 
Scots:—"  Divinitus  Pictis  dictionem  esse  datam  fore,  ut  aliqiian(io  tota  gens  a  ScoUs  deleretur."— Lib  iv. 

t  Usher  is  decidedly  of  opinion,  that  no  instance  can  be  produced  of  the  name  Scotia  having  been  applied 
to  the  present  Scotland  before  the  eleventh  century ;—"  Quod  ut  ante  undecimum  post  Christi  nativitatem 
seculum  baud  quaquam  factum,  in  fine  praccedentis  Capitis  declaravimus :  ita  neminem,  qui  toto  anteceden- 
tium  annnrum  spacio  scripserit  produci  posse  arhitramur  qui  Scotia  appellatione  Albanian!  unquam  designa- 
verit."—Ecrks.  Primord.  c.  Hi.  Dr.  O'Connor  follows  Usher  in  this  opinion  {Prol.  i.  63;)  and  Pinkerton, 
agreeing  with  both,  says,  "  the  truth  is,  that  from  the  fourth  century  to  the  eleventh,  the  names  Scotia  and 
Scoti  belonged  solely  to  Ireland  and  tlte  irisW—Jnquiry.  part  iv.  c.  1.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  therefore,  antici- 
pates by  a  century  or  two,  when,  in  speaking  nf  Kenneth  Macalpine,  he  says,  "  The  country  united  under 
his  sway  was  then,  for  the  first  time,  called  Scotland;  which  name  it  has  ever  since  retained."— J/wt.  of  Scot- 
land. Cab.  Cyc.  vol.  i.  c.  ii. 

J  Said  to  have  been  brought  into  Ireland  by  the  Tuathade-Danaan.- See  c.  v.  p.  57  of  this  Work.  Of 
this  relic,  and  its  removal,  Drayton  thus  makes  mention  : — 

"  Our  Longshanks,  Scotland's  scourge,  who  to  the  Oreads  raught 
His  sceptre;  and  with  him,  from  wild  Albania  brought 
The  reliques  of  her  crown  (by  him  first  placed  here,) 
The  seat  on  which  her  kings  inaugurated  were." 

Polijolb.  Seventeenth  Sonff. 

§  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  R7fi.  (<rr^  commun.  879  )  .  .  . 

I  Hinc  spqultur  O'Neillos  Tironenses  Clan  Colmannos,  et  Clan  Slanios  per  Maelmariam  consociatos  fuisM, 
et  Tirconnallenses  a  Regimine  Hibernorum  prorsus  excUisos.  — .ficr.  Bib.  Scrip,  t.  iv.  ad  ann.  878.  JVote.  See 
also,  jOissnrt  on  the  Hist  nf  Inlnnd,  sect.  xv. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  179 

been,  at  their  respective  periods,  kings  of  Cashel  as  well  as  bishops  of  Emly.*  As  Cashel 
had,  in  the  times  preceding  his  reign,  been  comprised  in  the  see  of  Emly,  some  wonder 
has  been  expressed  at  its  appearance  as  a  distinct  bishopric  in  the  instance  of  King  Cor- 
mac.  But  though  no  record  of  the  change  exists,  it  may  fairly  be  concluded  that,  as  one 
of  the  consequences  of  the  high  political  rank  which  Munster  had  now  assumed,  its  capi- 
tal city  had  been  equally  advanced  on  the  scale  of  episcopal  jurisdiction;  and  it  seems 
even  probable  that  the  station  of  metropolitical  see  which  Cashel  afterwards  attained  had 
long  before  been  held  virtually  by  it  as  the  capital  of  Munster. 

In  upholding  the  triple  character  of  king,  bishop,  and  warrior,  this  prince  had  been 
anticipated  by  his  ancestor,  Olchobar  Mac  Kenedi,  who,  in  like  manner,  though  a  bishop 
and  abbot,  illustrated  the  annals  of  his  reign  by  a  brilliant  victory  over  the  Danes.f 

The  very  brief  period  during  which  Cormac  held  the  sceptre  was  passed,  unremit- 
tingly, by  him  in  warfare  both  with  the  monarch  and  the  King  of  Leinster;  but  whether 
through  provocation  originating  vvith  himself  or  his  antagonists  is  a  point  variously  repre- 
sented by  historians.  Judging  from  the  dates,  however,  assigned  to  the  transactions  by 
the  annalists,  it  is  clearly  unjust  to  attribute  the  first  hostile  movement  to  Cormac,  who, 
on  the  contrary,  appears  to  have  been  administering  the  affairs  of  his  kingdom  in  peace, 
when  Flann-Siona,  then  monarch  of  Ireland,  made  an  irruption  into  Munster,  and  laid 
waste  the  country  from  Gaura  to  Limerick.];  An  opportunity  of  taking  revenge  for  this 
wanton  inroad  was  not  long  wanting.  In  the  following  year,  attended  by  Flaherty,  the 
warlike  abbot  of  Iniscathyj  who  was  the  chief  prompter  and  adviser  of  his  military 
enterprises,  Cormac  gave  battle  to  the  monarch  and  his  confederates,  on  the  Heath  qV>~" 
of  Moylena,  a  plain  memorable  in  the  traditions  of  older  times,^  and  having  gained 
a  decisive  victory  over  them,  obtained  hostages  as  marks  of  submission  from  their  royal 
leader.  Still  farther  to  follow  up  his  success  and  bring  into  subjection  the  proud  power 
of  the  Hy-Niells,  Cormac  marched  also  into  Roscommon,  and  there  exacted  similar 
pledges  of  submission  ;  thus  conferring  upon  the  Church  the  rare  and  welcome  triumph 
of  seeing  the  northern  portion  of  the  island  rendered  tributary  to  an  ecclesiastical  sove- 
reign. 

The  original  source  of  the  hostile  feelings  which  had  first  given  rise  to  this  war,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  part  taken  by  the  monarch  in  encouraging  and  aiding  the  people 
of  Leinster  in  their  refusal  to  pay  the  customary  tributes  to  the  King  of  Munster.||  This 
right  or  custom  of  receiving  tribute  in  exchange  for  subsidies  or  wages,  which  formed  a 
part  of  the  relations  established  between  the  superior  and  inferior  princes,  was  originally 
exercised  by  the  subordinate  kings  only  within  the  limits  of  their  own  provinces;  while 
the  supreme  monarch  asserted  this  right  over  all  the  provincial  princes,  and  presenting 
subsidies  to  each,  received  tribute  and  supplies  from  each  in  return.  In  the  course  of 
time,  however,  when  the  throne  of  Cashel  had  become,  in  every  respect,  almost  coequal 
with  that  of  Tara,  the  King  of  Munster,  no  longer  content  with  his  own  provincial  re- 
sources, extended  his  demands  over  the  whole  of  the  southern  moiety  of  Ireland,  ren- 
dering tributary  to  himself  all  the  other  states  and  princes  of  Leath  Mogh. 

Such  was  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  claim  which  the  people  of  Leinster  now  strenu- 
ously resisted,  and,  with  a  natural  jealousy  of  so  usurping  a  power,  were  as  strenuously 
abetted  in  their  resistance  by  the  monarch.     Both  parties  prepared  with  energy  for  the 
encounter;  though  to  Cormac  himself  is  attributed,  by  most  of  his  historians,  a  strong 
reluctance  to  commit  his  fame  and  the  peace  of  his  subjects  to  the  chance  of  a  contest  so 
doubtful.  .  To  whatever  extent,  however,  such  scruples  may  have  arisen  in  his  mind, 
they  were  completely  overborne  by  the  rash  counsels  of  his  war-minister,  the  impetuous 
abbot  of  Iniscathy.     The  army  of  Munster  was  accordingly  marched  into  the  Lageniaa 
territory,ir  where  they  were  met  by  the  united  forces  of  the  monarch  and  the  king 
of  Leinster,  supported  also  by  most  of  the  princes  of  Leath-Cuinn.     A  foreboding  qJ^o' 
that  he  should  fall  in  this  battle  is  said  to  have  so  strongly  taken  possession  of 
Cormac's  mind,  that,  under  the  avowed  influence  of  this  feeling  he  made  his  last  will; 

*  Ware's  Bishops,  at  Emltj  and  Cashel. 

t  "  It  may  be,"  says  Lanigan,  "  that  he  was  originally  head  bishop  at  Cashel,  on  account  of  his  extraordi- 
nary merit,  according  to  the  Irish  system  of  raising  distinguished  persons  to  tlie  episcopal  rank  in  places 
where  previously  there  had  been  no  bishops." — Chap.  xxii.  §  iv. 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  906.     Annal.  Ult.  ad  ann,  905. 

§  The  plain  of  Lene,  in  the  King's  County,  remarkable  in  our  history  for  having  been  the  scene  of  a  great 
victory  gained  by  Con  "  of  the  Hundred  Battles"  over  his  competitor  for  the  sovereignly,  Eogan  Mogh-Nuad. 
See  Tigernach,  ad  an.  181.  The  hero,  Goll,  the  son  of  Morni,  whom  Macpherson  borrowed  from  Irish  history, 
was  one  of  the  champions  that  fought  and  conquered  on  the  side  of  Connaught  in  that  battle.  See  Rer.  Hib. 
Scrip.  Prolegom.  Iviii.,  where  a  Poem  on  the  Battle  of  Moylena,  entitled  "  Cath  Lene,"  is  referred  to  as  still 
extant. 

II  "  The  Book  of  Wars  and  Battles  mentions  at  large  the  reasons  which  induced  Cormac  this  time  to  war 
upon  the  Lagenians ;  and  says  it  was  because  their  king,  Cearbhull,  refused  to  pay  the  usual  tributes  due  from 
the  kings  in  Leath  Mogha  to  the  King  of  Cashel." — MCurtin's  Brief  Discourse,  S(C. 

IT  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  903. 


180  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and,  though  himself  of  the  Eoganacht  or  Eugenian  race,  appointed,  with  a  due  regard  to 
the  alternate  right  of  the  Dalcassians,  the  prince  of  this  tribe  who  was  to  succeed  him. 

The  result  of  the  battle  was  such  as  might  have  been  expected  from  the  disparity  in 
numbers  of  the  two  armies  engaged.  After  a  long  and  desperate  struggle,  the  troops  of 
Munster  were  at  length  forced  to  give  way ;  and  Cormac  himself,  according  to  his  fore- 
boding, was  among  the  slain;  having,  as  some  relate,  been  thrown  from  his  horse  in  the 
heat  and  press  of  the  engagement.  A  number  of  other  princes  and  nobles  of  Munster, 
whose  names  are  enumerated  by  the  annalists,  were,  together  with  6000  of  their  respec- 
tive clans,*  put  to  the  sword,  on  that  day.  Among  the  most  distinguished  of  the  slain 
are  mentioned  the  abbots  of  Cork  and  of  Kinetty;f  two  of  that  numerous  body  of  ecclesias- 
tics who,  forced  by  the  overwhelming  inroads  of  the  Danes  to  take  up  arms  in  defence 
of  themselves  and  their  establishments,  became  at  length  but  too  much  accustomed  to 
this  fleshly  warfare,|  and  in  more  than  one  instance,  like  the  tierce  abbot  of  Iniscathy, 
imbittered  far  more  than  they  mitigated  the  horrors  of  civil  strife. 

As  far  as  the  few  events  known  of  his  life  enable  us  to  judge  of  Cormac's  character 
and  career,  he  appears  to  have  been  an  accomplished  and  gentle-minded  ecclesiastic, 
raised  late  in  life  to  the  stormy  possession  of  a  throne,  and  made  evidently  the  instru- 
ment, during  his  few  years  of  sovereignty,  of  some  of  the  more  violent  and  aspiring  spirits 
of  his  order.  With  the  exception  of  a  simple  announcement  of  his  accession  to  the  see 
of  Cashel,  tiiere  occurs  no  mention  in  our  annals  of  his  name  till  after  he  had  ascended 
the  throne  of  Munster,  which  warrants  the  conclusion  that  his  previous  life  had  been 
passed  in  peaceful  pursuits;  while  the  memorable  monuments  of  his  taste  and  talent 
which  he  left  behind  in  his  famous  Psalter,  a  work  illustrative  of  Irish  antiquities,  and 
the  beautiful  chapel  built  by  him  at  Cashel,  which  still  retains  his  name,  show  that  his 
leisure  had  not  beeu  unprofitably,  nor  without  honour  to  himself  and  his  country,  em- 
ployed. 

When  advanced  to  the  throne,  the  views  and  counsels  by  which  he  was  guided  were 
those  of  others,  it  is  manifest,  not  his  own;  and  the  same  gentleness  of  nature  which  had 
fitted  him  for  a  life  of  peace  will  account  also  for  the  culpable  facility  with  which  he  now 
suffered  himself  to  be  involved  in  war.  Once  committed,  however,  in  the  strife,  he  ap- 
pears to  have  deported  himself  in  a  manner  becoming  a  king  and  general,  in  such  exi- 
gencies; and  the  circumstances  preceding  the  fatal  battle  in  which  he  fell, — the  making 
of  his  will,  bequeathing  gifts  to  his  favourite  friends  and  the  principal  churches,^ — his 
sending  for  Lorcan,  the  head  of  the  Dalcassian  tribe,  and  declaring,  in  the  presence  of 
all  his  court  and  kinsmen,  that  this  prince  was  his  rightful  successor  in  the  throne — all 
these  deliberate  preparations  for  a  fate  which  he  felt  to  be  near  at  hand,  contrasted  with 
the  rash  and  vulgar  turbulence  of  those  who  were  hurrying  him  to  that  doom,  presents 
altogether  a  picture  of  moral  dignity,  of  cahn  encounter  with  fortune,  which,  to  whatever 
age  or  country  it  might  have  belonged,  could  not  fail  to  awaken  interest  and  respect. 

In  endeavouring  to  secure,  as  far  as  was  in  his  power,  to  the  Dalcassian  branch  of  his 
family  their  right  of  alternate  succession  to  the  throne  of  Munster,  he  made  but  a  due 
return  of  justice  and  gratitude  for  all  the  generous  services  rendered  by  that  gallant  sept, 
as  well  to  himself  as  to  many  of  his  predecessors,  1|  though  of  the  rival  and  too  often: 
usurping  branch.  Occupying  a  district  which  served  as  a  frontier  ground  between  Mun- 
ster and  Connaught,  it  was  upon  these  brave  warriors  that  always  fell  the  first  brunt  of 
invasion  in  any  incursions  from  the  latter  province ;ir  while,  by  means  of  their  signal- 

*  The  Annals  of  Inisfallen  mention  particularly  the  clan  of  Eogan,  and  the  clan  of  Neill:— CAwteoi7 
Eogain  7  moran  eile  d'uaislibh  cloinne  JVeill. 

t  IV.  Mag. 

i  Hume,  speaking  of  the  same  period  in  Enpland,  says,  "  The  ecclesiastics  were  then  no  less  warlike  than 
the  civil  magistrates."— (Vol.  i.  c.  ii,)  and  Mosheim,  in  his  account  of  the  internal  state  of  the  church  in  the 
ninth  century,  tells  us,— "ThH  bishops  and  heads  of  monasteries  held  many  lands  and  castles  by  a  feudal 
tenure;  and  being  thereby  bound  to  furnish  their  princes  with  a  certain  number  of  soldiers  in  time  of  war, 
were  obliged  also  to  take  the  field  themselves  at  the  head  of  these  troops."— Cent.  9,  part  -2,  c.  ii. 

§  The  following  is  the  list  of  his  presents  to  the  churches,  as  I  find  it  in  Keating:—"  An  ounce  of  gold,  an 
ounce  of  silver,  and  a  horse  and  arms  to  Ardfinau;  a  golden  and  a  silver  chalice,  and  a  vestment  of  silk,  to 
Lismorc;  a  golden  and  a  silver  chalice,  4  ounce?  of  gold,  and  5  of  silver,  to  Cashel ;  3  ounces  of  gold,  and  a 
mass  book,  to  Emly  ;  an  ounce  of  gold,  and  another  of  silver,  to  Glendaloch;  a  horse  and  arms,  with  an 
ounce  of  gold,  and  a  silk  vestment,  to  Kildare  ;  24  ounces  of  gold  and  of  silver  to  Armagh;  3  ounces  of  gold 
to  Iniscatha;  3  ounces  of  gold,  and  a  silk  vestment,  with  his  roval  benediction,  to  the  successor  of  Mun- 
gaired  (Miingret.")  VV'halcver  authenticity  may  be  claimed  lor  this  part  of  Cormac's  will,  the  bequests  to  his 
friends,  which  are  enumerated  in  verse,  bear  evident  marks  of  more  modern  fabrication;  the  list  of  articles 
comprising,  among  other  things,  "  a  clock,"  and  a  "coat  of  mail  of  bright  and  polished  steel." 

II  The  particulars  of  the  many  good  services  of  the  clan  of  Dalgais  to  the  kings  of  Munster,  in  the  disputes 
between  that  province  and  Leinster,  are  recorded  in  a  poem  comixised  by  O'Dugan.— See  Appendix  to  JVichol- 
sob's  Histor.  Lib. 

If  "There  existed,  from  an  early  period,  a  constant  enmity  between  the  two  provinces,  Connaught  and 
Munster,  and  the  present  county  of  Clare  was  the  bone  of  contention;  the  Conacians  claiming  it,  as  being 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  181 

fires,  lighted  up  rapidly  from  hill  to  hill,  they  gave  instant  alarm  to  the  neighbouring 
districts,  and  secured  the  inhabitants*  from  surprise.  Among  the  recorded  tributes  to 
the  high  reputation  of  this  brave  sept,  was  one  from  the  pen,  as  we  are  told,  of  Cormac 
himself;  wiio  said  that,  "in  the  vanguard  was  always  the  post  of  the  Dalgais  on  entering 
an  enemy's  country,  and  in  the  rear  when  retiring  from  it."f 

Some  writers  have  asserted  that,  in  despite  of  the  solemn  will  of  Olill  Ollum,  enjoin- 
ing that  the  succession  to  the  throne  of  Cashel  should  be  enjoyed  alternately  by  the 
Eugenian  and  Dalcassian  branches  of  his  family,  yet  so  often  had  the  former  tribe  en- 
croached on  the  rights  of  the  latter,  that  little  more  than  one-third  of  the  princes  elevated 
to  that  throne  had  been  of  the  Dalcassian  race.  Were  this  statement  correct,  so  fre- 
quent an  infringement  of  an  old  law  of  succession  would  have  formed  a  rare  exception 
to  the  general  fidelity  with  which  the  ancient  Irish  were  known  to  have  adhered  to  such 
settlements.  It  appears,  however,  that  the  disparity  in  numbers  observable  between  the 
Eugenian  and  Dalcassian  kings  of  Munster,  can  be  traced  satisfactorily  to  the  practice 
prevalent  among  the  antiquaries  of  some  great  houses,  of  lengthening  out  the  series  of 
the  family  succession  by  means  of  adscititious  names.  In  this  sort  of  genealogical  im- 
posture the  seanachies  or  antiquaries  of  the  Eugenian  race  are  said  to  have  rather  unwar- 
rantably indulged  ;  insomuch  that  were  their  catalogue  of  kings  retrenched  of  its  inter- 
polated names,  the  excess  of  the  number  of  their  reigning  princes  over  that  of  the  Dal- 
cassians  would  be  found  considerably  diminished. | 

By  the  monkish  chroniclers,  the  reign  of  their  favourite  king,  Cormac,  is  described  as 
a  period  rich  in  all  earthly  blessings;  an  interval  of  sunshine  between  past  and  coming 
storms,  in  whose  cheering  light  religion  and  learning  revived,  the  song  of  peace  was 
again  heard  upon  the  hills,  and  the  smile  of  returning  prosperity  diffused  brightness  over 
the  whole  face  of  the  land.^  In  writing  of  the  reign  of  a  bishop-king,  the  monastic  his- 
torian may  well  be  indulged  in  some  flights  of  zeal;  but  unluckily  the  picture  here  pre- 
sented can  boast  no  semblance  whatever  of  truth.  So  far  from  the  short  period  of  Cor- 
mac's  reign  having  been  an  epitome,  as  here  described,  of  the  golden  age,  it  was,  on  the 
contrary,  marked  throughout  with  all  the  worst  features  of  violence  and  injustice  that 
ordinarily  disfigure  the  face  of  Irish  history ;  rendered,  in  this  instance,  still  more  odious 
by  the  gross  and  prominent  part  which  an  unworthy  pretender  to  the  priestly  character 
performed  in  the  transactions  of  the  scene. 

In  one  respect  only  may  the  prospects  of  the  country  be  said  to  have  brightened  to  a 
certain  extent  at  this  period.  The  ascendancy  of  the  Danes  had,  by  some  la^e  victories 
over  them,  been  considerably  diminished ;  and  the  expulsion  of  great  numbers  of  them 
from  the  island  had  but  the  year  before  Cormac's  accession  been  eflfected. 

This  partial  deliverance  from  foreign  encroachment,  accomplished  chiefly  by  the  brave 
efforts  of  the  people  of  Leinster,  who  had  too  oflen  on  former  occasions  disgraced  them- 
selves by  confederacy  with  this  same  foe,  has  been  represented  carelessly  by  some  histo- 
rians as  a  total  expulsion  of  the  Danish  marauders  from  the  island.[|  Whereas,  it  is 
certain  that  at  this  period,  and  for  a  long  time  after,  there  continued  to  be  stationary 
settlements  of  the  Danes  on  various  parts  of  the  sea-coast,  so  well  established  in  their 
several  positions,  and  engaged  in  commercial  pursuits  as  to  have  become,  to  a  great 
degree,  incorporated  with  the  population  of  the  country.  That  the  chiefs  of  these  mari- 
time settlements  may  have  acted  as  leaders,  occasionally,  to  some  of  those  numerous 
swarms  of  adventurers  that  were,  from  time  to  time,  wafted  from  the  Baltic,  may  be  fairly 

included  in  Northern  Ireland.  At  an  early  period  the  Momonians  were  obliged  to  make  Fearan  Cloidhimh, 
or  iSword-Land,  of  all  the  western  coast;  as  they  were,  after  the  death  of  Goll,  of  many  other  parts." — M)te 
on  a  Translation  of  the  Ode  of  Ooll  the  Son  of  Morni,  Transact,  of  R.  I.  Academy,  1788. 

*  "  It  is  curious,  even  at  this  day,  to  observe  the  judgment  with  which  these  beacons  were  placed.  I  have 
examined  several  of  these  eminences,  and  not  only  through  the  whole  county  of  Clare  were  forts  so  disposed 
that  in  two  hours  the  entire  country  could  receive  the  alarm,  whether  the  attempts  were  made  by  sea  or 
land,  or  both,  but  in  Lower  Ormond  stations  were  so  judiciously  placed  that  the  least  attempts  or  prepara- 
tions, towards  the  Shannon  side,  were  quickly  made  known." — O' Halloran,  Hist,  of  Ireland,  book  ii.  c.  1. 

t  Vallancey,  Law  of  Tanistry  illustrated. 

X  In  many  instances,  kings  of  Munster,  who  had  been  coregnants,  or  reigning  at  the  same  time  in  different 
parts  of  the  country,  were  set  down  in  the  list  of  the  Eugenian  antiquaries  as  having  reigned  separately,  and 
at  different  periods.  To  show  the  lengths  to  which  this  deception  was  carried,  one  example  will  suffice. 
From  the  year  of  the  battle  in  which  Cormac  fell  (908,)  to  the  death  of  Callaghan  Cashel,  King  of  Munster 
(954,)  (a  period  of  forty-six  years)  there  reigned  over  Munster  three  successive  princes.  But  into  this  same 
interval,  namely,  between  the  death  of  Cormac  and  that  of  Callaghan  Cashel,  the  Eugenian  antiquaries 
have  crowned  no  less  than  13  kings,  and  distributed  among  them  a  series  of  165  years. 

A  similar  imposture  seems  to  have  been  practised  by  the  Scandinavian  historians;  and  Torfteus,  as  quoted 
by  Mallet,  accuses  Saxo-Grammaticus  of  having  inserted,  in  his  list  of  kings,  "  tantot  des  princes  etrangers, 
tantot  des  seigneurs  ou  vassaux  puissans." — Mallet.  Introduct. 

§  See  Keating,  O'Halloran,  M'Curtin,  &.c. 

11  "  In  902  the  Danes  were  slaughtered  by  the  people,  and  the  whole  of  them  driven  out  of  Ireland."— y-ant- 
gan,  Eeclesiast.  Hist.  chap.  22,  §  3. 


182  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and  rationally  taken  for  granted.  But  it  is  not  the  less  evident  that,  throughout  all  this 
period,  there  remained  fixed  in  the  four  great  holds  of  their  power, — Dublin,  Waterford, 
Wexford,  and  Limerick, — a  no  inconsiderable  amount  of  Danish  population;  and  that 
those  boasts  of  an  entire  expulsion  of  the  Danes,  which  occur  more  than^  once  in  the 
records  of  this  and  the  preceding  century,  imply  notliing  more  than  the  total  dispersion 
of  some  of  those  later  swarms  of  freebooters,  from  whose  visitation,  arriving  fresh  as  they 
did  to  the  work  of  spoil  and  murder,  it  might  well  be  considered  a  triumph  and  signal 
blessing  to  have  been  delivered. 

In  the  year  908,  but  a  very  short  time  after  the  period  when  all  the  Northmen,  it  is 
pretended,  were  driven  out  of  the  country,  we  find  them  in  full  force  under  the  com- 
mand of  Tomar,  the  Jarl  of  the  Limerick  Danes,  pursuing  their  accustomed  course  of 
rapine  and  devastation ;  and,  among  other  specified  enormities,  plundering  the  rich 
monastery  of  Clonmacnois,  and  laying  waste  the  beautiful  isles  of  Lough  Ree,* — from 

all  which  places,  it  is  added,  they  carried  away  "great  spoil  of  gold  and  silver, 
q',J?*  and  many  precious  articles."     In  two  years  after  this  period  a  fleet  arrived  in 

Waterford  from  the  Baltic,  bringing  to  the  Danes  of  that  city  a  fresh  accession 
offeree;  and  it  appears  that,  towards  the  end  of  the  monarch  Flan  Siona's  reign,  their 
numbers  had  augmented  considerably  throughout  the  whole  province  of  Munster.  Some 
jealousies,  however,  had  evidently  broken  out  between  the  diflferent  tribes  of  the  North- 
men; as,  in  a  massacre  which  took  place  in  the  church  of  Mochelloc.f  where  a  great 
number  of  the  Waterford  Danes  were  attacked  and  slaughtered  by  the  people  of  Munster, 
the  latter  were  assisted  in  perpetrating  this  sacrilege  by  the  Danes  of  Limerick.|; 

In  the  year  916,  the  monarch.  Flan  Siona,  died,  after  a  long  reign  of  thirty-six 
Q,?'  years  and  some  months,  during  a  part  of  which  he  was  engaged  in  open  warfare 

with  his  roydamna  and  son-in-law,  Nial  Glundubh,  who  now  succeeded  him  on 
the  throne. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


State  of  learning  and  literature  among  the  Irish  in  the  ninth  century. — Notices  of  writers 
who  flourished  at  that  period. — ^ngus,  the  Hagiologist. — Fothad,  a  Poet. — Maolmura,  a 
Bardic  Historian. — Flann  Maclonan,  Chief  Poet  of  all  Ireland, — King  Comae,  author  of  the 
Psalter  of  Cashel. — His  Chapel  on  the  Rock  of  Cashel. — Dale  and  progress  of  Stone  Archi- 
tecture in  Ireland. — Account  of  the  Culdees. — Bishops  styled  Princes. — Usurpation  of  the 
See  of  Armach  by  Laymen. 

Notwithstanding  the  harassed  condition  of  the  country  during  the  whole  of  the  ninth 
century,  and  the  repeated  spoliation  to  which  all  the  great  monasteries,  those  seats  of 
learning  as  well  as  of  piety,  were  exposed,  there  still  survived  enough  of  that  ardent 
love  of  instruction,  for  which  the  Irish  had  long  been  celebrated,  to  keep  the  flame  from 
wholly  expiring  beneath  the  barbarian's  tread.  Many  of  the  schools  appear  to  have  been 
still  maintained;  and  although  Armagh,  which  had  once  towered  among  them  as  their 
university,  was  in  this  century  burned,  and  its  sacred  edifices  destroyed, — though  lona 
was  now  so  much  harassed  by  the  pirates  that  the  shrine  and  relics  of  her  saint,  Columba, 
had  been  sent  from  thence^  for  a  chance  of  safety  to  Ireland, — yet  that  learning,  such  as 
was  then  cultivated,  still  continued  to  thrive  in  the  schools  of  Clbnmacnois,  Devenish,|| 
Kildare,  and  other  such  religious  establishments,  may  be  concluded  from  the  great  num- 
ber of  scribes,  or  men  of  letters,  whose  names  are  recorded  in  the  obituaries  of  the  time, 
as  having  adorned  these  different  schools. IF 

*  Annal.  Inisfall.  ex  cod.  Bodleian,  ad  an.  908. 

t  Supposed  to  be  the  church  of  Kilmalloc,  the  foundation  of  which  is  attributed  to  St.  Mochelloch;  and  its 
name  a  contraction,  it  is  thought,  o{  Kilviochelloch. — See  Lanigan,  Eccles.  Hist.,  c.  17.  §  6. 

X  Annal.  Inisfall.  ex  cod.  Bodleian,  ad  an.  911. 

§  In  the  Annals  of  Ulster  (ad  an.  820)  it  is  mentioned,  that  Diermit,  the  Abbot  of  Hy,  came  to  Ireland, 
bringing  with  him  the  relics  of  St.  Columba.  These  remains  of  the  saint  were  (as  we  are  told  by  VValafrid, 
the  biographer  of  Blalhniac)  enclosed  in  a  shrine  of  gold  ;  and,  having  been  taken  from  Ireland  to  Albany  in 
the  year  82b  {Jliinal.  UU.,)  were  again  transported  back  to  Ireland  in  8:)0. 

II  An  island  in  Lough  Erne,  on  which  St.  Laserian,  otherwise  called  Molaisse,  is  said  to  have  founded  a 
monastery  in  the  sixth  century.  (Ware's  Catalogue  of  the  Bishops  of  Clogher.)  On  this  island  stands  one  of 
the  most  perfect  of  our  Round  Towers,  and  near  il  are  the  venerable  ruins  of  Devenisli  Abbey. 

ir  See  the  iv.  Mag.  fur  ninth  century,  i>assim. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  183 

In  the  preceding'  part  of  this  volume  I  have  in  so  far  anticipated  my  task  as  to 
give  some  brief  account  of  those  natives  of  Ireland  who,  in  the  course  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, became  distinguished  for  their  learning  and  piety  in  foreign  lands.  It  now  remains 
for  me  to  notice  in  like  manner  the  most  known  and  prominent  among  those  who,  during 
the  same  interval,  and  amidst  all  the  distractions  and  commotions  of  their  country,  arrived 
at  eminence  in  the  same  peaceful  pursuits  at  home. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  century  died  ^ngus,  the  learned  hagiologist,*  called  from  the 
piety  and  austerity  of  his  life,  Ceile-De,  or  the  Servant  of  God.f  Near  the  monastery  of 
Clonenagh,  of  which  this  holy  man  became  abbot,  there  was  in  those  days,  as  tradition 
tells  us,  a  waste  solitary  place,  to  which  he  used  to  betake  himself  for  meditation  and 
prayer;  and  from  this  circumstance,  it  is  added,  the  place  in  question  bears  to  this  day 
the  name  of  Desert  iEngus.J  Besides  a  select  Martyrology,  containing  the  names  only 
of  the  chief  saints,  or,  as  he  calls  them,  "the  Princes  of  the  Saints,"  iEngus  was  the 
author  also  of  a  more  copious  work  of  the  same  description,  comprising  saints  of  every 
nation  and  age,  and  including  among  the  number  some  Britons,  Gauls,  Italians,  and  even 
Egyptians,  whom  he  asserts  to  have  died  in  Ireland,  and  also  mentions  the  several  places 
where  their  remains  are  laid.  J 

With  this  work,  which  is  called  sometimes  the  Psalter  na  Rann,  another,  of  the  same 
name,  but  not  by  ^ngus,  nor  of  so  early  a  date,  is  frequently  confounded; — the  latter 
being  a  sort  of  miscellany  relating  to  Irish  afFairs,l|  and  containing,  among  other  fabulous 
matter,  one  of  the  earliest  outlines  of  that  famed  Milesian  story,  to  which  succeeding 
writers  have  vainly  endeavoured  to  lend  some  semblance  of  historical  substance  and 
shape. 

Among  the  poetical  writers  of  this  age  is  commemorated  Folhadh,  the  poet  of  the 
monarch  Aodh  Finnliath;  and  one  of  the  productions  still  extant  under  his  name  is  an 
ode  addressed  to  his  royal  patron  on  his  coronation.  A  passage  cited  from  this  poem, 
relating  to  the  fiscal  rights  or  tributes  of  kings,  will  he  found  strongly  to  confirm  and 
illustrate  all  that  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  pages  of  the  high  station  and  authority, 
almost  commensurate  with  that  of  the  monarch  himself,  which  the  kings  of  Cashel  had 
now,  by  gradual  strides  of  encroachment,  attained.  "Rights,"  says  this  metrical  juris- 
consult, "are  lawfully  due  to  the  descendants  of  Niell,  except  from  the  Abbot  of  Armagh, 
the  King  of  Cashel,  and  the  King  of  Tarah." 

In  tracing  to  the  bardic  historians  of  this  age  the  origin  of  the  Milesian  fable,  I  have 
already  mentioned  the  poet  Maolmura  as  one  of  the  chief  and  apparently  most  skilful  of 
the  successive  fabricators  of  that  figment.lT  The  following  record  of  this  poet's  death, 
describing  him  in  his  mixed  character  of  bard  and  historian,  is  found  in  the  annals  of  the 
Four  Masters,  under  the  date,  a.  d.  884: — "Died  Maolmura,  a  learned  and  truly  well- 
taught  poet,  and  a  historian  skilled  in  the  language  of  the  Scots." 

Towards  the  close  of  the  century  flourished  another  poet,  Flann  Mac  Lonan,**  who  was 
called  the  Virgil  of  the  race  of  Scotaff,  and  held  the  distinguished  office  of  Ard-Ollamh, 
or  chief  poet  of  all  Ireland.  The  gift  of  poesy  appears  to  have  been  hereditary  in  this 
laureate, — his  mother,  Laitheog,  having  attained  such  reputation  in  the  art  as  to  have 
affixed  popularly  to  her  name  the  designation  of"  the  Poetic." 

Of  many  of  the  writings  attributed  to  the  authors  I  have  above  enumerated,  there  still 
exist  copies  in  the  hands  of  the  collectors  of  Irish  manuscripts;  while  some  are  to  be 
found  interspersed  through  those  various  "  Books,"  or  Miscellanies,  which  constitute  so 
large  a  portion  of  our  ancient  native  literature.|J: 

*  A  detailed  account  of  jEngus  and  his  writings  maybe  found  in  the  Transactions  of  the  IbernoCeltic 
Society. 

t  The  term  Ceile,  or  servant,  was,  it  appears,  a  very  frequent  adjunct  to  names  in  those  times.  Thus,  for 
instance,  Cele-Christ,  Cele-Peter,  i.  e.  servant  of  Christ,  servant  of  Peter ;  and  sometimes  Gilla  or  Giolla,  was 
used  with  the  same  import, — as  in  Gilla-Patrick,  servant  of  Patrick.  See  O'Brien,  iti  voce  Qilla.  This  name 
of  Ceile-De,  or  servant  of  God,  which  was  at  first  applied  only  to  some  eminently  pious  individuals,  became, 
somewhat  later,  the  designation  of  a  whole  order,  or  community; — the  name  "  Culdees,"  adopted  by  a  certain 
body  of  ecclesiastics,  who  made  their  appearance  in  Ireland  early  in  the  ninth  century,  having  been  most 
probably  derived  from  Ceile-De. 

J  Lanigan,  Ecdesiast.  Hist,  of  Ireland,  c.  xx.  §  9.  §  Ibid.  c.  xx.  note  105. 

II  See  extract  from  this  work,  given  by  Ware  {Antiquities,  c.  2,)  who,  however,  confounds  the  author  of  it 
with  iEngus  Ceile-De. 

IT  See  chap.  viii.  p.  90,  of  this  Work.  **  Anna!.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  896. 

tt  Virghil  sil  Scota  prim  Fhile  Gaoidheal  uile.—  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  891. 

It  In  the  titles  of  our  ancient  vernacular  works,  the  use  of  the  word  Leabhar.  or  Book,  is  of  constant  occur- 
rence. Thus  we  have  the  Book  of  Reigns,  the  Book  of  Rights,  the  Book  of  Battles,  the  Book  of  Invasions, 
&c.  &c.  See  the  Appendix  and  Index  to  Nicholson's  Irish  Historical  Library,  as  well  as  the  List  of  Irish 
MSS.  given  by  Dr.  O'Connor  {Ep.  J\runc.,)  where  will  be  found  enumerated  the  titles  of  more  than  fifty  of 
such  "  Books,"  all  of  them  still  extant. 

It  was  also  customary  to  name  books  from  the  colour  of  their  bindings.  Thus  there  is  the  Leabhar  Buidhe, 
or  Yellow  Book;  the  Leabhar  Dubh,  or  Black  Book  ;  the  Leabhar  Ruadh,  or  Red  Book  ;  and,  (as  this  latter 
volume  is  sometimes  called)  the  Leabhar  Breac,  or  Speckled  Book. 


184  HISTORY  OF  lERLAND. 

It  would  be  undoubtedly  not  the  least  interesting  fact  in  our  history  at  this  period, 
could  it  be  well  ascertained  that  the  great  Alfred  (as  some  English  chroniclers  have 
alleged)  was  sent  by  his  father  for  religious  instruction  to  Ireland,  and  there  confided  to 
the  care  of  a  female  of  high  reputation  for  Christian  knowledge,  named  Modwenna.* 
The  religious  woman  of  this  name,  best  known  in  our  ecclesiastical  annals,  is  in  general 
supposed  to  have  flourished  in  the  seventh  century;  but  their  exist  probable  grounds  for 
assigning  her  to  the  ninth,  which  would  remove  one  at  least  of  the  few  difficulties  that 
stand  in  the  way  of  so  interesting  an  episode  in  the  great  hero's  life. 

In  the  list  of  the  authors  of  the  ninth  century  must  not  be  forgotten  the  name  of 
Cormac,  King  of  Munster;  who,  to  his  compound  designation  of  prelate-king,  superadds 
another,  not,  I  fear,  less  incongruous,  that  of  poet-historian.  Whether  there  be  still 
extant  any  copy  of  his  famous  Psalter  of  Cashel,t — a  work  containing,  as  we  are  told, 
besides  other  matter,  all  the  details  of  the  Milesian  romance,  as  then  brought  together 
and  methodized  by  his  pen, — appears  a  point  by  no  means  easy  to  be  ascertained ;  nor, 
except  as  a  subject  of  mere  antiquarian  curiosity,  can  it  be  accounted  much  worth  the 
trouble  of  inquiry.  The  small  and  beautiful  chapel  erected  by  him,  on  the  Rock  of 
Cashel,  and  still  bearing  his  name,  is  assuredly,  as  an  index  of  the  progress  of  the  useful 
and  elegant  arts  at  this  period,  a  much  more  important  object  of  interest  and  research. 

By  some  of  the  inquirers  into  our  antiquities  it  has  been  asserted,  that  neither  in 
domestic  or  ecclesiastical  architecture  was  stone  and  cement  of  lime  used  by  the  native 
Irish,  at  any  period  antecedent  to  the  twelfth  century  ;|  while  others,  on  the  contrary, 
maintain  that  there  existed  structures  of  this  kind  for  religious  purposes  as  far  back  as 
the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries;  and  some  have  even  been  of  opinion  that  both  the  Round 
Towers,  and  the  ancient  churches  near  which  they  stand,  were  alike  the  work  of  the 
Christian  Irish  in  those  ages.J 

About  half-way,  perhaps,  between  these  two  widely  different  views  may  be  found,  as 
in  most  such  disputes  respecting  Irish  antiquities,  the  point  nearest  to  the  truth.  That 
it  was  an  unusual  practice  in  Ireland,  even  so  late  as  the  twelfth  century,  to  erect  struc- 
tures of  stoije  for  any  purpose,  domestic  or  ecclesiastical,  may  be  concluded  from  one  or 
two  authentic  anecdotes  of  that  period.  When  the  celebrated  archbishop,  Malachy, 
undertook,  on  his  return  from  Rome  to  Ireland,  to  build,  at  Banchor,  a  small  stone  oratory, 
after  the  fashion  of  those  he  had  seen  in  other  countries,  considerable  wonder  was  ex- 


*  "  If  it  be  true,  as  some  chroniclers  intimate,  that  infirm  health  occasioned  his  father,  in  obedience  to  the 
superstition  of  the  day,  to  send  him  to  Modwenna,  a  religious  lady  in  Ireland,  celebrated  into  sanctity,  such 
an  expedition  must,  by  its  new  scenes,  have  kept  his  curiosity  alive,  and  have  amplified  his  information." — 
Turner's  Hist,  of  the  ^nglo-Saions,  book  ii.  chap.  viii.  Mr.  Turner  cites  as  the  authorities  for  this  supposition, 
Hist.  Murea  Johann.  Tinmuth  MSS.  in  Bib.  Bodl.,  and  the  chronicler  Higden.  He  might  have  found  others,  and 
Etill  stronger,  in  the  following  passage  of  Usher: — "  Ut  de  Polydoro  Vergilio  et  Nicolao  Harpsfeldio  nihil 
dicam,  qui  nono  post  Christum  seculo  Modvennan  et  Osilham  floruisse  volunt,  illos  secuti  auclores,  qui 
.Alfredum  filium  regis  Jlvglorum  a.  Monenna  vel  Modwenna  nostra  gravi  quo  laborabat  raorbo  liberatiftn 
magnum  ilium  Aluredum,  &c.  &c." — De  Brit.  Eccles.  Primord.  The  cure,  here  said  to  have  been  performed 
on  Alfred  by  Modwenna,  is  mentioned  also  by  Hanmer.  Unluckily  Asser,  in  his  Life  of  Alfred,  a  work 
worthy  of  its  noble  subject,  makes  no  mention  of  the  visit  of  his  hero  to  Ireland  ;  and  it  is  most  probable 
that  some  confusion  between  the  great  Alfred  and  a  king  of  the  Northumbrian  Britons,  named  Aldfrid,  who 
really  did  pass  some  years  of  exile  in  Ireland  (see  p.  144,  of  this  Work,)  may  have  given  rise  to  the  tradi- 
tion mentioned  in  tlie  text.  'J'here  is  still  extant  an  Irish  poem,  said  to  have  been  written  by  the  North- 
umbrian king  during  his  banishment,  which  the  reader,  curious  in  such  matters,  may  find  in  Hardiman's 
Irish  Minstrelsy,  vol.  ii.  notes;  though  of  the  genuineness  of  this  poem,  it  is  right  to  add,  Dr.  O'Connor  gives 
the  following  cautious  opinion  : — "  Ego  minime  nsseram  genuinum  esse  Alfred!  foetus." — innotat.  ^-c. 

f  "  This  was  a  collection  (says  Mr.  O'Reilly)  of  Irish  records,  in  prose  and  verse,  transcribed  from  more 
ancient  documents,  such  as  the  Psalter  of  Tarah,  &c.  It  contained  also  many  original  pieces,  some  of  them 
written  by  Cormac  himself.  This  book  was  extant  in  Limerick  in  the  year  1712,  as  appears  by  a  large  folio 
MS.  in  the  Irish  language,  preserved  in  the  library  of  Cashel,  written  in  Limerick  in  that  year,  and  partly 
transcribed  from  the  original  Psalter  of  Cashel."  The  writer  adds: — "The  original  Psalter  of  ('ashel  was 
long  supposed  to  be  lost,  but  it  is  now  said  to  be  deposited  in  the«ritish  Museum." — Transactions  of  the  Ibemo- 
Cell.  Society.  In  tile  t%^f  of  Sir  James  VSNre  this  work  was,  according  to  his  account,  "  yet  extant,  and  held 
in  high  esteem;"  au(I*that  some  Tfianusciiu^,  professing  to  be  this  'Pfalter,  was  in-  the  iiands  of  Mr.  Astle, 
appears  from  his  own  fleclaration: — "  "I'he  oliiest  Irish  MS  which  we  have  discovered  is  the  Psalter  of  Cashel, 
written  about  the  end  of  the  tenth  century." — OrigM  of  Writing.  For  other  particulars  respecting  this  cele- 
brated Psalter,  see  Nicholson,  Irish  Hist,  it*.,  Charlts  O'Connor's  Reflections,  &.C.  {Colleclan.  de  Reb..B\b., 
vol.  iii  )  and  Stitlingfleet,  Orio-.  Bri/ann.  22'4, 275,  &c.  -.  "^        v  -  v  *. 

I  Thus  Harris,  in  speaking  of  St.  Malachy;—"  He 'built  a  s*one  oratory  at  Bsnchor,  which  is  said  to  be 
the  first  of  the  sort  that  was  erected  in  Iielaiid."  (Ware's  Bishops,  at  Malachy  O'Morgair.)  In  the  Annals  of 
Ulster,  however,  for  the  year  788,  there  is  express  mention  of  a  stone  oraterty  at  Armagh  ;  and  a  stone  church 
is  said,  by  the  Four  Masters,  to  have  been  built H*.  Cl(>iimachf)is  by  the  nf&narch,  Fli^nn  ^ltwa,.in  904.  In 
the  following  century  the  instances  of  such  architecture  are  numerous;  and  a  large  chiircn  of  Armagh  is 
described,  in  10-20,  as  being  not  only  constructed  of  stone,  but  having  a  leaden  roof,—"  In  0amliacc  mor  con 
a  thuighi  do  luaighe." — 9nnal.  Ult.  .     • 

§  Historical  and  Critical  Inquiry  into  the  Origin  and  Primitive  Use  of  the  Irish  Pillar  Towir,  by  Colonel 
Ilervey  de  Montmorency-Morris.  Sir  Richard  Hoare,  too,  in  speaking  of  Cormac's  chapel,  says,  "  Its  masonry, 
architecture,  and  ornaments,  are  certainly  the  production  of  a  very  early  age;  and  the  Round  Tower  waa 
probably  erected  at  or  near  the  same  period."  See  for  notice  of  this  very  untenable  hypothesis  respecting  the 
Hound  Towers,  p.  30,  of  this  Work. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  185 

pressed  by  the  people  at  tlie  uniisualnoss  of  the  sight,  stone  buildings  being  then  a  novelty 
in  that  part  of  the  country.*  A  few  years  later,  too,  (1161,)  when  Roderic  O'Connor, 
King  of  Connanght,  erected  a  palace  or  castle  of  stone  at  Tuain,  so  much  surprise  did 
the  building  excite  in  the  natives,  that  it  became  celebrated  among  them  under  the  name 
of  the  Wonderful  Castle. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  remains  still  existing  in  Ireland  of  stone  structures, 
manifestly  of  great  antiquity,  leave  not  a  doubt  that  the  art  of  building  with  cemented 
stone  was,  however  rarely,  yet  very  early  practised  in  this  country.  Without  laying 
much  stress  on  the  instance  afforded  in  the  ancient  Damliag,  or  House  of  Stone,  said  to 
have  been  erected  by  St.  Kienan  as  early  as  the  fifth  century,  some  of  the  ruins  in  the 
valley  of  Glendalough,  and  parts  of  the  small  church  of  St.  Doulach,  near  Dublin,  present 
features  of  remote  antiquity  which  prove  them  to  be  of  a  much  earlier  date  than  the 
chapel  of  Cormac  at  Cashel;  this  latter  structure  being  clearly  a  specimen  of  the  more 
ornate  stage  of  that  old,  circular  style  of  architecture  (called  Sa.von,  but  evidently  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  Roman,  or  Grecianf)  which,  in  the  church  of  St.  Doulach,  is  seen  in  its 
ruder  and  yet  undecorated  form.  It  may  be  remarked,  as  peculiar  to  these  ancient  Irish 
churches,  that  their  roofs  are  of  stone;  and  that  the  crypts,  instead  of  being  subterranean, 
OS  in  the  ancient  British  churches,  are  situated  aloft  between  the  ceiling  and  the  angular 
roof  of  stone. 

A  certain  perverse  school  of  antiquarians,  who  take  pleasure  in  attributing  the  credit 
of  Ireland's  remains  to  any  other  race  of  people  than  her  own,  finding  it  in  vain  to  deny 
that  buildings  of  cemented  stone  were  existing  among  them  in  the  ninth  century,  have, 
without  a  shadow  of  proof,  ascribed  all  these  early  structures  to  the  Danes.  How  entirely 
groundless  is  the  supposition  that  the  Round  Towers  were  the  work  of  these  foreign 
marauders,  has  already  been  sufficiently  shown;  and  the  hypothesis,  assigning  to  them 
the  curious  stone-roofed  chapels,  the  mysterious  sculptures  in  Glendalough,  and  other 
such  early  ecclesiastical  remains,  is  to  the  full  as  gratuitous  and  absurd.  It  appears  to 
be  questionable,  indeed,  whether  there  exist  any  vestiges  of  stone  buildings  at  present  in 
Ireland  that  can,  on  any  satisfactory  grounds,  be  ascribed  to  the  Northmen  ;|  and  it  is 
probable  that  those  raths,  or  earthern-works,  raised  as  military  defences,  in  the  construc- 
tion of  which  they  took  for  models  the  artificial  mounds  used  as  fortresses  by  the  natives, 
are  the  only  remains  of  any  description  that  can,  with  tolerable  certainty,  be  ascribed  to 
Danish  workmanship. 

In  the  life  of  King  Cormac  there  occur  some  circumstances  connected  with  the  eccle- 
siastical affairs  of  his  time,  which  might  justify  a  brief  review  of  the  condition  of  the 
Irish  church  at  this  period.  But,  as  a  more  fitting  occasion  will  be  found  for  such  an 
inquiry,  I  sh:ill  here  content  myself  with  calling  attention,  for  a  short  space,  to  a  pecu- 
liar body  of  ecclesiastics  called  Culdees,  who  about  this  time  make  their  first  appearance 
in  Irish  history;  though,  in  order  to  serve  the  purposes  of  religious  party,  it  has  been 
pretended  by  some  writers  that  they  took  their  rise  in  North  Britain  as  early  as  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fourth  century;  while  other.s,  by  a  somewhat  more  plausible  hypothesis, 
place  the  time  of  their  origin  about  the  middle  of  the  sixth. 

With  respect  to  the  first  of  these  wholly  ungrounded  assumptions,  nothing  farther  need 

"  "Visum  est  Malacliia;  detiere  construi  in  Benclior  nratorium  lapideiim  instar  illonim  quae  in  aliis  ie?ion- 
ibiis  extructa  cnnspexerat.  Et  cum  rtepissel  jacere  fundanienta,  indteenee  quidem  rairati  sunt,  quod  in  terra 
ilia  necdum  ejusmndi  aedificia  invetiirentur." — S.  Bernard  in  Vit.  Malach. 

t  "That  the  species  of  building  which  we  call  Saxon,  or  An?lo-\orman,  and  of  which  this  island  (England) 
possesses  thr;  most  maanificent  examples,  was.  in  foct,  intended  as  an  imitation  of  Roman  architecture,  can- 
not he  doubted."— A^7i^^^(7)^/on  on  Gothic  Architecture.  .Another  writer,  well  acquainted  with  ecclesiastical 
architecture,  says  of  the  heavy,  circular  manner  of  buildin?.  "  It  is  called  the  Saxon  style,  merely  because 
it  prevailed  during  their  dynasty  in  Britain  ;  but,  in  fact,  it  is  the  Grecian  or  Roman  style,  having  the  essen- 
tial characters  of  that  style,  though,  in  consequence  of  the  general  decline  of  the  arts,  rudely  executed." — 
Miner's  Treatise.  S(C 

The  following  tribute  to  the  ecclesiastical  antiquities  of  Ireland  comes  from  an  authority  of  liigh  value  on 
Buch  subjects:— "The  stone  chapel  of  Cormac  at  Cashel  is  no  where  to  be  surpassed,  and  is  itself  a  host  ia 
point  of  remote  and  singular  antiquitv  ;  and  though  her  monastic  architecture  nriy  fall  short,  both  in  design 
and  e.veciilion,  and  be  obliged  to  viejd  the  palm  of  supe'iority  to  the  sister  kingdoms,  yet  Ireland,  in  her 
stone  rooffiil  chapels.  Round  Towers,  and  rich  crosses,  may  justly  boast  of  singularities  unknown  and  un- 
possesseil  by  either  of  them  ''—Sir  R  C  Hoare.  Tour  in  Ireland  Of  the  two  crosses  at  Monasterboyce,  the 
same  writer  says,  "  They  are  by  far  the  finest  examples,  and  the  richest  in  their  sculpture,  of  any  I  have  ever 
yet  seen." 

t  "  There  are  at  present  scarcely  anv  traces  of  stone  buildings  which  can,  with  a  salisfact  >ry  calculation 

of  correct nes.-;,  be  ascribed  to  a  Danish  oriaiii and  the  examiner  who   is  averse   to   the  indulgence  of 

conjecture  in  antiquarian  inquiries,  will  perhaps  believe  that  th-  only  military  vestiges,  sati-faclorily  attri- 
buted to  the  D  mes   are  the  "arth-woiks  usually  denouiinati'd  Raths  "—Br  wrr's  Bemities  of  Ireland. 

"Some  of  these  high  moats,  (says  th;- late  Mr  William  Tigh^.)  particularly  those  that  have  any  appearance 
of  a  fence  round  the  siitnmit,  mav  be  properly  attributed  to  the  Danes;  and  one  of  these  seems  to  derive  its 
name  from  them,— thnl  of  Lisicrli]^,  Fort  of  the  Easterlins  or  Dance."— «'.  Tifhe's  Sartey  of  the  County  of 
Kilkennv,  631. 

23 


186  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

be  said  to  mark  its  true  character  and  object,  than  that  it  came  from  the  same  mint  of 
fiction*  which  sent  forth  the  forty  counterteit  kinge  of  Scotland ;  being  obviously  invented 
to  provide  for  tiiat  series  of  imaginary  monarchs  a  no  less  shadowy  array  of  priesthood 
under  the  denomination  of  Culdees.  But  the  weak  fable  of  the  Forty  Kings  having  been 
in  the  course  of  time  abandoned,  the  date  of  the  origin  of  the  Culdees  was  in  like  man- 
ner relinquished,  or  rather  was  shifted,  more  conveniently,  to  about  the  middle  of  the 
sixth  century,  when  the  celebrated  Irish  saint,  Colurnba,  was  assumed  as  the  founder  of 
their  order.f  Among  a  select  body  of  believers  surrounding  this  holy  man  at  lona,  were 
preserved  pure,  as  we  are  told,  from  the  flood  of  Romanism  which  vvas  then  inundating 
all  the  rest  of  the  British  Isles,  not  only  the  primitive  doctrines  and  principles  of  Chris- 
tianit}',  but  also,  according  to  some  upholders  of  the  hypothesis,  the  orthodox  system  of 
church  government,  as  prescribed  and  established  in  the  pure  apostolic  times. 

It  is  almost  needless  to  say,  that,  for  all  this  crude  speculation  of  there  having  existed, 
BO  early  as  the  sixth  century,  any  distinct  body  of  ecclesiastics  called  Culdees,  holding 
doctrines  different,  in  any  respect,  from  those  of  the  clergy  in  general  of  Ireland  and 
North  Britain,  there  is  not  the  slightest  foundation  in  fact; — the  polemic  object  of  the 
fiction  being  the  only  part  of  it  that  is  at  all  consistent  or  intelligible.  How  vague  and 
shallow  were  the  grounds  on  which  the  whole  scheme  rested,  may  be  judged  from  the 
fact  that  while,  by  one  party  or  section  of  its  upholders,  the  Culdees  of  lona  were  claimed 
as  models  of  presbyterianism,  they  were  held  up  by  another  party,  with  equal  confidence, 
as  most  exemplary  episcopalians.  It  may  be  added  also,  as  conclusive  against  the  exist- 
ence of  any  authority  for  this  fable,  that  neither  in  Adamnan's  Life  of  Columba,  nor  in 
any  other  of  the  numerous  records  of  that  saint,  is  the  slightest  mention  made  of  Culdees, 
or  of  any  religious  body  answering  to  their  description;  and  that  Bede,|  who  refers  so 
frequently  to  the  affairs  of  lona,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  Columbian  monks,  not  only 
is  silent  as  to  the  existence  of  Culdees  at  that  period, 5  but  has  snid  nothing  whatever 
that  can  be  interpreted  as  in  the  remotest  degree  implying  their  existence. 

As  far  as  certainty  can  be  attained  in  the  history  of  this  community,  which,  like  many 
other  such  objects  of  research,  owes  its  chief  fame  and  interest  to  the  obscurity  still 
encircling  it,  the  Culdees  appear  to  have  been  one  of  those  new  religious  orders  or  com- 
munities which  a  change  of  discipline,  either  general,  or  in  particular  churches,  was  from 
time  to  time  the  means  of  introducing;  and  it  seems  pretty  certain  that  neither  in  Scot- 
land nor  in  Ireland  did  they  make  their  appearance  earlier  than  the  ninth  century.  With 
respect  to  their  functions,  they  were  evidently  secular  clergy,  attached  to  the  cathedrals 
of  diocesses,  and  performing  the  office  of  dean  and  chapter  to  the  episcopate;  and  while 
in  North  Britain  they  in  general  superseded  those  communities  of  monks  by  which  the 

*  "  The  first  author  of  it,"  says  Bishop  Lloyd,  "  is  one  that  wasmucli  given  to  such  things,  John  of  Fordun." 
In  the  Scotichronicon  of  this  fabler  is  to  be  found  the  source  as  well  of  the  Forty  Kings  as  of  the  pretended 
antiquity  of  the  Culdees;  and,  in  both  fictions,  he  is  followed  by  his  countryman,  Buchanan,  who  refers  the 
origin  of  this  latter  community  to  no  less  early  a  period  than  the  time  of  Dioc'e^ian. — Her.  Scot.  lib.  iv. 

f  From  a  mistaken  notion  that  (,'olumb.i  and  his  successors  did  not  consider  bishops  necessary  for  the 
ordaining  of  priests,  the  later  Scotch  writers,  improving  on  the  original  fiction,  converted  all  their  Coluinbinn 
Culdees  into  presbyterians;  while  Ledwicli.  and  others  of  his  school,  claim  this  imaginary  sect  with  which 
they  have  peopled  the  cells  of  Hy,  as  sound  episcopalians.  To  crown  all,  the  venerable  Dr.  O'Connor,  who 
allowed  himself  to  be  haunted  too  much  by  Drnidism  in  his  antiquarian  speculations,  supposes  the  Culdees 
to  have  been  the  remains  of  that  ancient  priesthood,  retaining  still,  in  their  Christian  profession,  some 
vestiges  of  paganism,  and  by  the  austerity  of  their  lives,  and  occasional  display  of  false  miracles,  deluding 
and  dazzling  the  credulous  multitude.  His  only  foundation  for  this  fancy  appears  to  have  been  a  recoid  in 
the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  for  the  year  806  (the  earliest  mention,  I  believe,  of  Ciildeeism  in  our  history,) 
where  it  is  said,  that  "  a  Culdee  had  arrived,  in  that  year,  from  beyond  the  sea,  and  with  dry  feet,  though  ha 
had  not  come  in  any  ship;  and  that,  at  the  same  time,  there  had  come  down  a  written  jiroclaraation  from 
heaven." 

While  such  have  been  the  inventions  bioached  on  this  subject,  it  is  right  to  add,  that  by  two  learned 
divines.  Dr.  Lloyd,  the  celebrated  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  and.  in  our  own  times.  Dr.  Lanigan,  the  subject  has  been 
treated  in  a  manner  combining  at  once  sound  learning  and  common  sense;— both  the  protestant  prolate  and 
the  Roman  catholic  priest  having  contributed  successfully  their  joint  efforts  to  demolish  the  silly  and  disho- 
nest fictions  that  had  been  conjured  up  nut  of  this  antiquarian  topic. 

i  In  the  whole  history  of  the  tricks  of  controversy,  there  can  be  found  few  more  coolly  audacious  than  that 
which  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ledwich  has  practised  {Jlniiq.  of  Ireland.)  in  assuming  the  authority  of  Bede  as  e.xpressly 
BSnctioning  his  own  favourite  hypothesis,  respecting  the  idi'iitity  of  the  Cnluinhian  monks  and  the  Culdees. 
Himself  as  it  appears  being  satisfied  of  this  identity,  ho  makes  no  scruple  of  applying  to  the  latter  body  all 
that  Bede  has  slated  solely  of  the  former.  Accordingly,  such  pass.sges  as  the  following  occur  frequently  in 
his  argument :— "  Bede,  th(High  closely  attached  to  the  see  of  Rome,  yet  with  candour  and  truth  conf^■s^ips  tha 
merits  of  the  Culdees."— Bede,  all  the  ihw..  he  it  observed,  having  said  nothing  concerning  Cul.Iees  whatso- 
ever! How  successfully,  however,  this  air  of  confidence  imposes  on  others,  may  be  seen  bv  reference  to  the 
article  "  Culdees."  in  Rees's  Cyclopaedia,  where  the  writer,  fed.  it  is  clear,  from' this  fountain  of  truth,  thus 
plausibly  improves  on  his  original:—"  Few  writers  have  done  justice  to  the  Culdees  ....  even  Hede,  venera- 
ble as  he  was.  though  he  bestows  upon  them  great  and  just  commendation,  cannot  avoid  passing  some  cen- 
sure upon  them,  and  seems  to  have  regarded  thwi  as  schismatics,  in  the  worst  sense  of  that  word." 

§  "  Selden  (says  Lloyd)  who  is,  for  aught  I  know,  the  first  that  brought  this  instance  of  the  Culdees  into 
the  controversy,  yet  acknowledges  that  in  Bede  there  is  no  mention  of  tiiem."  Not  willing  to  be  left  behind 
in  any  species  of  forgery,  Macpherson.  in  his  pretended  Ossian,  has  turned  St  Patrick  into  a  Culdee.— See 
7>«x#«et.  Royal  Irith  Academy  for  IT'S?. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  187 

cathedrals  had  hitherto  been  served,  in  Ireland  the  usual  fidelity  to  old  customs  prevailed, 
and  the  monks  were  in  but  few  instances  displaced  for  the  new  Culdean  chapters.* 

There  occurs  more  than  once  in  the  records  of  this  century  some  mention  of  a  law 
relating  to  ecclesiastical  property,  which,  as  much  importance  appears  to  have  been 
attached  to  it,  requires  some  passing  notice.  It  would  appear  that  the  revenue  arising 
from  those  dues,  which  had  ever  since  the  time  of  St.  Patrick  been  paid  to  the  church  of 
Armagh,  was,  amidst  the  convulsions  of  this  period,  interrupted  or  withheld;  and,  in  the 
year  824,  we  find  the  authority  of  the  warlike  Feidhlim,  King  of  Munster,  interposed  in 
aid  of  Artrigius,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  for  the  collection  of  this  tax.f  A  law  had  becH 
established,  indeed,  about  the  year  731,  by  the  King  of  all  Ireland  and  the  King  of  Mun- 
ster in  concert,  to  regulate  the  payment  of  tiic  revenue  of  the  pramatial  see;\  and  it  ia 
manifestly  this  regulation  we  read  of,  in  the  annals  of  the  ninth  century,  as  enforced 
under  the  name  of  "  the  Law  of  St.  Patrick." 

Among  those  bishops  who  held  the  see  of  Armagh  during  this  century,  there  occurs 
one  named  Cathasach,  who  is  styled  Prince  of  Armagh; — a  distinction  traced  by 
some  writers  to  a  practice  which  prevailed  in  the  early  ages,  of  calling  bishops  the 
Princes  of  the  People,  or  of  the  Church.^  But  there  appears  no  reason  why,  upon  this 
supposition,  the  title  should  not  have  been  extended  as  well  to  every  other  bishop  of  the 
see.  It  seems,  therefore,  probable,  that  those  so  designated  were  really  chieftains,  as 
well  as  bishops,  of  Armagh;  and  that  to  the  encroachments  of  these  powerful  dynasts, 
who,  as  lords  of  the  soil,  claimed  a  temporal  right  over  the  see,l|  is  to  be  ascribed  the  irre- 
verent anomaly  which,  at  a  later  period  we  shall  have  to  record,  of  no  lees  than  eight 
laymen  usurping  in  turn  the  primacy,  and  seating  themselves  intrusively  in  the  hallowed 
chair  of  St.  Patrick, 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


Accounts  of  the  Danish  Transactions  in  Ireland,  meager  and  obscure. — Confusion  of  Dates 
and  Names. — Ragner  Lodbrog. — Traditions  concerning  him. — Reign  of  the  Monarch  Niell 
Glundubh, — His  successor,  Donogh. — Heroic  character  of  the  Roydamna,  Murkertach. — 
His  victories  over  the  Danes. — Exploits  of  Callachan,  King  of  Cashel. — Alliances  between 
the  Northmen  and  the  Irish. — Their  confederacy  at  the  Great  Battle  of  Brunanburh. — 
Norse  account  of  that  Battle. — Irish  mode  of  Fighting. — Triumphal  progress  of  the  Roy- 
damna through  the  kingdom. — Takes  Callachan  of  Cashel  prisoner. — Death  of  the  Roy- 
damna. 

The  extent  and  importance  of  the  possessions  of  the  Northmen  in  Ireland,  and  the 
footing  maintained  by  them,  with  few  interruptions  for  so  many  centuries,  in  all  the 
strongest  maritime  cities  of  the  island,  gives  them  a  claim  on  the  notice  of  a  historian  of 
this  country,  which  has  but  seldom  been  sufficiently  regarded.  One  of  the  chief  reasons 
of  this  neglect  is  to  be  found  in  the  obscurity  which  involves  the  affairs  of  these  foreigners, 
more  especially  at  the  early  period  of  their  settlement,  when  the  meager  knowledge  of 
their  transactions,  gleaned  from  our  annals,  is  confined  to  a  list  of  their  acts  of  outrage 
on  the  different  monasteries  and  their  holy  inmates; — acts  of  more  deep  and  immediate 
interest  to  the  monkish  writers  of  such  records,  than  were  any  of  those  general  events 
and  movements  by  which  posterity  was  to  be  affected. 

*  ha.nigein,  Ecclesiast.  Hist.  chap.  3\.  Lloyd  On  Church  aovernment,  chap,  7.  Chalmer's  Caledonia,  beok 
iii.  chap.  8.    Usher,  Ecclcs.  Primord,  p.  637,  &c. 

t  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  822.  824 

j   Harris,  on  Ware's  Bishops  at  Artrigius. 

§"  St.  Hilary,  in  his  Commentary  on  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  e.vpressly  calls  bishops  Principes  Popiili,  the 
Princes  of  the  People;  and  St.  Augustin,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Forty-fourth  Psalm,  tells  us  that  it  grew 
into  use  in  the  early  ages,  to  call  all  bishops  EccleslcB  Priucipes.  But  that  the  Archbishops  of  Armagh  should 
Iw  called  so,  might  be  owing  to  another  reason,  viz.  because  they  sat  in  the  principal  metropolis,  and  were 
constituted  over  the  rest  of  the  clergy  of  the  whole  kingdom  ;  as  the  supreme  moderators  of  the  Jewish  church 
wer«  called  Principes  Sacerdotum." — Harris  on  Ware,  Bishops,  at  Catasach. 

II  "  This  family  was  most  probably  that  of  the  dynasts  of  the  district  of  Armagh,  v.hose  ancestor  Daire  had 
granted  to  St.  Patrick  the  ground  on  which  the  church  and  other  religious  buildings,  &c  ,  of  that  city,  had 
been  erected." — Lanigan,  Ercles.  Hist.  c.  xxii.  §  13. 


188  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

While  thus  our  own  sources  of  information  let  in  so  little  light  upon  that  period,  the 
records  of  the  Scandinavians  themselves  leave  it  no  less  involved  and  dark.  The  first 
adventurers  from  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  to  the  British  Isles,  were  all  obscure  and  name- 
less sea-rovers;  men  who,  born  in  the  dawn  of  their  country's  history,  have  furnished 
materials  only  for  legend  and  song.  It  was,  indeed,  out  of  the  real  achievements  per- 
formed by  these  lirst  adventurers  during  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,*  that  arose  the 
fanciful  tales  of  Icelandic  chroniclers  respecting  the  sea-kmg,  Ragner  Lodbrok,  and  his 
miraculous  coat  of  mail,  his  fairy  wife,  who  had  been  found  cradled  in  a  golden  harp  on 
the  sea-shore,t  and  his  numerous  sons  sweeping  the  waters  with  their  fleet  of  2000  sail. 
Towards  the  close,  however,  of  this  century,  when  the  submission  of  all  the  Northmen 
in  Ireland  to  one  common  king  of  their  own  race,  reigning  in  Dublin,  had,  if  not  concen- 
trated, afforded  a  rallying  point  for  their  scattered  force,  the  operations  and  policy  of  their 
chiefs  become  more  distinctly  traceable.  Instead  of  a  confused  horde  of  invaders,  they 
begin  to  assume  the  shape  of  a  regular  community;  and  their  kings,  reigning  in  due  suc- 
cession, and  forming  alliances  and  intermarriages,  stand  forth  to  the  eye  as  authentic  and 
responsible  personages  of  history. 

The  chieftain,  Ivar,  known  by  his  enterprises  against  North  Britain,  in  conjunction 
with  his  brother  Anlaf,  is,  in  the  record  of  his  death  preserved  by  the  annalists  of  Ulster 
(a.  d.  872,)  described  as  king  of  all  the  Northmen  of  Ireland  and  of  Britain.  In  con- 
formity with  this  statement,  we  find  the  same  Ivar  represented  by  English  historians  as 
at  that  period  wielding  the  sceptre  of  Northumberland,  and  assisting  Ingwar  and  Ubbo, 
two  of  the  sons  of  the  hero  Ragnar,  in  their  enterprises  against  the  Anglo-Saxons.  But 
there  is  mixed  up  with  most  of  these  accounts  of  the  warfare  of  the  Danes  in  Northum- 
bria,  too  much  of  the  fabulous  matter  of  the  Sagas  to  entitle  them  to  be  received  as  his- 
tory; and  the  union  of  the  crowns  of  Nortinimbria  and  Dublin  on  the  head  of  one  Danish 
chief,  wears  all  the  appearance  of  being  but  an  anticipation  of  what  really,  as  we  shall 
find,  took  place  some  years  later.  One  chief  cause  of  the  frequent  confusion,  as  well  of 
periods  as  of  persons,  which  occurs  in  the  accounts  of  the  transactions  of  the  Danes  in 
the  British  Isles,  arises  from  the  circumstance  of  so  many  of  their  distinguished  chief- 
tains having  been  called  by  the  same  names;  the  two  most  popular  and  frequent  of  these 
favourite  names  having  been  Ivar  and  Anlaf]; 

In  the  second  year  of  ihe  tenth  century  the  expulsion  of  the  Danes  from  Dublin,  by 

the  people  of  Leinster,^  interrupted  for  a  short  lime  their  possession  of  that  seat 

0X9'  of  power.     But,  by  means  of  the  resources  they  could  command  from  England, 

*  from  the  Orkneys,  and  the  other  isles,  they  were  soon  enabled  to  regain  all  their 
former  dominion.  In  the  course  of  but  a  few  years  we  find  Godfred,  the  grandson  of 
Ivar,  taking  possession  of  Dublin  ;1|  and,  shortly  after,  ranging  with  his  fleet  the  southern 
coast  of  Ireland,  and  receiving  hostages,  in  token  of  submission,  from  the  native  princes 
of  that  quarter. 

The  monarch  who  filled  the  throne  of  Ireland  at  the  commencement  of  this  century 
was,  as  we  have  already  seen.  Flan  Siona,  the  second  husbandU  of  the  Princess  Malma- 
ria,  Keneth  Mac  Alpine's  dauirhter;  and  this  lady,  through  the  progeny  of  her  double 
marriage,  was  the  means  of  uniting  the  three  most  powerful  branches  of  the  Hy-Niells. 
Scarcely  had  Flan  been  seated  upon  the  throne,  when  he  availed  himself  of  the  aid  of 
Danish  mercenaries  to  attack  and  wantonly  lay  waste  the  province  of  Munster.  After  a 
long  reign   of  thirty-seven  years,  this  monarch  was  succeeded  in  the  throne  by 

q'l^"  Niell  Glundubh,**  a  prince  who  may  be  regarded  as  the  common  father  of  the 

*  family  of  O'Niell,  so  long  celebrated  in  our  annals;  and  his  short  reign,  which 
was,  for  a  wonder,  unsullied  by  the  disgrace  of  alliance  with  the  foreigner,  was  termi- 


•  "  Some  of  the  apparent  incongruities  of  the  Sagas  may  bediniinistied  tiy  the  supposition,  that  the  exploits    * 
thus  coinmeiuoratt'd  are  traditionary  accounts  of  the  conquests  really  effected   by  the  Angles  on  the  eastern 
coast,  and  in  Norlhunibria,  exaggerated  and  confused  by  the  fancy  or  invention  of  the  Scalds." — Palgrave, 
English  Commonwealth,  c.  J8. 

t  His  wife,  Aslang.  The  tradition  of  this  fable  was  as  follows:—"  Etenim  tractus  illius  incoln;  constanter 
refernnt,  seque  a  majoribus  suis  accepisse  perhibent,  inventani  apud  se  in  exiguo  quodani  sinu  angulove 
maris  cilharain  aiiream,  cujus  cavitaii  inclusa  fuerit  parvula  virgo." — Series  Reg.  Dan  1.  iv.  c.  4. 

\  The  various  nindes  also  of  spelling  the  name  Anlaf,  add  not  a  little  to  the  confusion.  Thus,  in  the  Irish 
annals,  it  assumes  the  various  forms  of  Amiain,  Ainlaiph,  Ainblaith,  Olave,  &c.  In  some  of  the  Sagas  it  is 
Olafr;  and,  by  the  English  chroniclers,  it  is  made  Aulaf,  Anlaf,  Aulavus,  Analaph,  and  Onlaf.  See  Turner, 
book  vi.  c.  2.  note  21. 

§  Annal.  Ult,  ad  an.  901  (902,)  and  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  202. 

\  Annal.  Inisfall.  907. 

II  Her  first  husband  was  Domnald  Mac  Aod,  Prince  of  Alichin,  in  Inesowen. 

••  t.  t.  of  the  Black  Knee. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  189 

nated,  together  with  his  life,  in  a  sanguinary  battle  against  the  Danes.    After  the  death 
of  Nicli,*  the  sceptre  passed,  according  to  the  order  of  alternate  succession,  into 
rhe  hands  of  Donogh,  a  prince  of  the  other  branch  of  the  Hy-NicU  family;  and    go  ' 
Murkertach,  the  son  of  the  late  monarch,  became  the  Roydamna,  or  heir  apparent, 
of  his  succest-or. 

During  the  dirk  and  troubled  transactions  of  this  reign,  which  lasted  for  the  space  of 
fiveand  twenty  years,  the  two  personages  who  stand  forth  the  most  prominently  in  our 
annals  are  the  Roydamna,  Murkertach,  and  the  famous  Callachan,  King  of  Cashel ;  princes 
who,  opposed  to  each  other  in  character  and  in  policy,  may  be  aptly  referred  to  as  afford- 
ing, in  their  respective  careers,  a  fair  sample  as  well  of  the  vices  as  the  virtues  by  which 
the  chieftains  of  that  turbulent  period  were  characterized.     The  first  great  achievement 
of  the  Roydamna  was  a  signal  victory  over  the  Danes,  or  Pirates  of  the  Lakes,t  in  Ulster; 
on  which  occasion  eighty  of  the  Danish  chieftains  were  slaughtered,  and  among  them, 
Albdan,  the  son  of  Godt'red,  King  of  Dublin.     The  feeble  remains  of  the  defeated 
army,  driven  to  a  place  called  the  Ford  of  the  Picts,J  were  there  surrounded,  and    qq^' 
on  the  point,  it  is  added,  of  perishing  by  famine,  when  Godfred  himself  hastened 
from  Dublin  to  their  relief  J 

Again,  in  a  few  years  alter,  when  a  force  of  the  Northmen,  gaining  possession 
of  Loch  Erne,  laid  waste  and  desolated  the  whole  province  of  Ulster,  "  as  far  as   go-, ' 
Mount  Betha  to  the  west,  and  Miicnamha  to  the  south,"||  the  gallant  Roydamna, 
coming  suddenly  upon  them,  defeated  and  dispersed  their  whole  force,  carrying  off  with 
him,  as  trophies  of  his  victory,  200  iieads  of  the  slain. IF     With  similar  success,  i"    .    „ 
the  year  936,  notwithstanding  some  recent  differences  between  the  monarch  and   gog" 
himself, — such  as  the  Roydamna's  position  in  relation  to  the  throne  rendered  fre- 
quent, and,  indeed,  inevitable, — Murkertach,  forgetting  all  other  considerations  in  that 
of  the  public  weal,  joined  the  forces  under  his  command,  as  Prince  of  Aileach,  with  those 
of  tiie  monarch;  and,  attacking  the  Northmen  in  their  head-quarters,  carried  devastation 
through  all  their  possessions  round  Dublin,  from  the  city  itself,  as  we  are  told  by  the 
chroniclers,  to  the  Ford  of  Trustan.** 

While  thus  this  gallant,  and,  as  far  as  we  can  now  judge,  patriotic  and  honest  prince, 
was  directing  all  the  vigorous  means  within  his  power  to  the  one  great  object  of  crush- 
ing the  common  foe,  the  career  of  his  rival,  the  much  more  celebrated  Callachan,  pre- 
sents a  specimen  of  Irish  character  the  very  reverse  of  this  description,  and  such  as, 
unfortunately,  has  seldom  been  wanting  in  the  country,  from  the  days  of  Agricola  to  the 
present.  Fighting  almost  constantly  on  the  side  of  the  Northmen,  Callachan  imitated 
also  those  spoilers  of  his  country  in  their  worst  e.xcesses  of  devastation;  and,  in  one 
instance,  when  the  venerable  monastery  of  Clonmacnois  had  been  cruelly  pillaged  and 
sacked  by  them,  it  was  again  visited  with  similar  horrors  in  the  same  year  by  the  King 
of  Cashel. ff  With  a  like  disregard  both  of  his  country  and  her  religion,  Callachan, 
assisted  by  the  Danes  of  Waterford,  made  an  irruption  into  the  district  of  Meath,  and 
sacrilegiously  plundering  the  abbey  of  Clonenagh,  and  the  ancient  church  of  Cillachie, 
carried  off  from  those  retreats  two  holy  abbots  as  prisoners. Jt 

*  One  of  the  mnst  memorable  events  of  the  reign  of  Niell  Glundiibh,  was  his  revival  (a.  d.  915,)  of  tlie 
ancient  Taitine  Games,  or  sports,  which  had  of  late  years,  owing  to  the  incursions  of  the  Danes,  been  very 
much  discontinued.  In  recording  a  suspension  of  these  games  in  the  year  872,  the  Ulster  Annals  add  that  it 
was  an  event  which  had  never  lipfore  from  early  times  occurred.  These  ancient  sports,  though  little  more,  it 
is  evident,  that  an  annual  fair,  have  been  brought  by  some  over  zealous  antiquarians  into  juxta-posilion 
with  the  Olympic  Games.  '-Hi  enim  ludi  (says  Dr.  O'Connor)  non  minori  frequentia  nee  minori  Druidum 
solemnitate  in  Hibernia  celebrabantur  quam  Ludi  Olympici  in  Pi^loponneso."  For  the  use  made  of  these 
games  by  the  ancient  Iri?h  in  regulating  the  length  of  their  year,  see  chap.  iv.  p.  50,  of  this  Work. 

t  So  called  by  the  annalists — See  Annal.  Inisfall  ad  an.  9'27,  where  the  death  of  Sitric  O'Imar,  King  of  the 
niatk  Pirates  and  the  White  Pirates,  is  recorded.  The  Northmen  did  not,  any  more  than  the  ancient  Greeks, 
feel  degraded  by  the  appellation  of  Pirates.  In  the  Odyssey,  Nestor  inquires  of  the  strangers  whom  he  had 
been  feasting,  whether  they  were  merchants  or  pirates. 

X  "  Ath  Cruithne."— We  have  here  an  instance  of  that  want  of  precision  and  definiteness  which  Pinkerton 
and  others  complain  of  in  the  Celtic  language.  The  word  Cruithne  means  indifferently  eitlier  Picts  or  Har- 
pers; and,  accordinely,  Dr.  O'Connor,  who,  in  his  version  of  the  Four  Masters,  calls  the  scene  of  this  fight 
"The  Ford  of  the  Picts,"  in  translating  the  record  of  the  same  battle,  in  the  annals  of  Ulster,  makes  it  "The 
Ford  of  the  Harpers  " 

5  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  921.  Annal  Ult.  925.  JErm  Com.  92G. 

\l  iv.  Mas.  acaii.  931.  "Co  sliabh  Betha  siar  7  co  Mucnamha  fo  dheas."  I  am  at  a  loss  to  discover  what 
places  in  Ulster  are  designated  by  these  names. 

IT  This  custom  of  cutting  off  the  heads  of  fallen  enemies,  which  prevailed  originally  in  Egypt,  continued  to 
be  practised  in  Ireland  so  late  as  the  reign  of  Henry  II.;  and  Dr.  Meyrick  (Inquiry  into  Jlncient  Armour.) 
amusingly  refers  to  this  custom  of  the  Irish,  as  len  ling  "probability  to  their  Asiatic  origin,  so  earnestly  con- 
tended for  by  General  Vallancey." 

**  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  936. 

tt  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  934.  (a;ra"  com.  93G  ) 

it  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  939. 


190  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

To  acliievements  like  these  the  whole  public  life  of  this  bold  and  unprincipled  chief 

was  devoted ;  nor  is  there  on  record  more  tlian  one  single  instance  in  which  he  is 
Qoq  *  stated  to  have  fought  on  the  side  of  his  country,  or  rather  against  her  dcspoilers ; — 

a  defeat  of  the  Danes  in  the  Desies  country,  with  the  slaughter  of  2000  of  iheir 
troops,  being  found  attributed  to  him  in  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen.*     There  is  little  doubt, 

however,  that  this  single  redeeming  record  is  erroneous,  and  that  the  people  of 
q\?*  the  Desies  themselves  were  in  reality  the  victims  of  his  triumph. + 

Notwithstanding  their  feelings  and  habits  of  mutual  hostility,  alliances  were 
frequently  formed  between  the  Northmen  and  the  natives,  and  coalitions  were  now  be- 
coming almost  as  common  among  them  as  conflicts.  Thus  a  dynast  of  the  house  of  Niell, 
named  Conang,  gained  a  victory  about  this  time,  in  concert  with  the  Danes,  over  the 
Ulidlans,  a  people  of  the  present  county  of  Down ;  in  consequence  of  which,  the  king  of 
that  district,  Matudan,  called  in  also  the  aid  of  the  Northmen,  and,  in  his  turn,  carried 
into  the  plains  of  the  north  the  horrors  of  fire  and  sword. 
But,  among  the  instances  of  such  confederacy,  during  this  century,  by  far  the  most 

memorable  was  that  exhibited  at  the  battle  of  Brunanburh,  in  Northumbria ;  when 
q'.,~'  the  brave  Anlaf,  King  of  Dublin,  and   likewise  of  Northumbria,  joining  in  the 

powerful  league  then  formed  against  the  Anglo-Saxon  king,  Athelstan,  led  an 
immense  army  of  Northmen  and  Irish  to  the  encounter,^  having  entered  the  Humber,  it 
is  said,  with  a  fleet  of  615  sail. J  At  the  head  of  the  forces  collected  for  this  formidable 
invasion  was  Constantine,  King  of  Albany,  whose  daughter  Anlaf  had  married;  and  the 
battle  which  decided  the  fate  of  their  enterprise,  and  which  has  been  described  in  detail 
both  by  Danish  and  Anglo-Saxon  chroniclers,  was  considered,  for  length  of  duration  and 
amount  of  slaughter,  to  be  without  parallel  in  English  history. 1|  After  a  contest  main- 
tained with  alternate  success  from  dawn  until  sunset,  victory  declared  at  length  in  favour 
of  the  fortunate  Athelstan,  who  from  thenceforth  reigned,  without  a  competitor,  the  first 
acknowledged  English  king.  A  retreat  to  their  shipping,  which  they  were  able  to  eflfect 
with  the  wreck  of  their  army,  was  all  that  remained  to  the  vanquished  Constantine  and 
his  son-in-law;  and  Anlaf,  dislodged  by  this  signal  disaster  from  his  Northumbrian 
throne,  returned  defeated,  but,  as  will  be  seen,  not  subdued,  to  Ireland. 

In  the  Saga  of  Egil,  which  contains  the  Norse  account  of  this  great  battle — detailed 
with  a  minuteness  rather  suspicious — we  find  some  particulars  respecting  the  Irish  troops 
engaged  in  the  action,  which,  as  characteristic  of  that  people,  are  worthy  of  some  notice. 
One  of  the  Vikingrs,  or  northern  sea-kings,  who  held  a  command  on  the  side  of  Athel- 
stan, is  represented,  in  disposing  his  forces  for  action,  to  have  appointed  a  particular 
battalion  to  engage  the  Scots  or  Irish,  who,  it  is  added,  never  fought  in  any  regular 
order;  but  keeping  constantly  in  motion,  from  one  part  of  the  field  to  the  other,  did  often 
much  damage  to  those  whom  they  found  off" their  guard;  but,  on  being  opposed,  with  the 
same  alertness  again  retreated.lT  We  have  here  an  exact  picture  of  the  mode  of  fight- 
ing practised  by  the  Kerns,  or  light-armed  infantry  of  the  Irish,  whose  remarkable  activity 
in  returning  constantly  to  the  attack,  together  with  their  dexterous  use  of  the  missile 
weapons,  rendered  them  a  force,  as  even  Giraldus  acknowledges,  not  a  little  formida- 
ble.** 

♦  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  941. 

t  Tlie  Four  Masters,  vvlio,  in  matters  relating  to  Munster,  are  in  general  far  more  trustworthy  than  the 
Annals  of  Inisfallen,  state  that  in  the  course  of  the  same  year  (341,)  two  successive  battles  were  fought  be- 
tween Callachan  and  the  people  of  the  Desies,  in  the  first  of  which  tlie  latter  were  defeated,  with  the  slaugh- 
ter of  two  thousand  of  their  troops,  but  in  the  second,  being  assisted  by  the  people  of  Ossory,  they  gained  a 
complete  victory  over  him. 

J  The  departure  of  the  Danes  from  Dublin  on  this  expedition  "into  Saxony,"  is  recorded  by  the  Four 
Masters,  ad  an.  935.  {•P.rx  com.  937.) 

§  Turner,  Hist,  of  Anglo  Paxnns  (book  vi.  chap  2.,)  who  gives  as  his  authorities,  the  Chronicle  of  Mailros. 
Simeon  of  Durham,  and  Hoveden. 

I  Unde  usque  ad  priesens  helium  prsnominatur  magnum  — Ethelwerdi  Historia.  "  The  bloodiest  fight,  say 
authors,  that  ever  this  island  saw."— Milton,  history  of  Britain. 

IT  Thus  in  Johnstone's  version.  {Antiq  Scaiido- Celt ,)"  Scoti  enim  solont  mobiles  esse  in  acie;  hue  illuc 
discurruni,  di  versisque  partibus  incursantes,  incaulis  sspe  damnum  afferunt ;  si  autem  obsistitur  illis  fugacea 
existunt."  Giraldus  has  described,  in  pretty  much  the  same  terms,  the  peculiar  manoeuvres  of  the  Kerna: 
"Qiialenus  et  lapidum  (quorum  irtibus  graves  et  armatos  coniinus  appetere  solent  et  indemnes  agililatia 
benejicio,  crehris  accedcre  vicibus  ct  abscedere.)  e  diverso  eminus  sagiltis  injuria  propulsetur." — Hibern.  Eivug. 
lib.  ii.c.36 

**  In  professing  to  follow  the  northern  account  of  this  battle,  Mr.  Turner  has,  I  must  say,  dealt  rather 
tinfairly  as  well  by  the  meaning  of  his  authority,  as  by  the  character  of  the  Irish  soldiery.  The  troops  of 
this  nation  engaged  on  that  occasion  he  represents  as  an  "  irregular  "  and  "  disorderly  "  force,  "  who  always 
flew  from  point  to  point,  no  where  steadv,  yet  often  injuring  the  unguarded."  But  assuredly  the  account 
given  of  the  mode  of  fighting  of  the  IrishKerns,  both  in  Egil's  Saga,  and  the  passage  of  Giraldus  just  cite<i, 
conveys  a  totally  different  notion  of  that  light,  agiln,  and  constantly  harassing  force.  In  the  part  of  bia 
description,  too,  where  professedly  following  the  Saga,  Mr.  Turner  speaks  of  the  battalia  of  Tborolf,  as  "con- 
sisting of  the  disorderly  Irish,"  there  is  not,  in  the  original  as  rendered  by  Johnstone,  the  slightest  grounda 
for  this  disparnging  epithet. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  ]91 

In  the  Anglo-Saxon  poem,  commemorativG  of  tlie  battle  of  Brunanburh,  there  occur 
some  verses  which  have  been,  rather  too  sanguiiiely,  interpreted  as  containing  a  eulogium 
upon  the  character  of  the  Irish  people;  whereas,  so  hopelessly  vague  and  obscure  are 
the  structure  and  language  of  these  verses,  that  they  leave  full  scope  for  every  possible 
variety  of  conjecture  as  to  their  meaning;  and  the  opinion  given  of  them  long  since  by 
the  poet  Milton,*  ought  to  have  deterred  all  such  rash  attempts  to  sound  their  fathomless 
obscurity.  As  the  supposed  eulogy,  however,  upon  the  Irish,  which  has  been  conjured 
up  out  of  them,  is  at  least  not  undeserved,  the  passage,  as  rendered  according  to  this 
view,  may  here  be  cited.  After  stating  that  Constantine  left  his  own  son  on  the  field  of 
battle,  the  poet  is  made  to  say  that  "  neither  was  there  aught  for  thp.  yellow  haired  race, 
the  bold  in  battle,  and  the  ancient  in  genius,  to  glory  in  ;  nor  had  Olaf,  and  the  remains 

of  the  army,  any  reason  to   boast The  sad  remainder,  in  the  resounding  sea, 

passed  over  the  depths  of  ihe  waves  to  Dublin."! 

In  about  seven  years  after  his  defeat  on  the  field  of  Brunanburh,  the  gallant  Anlaf, 
finding  the  course  for  his  daring  ambition  again  thrown  open  by  the  death  of  Athelstan, 
renewed  iiis  pretensions  to  the  Northumbrian  throne;  and,  having  been  invited  over 
from  Ireland  with  that  view,  was  appointed  by  the  people  of  Northumbria  their  sove- 
reign. Among  the  numerous  errors  occasioned  by  so  many  Danish  princes  bearing  the 
name  of  Anlaf,  may  be  reckoned  the  opinion  entertained  hy  some  writers,  that  the  brave 
competitor  of  Athelstan  and  of  Edmund,  just  mentioned,  was  the  same  Anlaf  whose 
name  is  found  on  an  ancient  Irish  coin  accompanied  by  a  figure  of  the  cross,  denoting 
that  the  king,  by  whose  orders  this  coin  had  been  struck,  was  a  Christian. f  For  this 
supposition,  however,  there  appears  not  to  be  any  foundation;  as  it  was  not  till  near 
seven  years  after  the  death  of  Anlaf  of  Brunanburh  that  the  Danes  of  Dublin,  to  use  the 
language  of  our  annals,  "  received  the  faith  of  Christ  and  were  baptized."  The  coin  in 
question,  therefore,  must  have  belonged  to  the  reign  of  a  later  prince  of  the  same  name. 

It  was  about  tiie  year  948  that  the  conversion  of  the  Danes  of  Dublin  to  the  Christian 
faith  is,  in  general,  supposed  to  have  taken  place. ^  The  Northmen  of  that  city  were,  it 
is  supposed,  the  first  of  their  nation  in  Ireland  who,  in  any  great  numbers,  embraced  the 
doctrines  of  the  Gospel;  but  so  little  change  did  this  conversion  work  in  their  general 
character,||  that,  were  there  not  an  express  record  of  the  fact,  it  would  not  be  easy  for  a 
reader  of  their  history  to  discover  that  they  were  not  still  immersed  in  all  the  darkness 
of  heathenism.  One  early  proof  of  religious  zeal  they  indeed  aflxirded,  if  it  be  true,  as 
some  historians  state,  that  the  celebrated  abbey  of  St.  Mary  was  founded  by  them  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Dublin  this  very  year.^ 

Prosperous  as  appeared  to  be,  in  many  respects,  the  affairs  of  the  Irish  Danes  at  this 
crisis,  and  vast  as  was  the  command  of  resources  which  their  possession  of  all  the  chief 
seaports  gave  them,  it  is  clear  that  the  tenure  of  their  power,  however  great  its  extent, 
was  never  for  a  single  day  certain  or  undisturbed.  The  indefatigable  activity  and 
bravery  of  the  Irish  people  left  not  a  moment  of  repose  or  security  to  their  invaders; 
and  though  but  too  often,  at  the  call  of  cupidity  or  revenge,  the  ever  ready  sword  was 
drawn  on  the  side  of  the  foreigners, — though  there  were  even  found,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Leinster  men,  large  bodies  of  the  natives  almost  habitually  traitors,  it  is  evident  that 
the  great  mass  of  the  population  never  ceased  to  resist,  that  they  were  strong  in  revenge 

*  "  To  describe  wliicli  (hatlle)  the  Saxon  annalist  (who  is  wont  to  be  sober  and  succinct)  whether  the  same 
or  another  writer,  now  labouring  under  the  weight  of  his  argument,  and  overcharged,  runs  on  a  sudden  into 
such  extravagant  fiincies  and  metaphors  as  b^ar  him  quite  beside  ttie  scope  of  being  understood." — Milton, 
History  of  Britain.. 

t  The  reader  needs  but  to  turn  to  the  different  versions  of  this  passage  by  Gihson,  Ingram,  Turner,  and 
Price,  to  perceive  how  utterly  hopeless  is  the  attempt  to  arrive  at  its  real  meaning;  and  of  linw  little  worth 
is  the  coinplimi^nl  to  the  Frish  that  has  been  extorted  from  it.  lie  will  find  that  the  "  yellow-haired  youth," 
or  "  natiiin,"  whicli  figures  so  poetically  in  the  version  of  three  of  these  interpreters,  is,  in  that  of  the  fourtli, 
transformed  into  a  "grizzly-headed  old  deceiver  " 

If  the  Celtic  tongue  as  above  intimateil,  be  open  to  the  charge  of  vagueness  and  want  of  precision,  what  is 
to  be  said  of  this  specimen  of  the  Gothic? 

I  For  an  account  of  this  silver  coin,  see  Ware's  Antiquities,  ch.  xxxii..  and  Simon's  Essay  on  Irish  Coins. 
The  whole  subject  of  the  coins  siippused  to  have  been  struck  in  Ireland  about  this  period,  is  beset  vvitli  diffi- 
culty and  obscurity  ;  but,  in  the  writers  just  quoted,  iii  Bishop  Nicholson's  Historical  Library,  ch.  viii.,  and 
in  Kedar's  "  Nummorum  in  Hihernia  Cusorum.  &c.:"  a  work  compiled  chiefly  from  the  foregoing,  the  reader 
will  find  all  that  is  known  and  conjectured  on  the  subject.  See  also  a  note  by  i»r.  O'Connor,  on  the  Ulster 
Annals,  ad  an.  937.  and  Dr.  Lanigau,  ch.  xxii,  note  133. 

§  Warp.  Antiq  chap,  xxiv  ad  ami.  943. 

II  'I'he  insincerity  of  the  conversion  of  the  Danes  of  England  is  thus  strongly  represented  by  the  author  of 
the  History  of  the  Descent  of  the  Normans: — •■  Plusieurs  prirent,  moyennaiit  quelques  concessions  de  terre, 
le  titre  et  i'einploi  de  defenseurs  perpetuels  des  6glises  qu' eux  nuimes  avoient  briil6es;  d'au'res  revctirent 
I'habit  de  prelres,  et  conservoienl  sous  cet  habit  le  fouge  et  la  duretc  d'ame  des  brigands  de  mer." 

IT  Ware,  in  loc.  citat.  Lanigan,  chap.  xxii.  §  12.  Archdall,  Jl/o)!as?jc.  Ifibe^n.  at  Dublin.  See  for  the 
churches  dedicated  by  thoni  to  their  own  saints,  St.  Olave,  St.  Michan,  &.c.,  Mr.  W.  M  Mason's  History  of  St, 
Patrick's  Cathedral, 


192  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and  hatred  against  tlieir  oppressors,  and  wanted  but  one  combined  and  vigorous  effort  to 
rid  themselves  of  the  yoke. 

To  go  through  all  the  monotonous  details  of  battles  and  scenes  of  pillage  which  form 
the  staple  of  the  Irish  records  for  tiiis  century,  would  be  to  render  these  pages  like  a 
confused  and  deathful  dream.  All  those  monasteries  and  religious  establishments,  which 
have  already  been  enumerated,  as  furnishing  victims  for  the  Northmen's  rage,  were 
again  and  again  visited,  during  this  period,  by  the  still  refreshed  spirit  of  cruelty  and 
rapine.  The  venerable  cliurch  of  Columba,  at  Kells,  the  cells  of  the  religious  upon  the 
islets  of  Lough  Roe,  the  sacred  edifices  of  Armagh,*  the  school  of  Clonard,  renowned  for 
its  learning  through  Europe,  and  the  ancient  abbey  of  Down,  the  hallowed  resting-place 
of  the  remains  of  St.  Patrick, — all  these  memorable  and  holy  structures  were,  at  ditierent 
times,  during  this  century,  and  in  various  forms  of  violation,  profaned  and  laid  desolate.f 
Therich  shrines  of  Kildare,  so  frequently  before  an  object  of  their  cupidity,  were  broken 
and  plundered  by  these  spoilers  on  the  very  day  sacred  to  the  virgin  saint.  Even  after 
the  Danes  themselves  had  professed  to  embrace  Christianity,  they  did  not  the  less  dese- 
crate and  destroy  its  venerable  temples;  and,  in  an  attack  made  by  them  upon  Slane, 
in  the  year  950,  when  they  set  fire  to  the  church  of  that  ancient  place,  a  number  of  per- 
sons who  were  at  the  time  assembled  in  the  belfry,  among  whom  was  Probus,  the  histo- 
rian of  St.  Patrick,  perished  miserably  in  the  flames. 

It  has  been  observed  of  the  Danes  of  England,  that  had  they,  at  the  commencement  of 
this  century,  united  the  whole  of  their  force  under  one  supreme  head,  they  would  have 
been  probably  more  than  a  match  for  the  whole  power  of  Edward;  and  doubtless  the 
same  impolitic  system  of  dividing  their  strength  among  a  number  of  equal  and  indepen- 
dent cliieftains,  which  so  long  delayed  their  complete  conquest  of  England,  was  the  cause 
likewise  of  their  ultimate  failure  in  Ireland.  For,  mmute  as  was  in  this  latter  country 
the  subdivision  of  sovereignty,  a  yet  more  multiple  form  of  royalty  was  adopted  by  the 
nations  of  the  north;  where,  in  the  times  preceding  the  eighth  century,  there  existed  in 
Norway  itself  no  loss  than  twelve  kingdoms;  and  the  small  territory  around  Upsal  was 
under  the  rule  of  nineteen  different  kings.| 

This  enfeebling  partition  of  the  kingly  power  continued  to  be  the  system  adopted  by 
the  Northmen  in  Ireland;  and  the  weakening  efl^ects  of  such  a  policy  were  the  more 
felt,  from  the  detached  districts  they  severally  occupied,  which  rendered  it  still  more 
difficult  for  them  to  act  with  speed  and  decision  in  concert.  While  in  England,  too,  the 
original  affinity  between  their  language,^  and  that  of  the  Sa.xons  afli)rded  to  the  invaders 
such  means  of  intercourse  as  greatly  facilitated  their  progress  and  settlement  in  the 
country,  the  Danes  in  Ireland  were,  on  the  contrary,  encountered  by  a  language  wholly 
and  essentially  different  from  their  own,  and  forming  in  itself  a  complete  wall  of  separa- 
tion between  them  and  the  great  mass  of  the  natives.  When  such  and  so  serious  were 
the  disadvantages  under  which  they  laboured,  and  boldly,  constantly  as  every  step  of 
their  way  was  contested,  it  is  evident  that  nothing  but  a  want  of  unity  among  the  Irish 
themselves,  from  the  divided  nature  of  their  government,  the  feuds  and  jealousies  among 
thepeople,  and,  too  often,  the  treachery  of  their  princes,  could  have  delayed  so  long  the 
utter  expulsion  of  the  flireign  intruder  from  out  the  land. 

What  the  Irish  wanted  at  this  crisis  was  evidently  the  ascendancy  of  some  one  potent 
spirit,  who,  whether  for  his  own  aggrandizement,  or  from  sfmic  more  lofty  motives, 
would  devote  ardently  the  entire  energies  of  his  mind  to  the  task  of  arousing  and  uniting 
his  fellow-countrymen,  so  as,  by  one  grand  and  simultaneous  effort,  to  rid  the  whole 
island  of  the  pestilent  presence  of  the  foreigner. 

It  was  hardly  possible  that  two  such  ascendant  and  stirring  spirits  as  the  roydamna 
and  the  King  of  Casliel,  should  continue  to  move  through  the  same  sphere  of  action,  and 
generally  in  adverse  directions,  without  coming  at  last  into  collision;  and  the  triumphant 
ease  with  which,  in  the  encounter  that  ensued  between  them,  Murkertach  mastered  his 
antagonist,  presents  one  of  those  instances  of  what  is  called  poetical  justice,  which  occur 

*  In  n-il,  wlien  Gmlfreil,  King  of  the  Danes  of  Dublin,  attacked  and  plundered  Armasli,  he  is  said  to  have 
spared  the  Churches,  the  Colidei,  or  Culdees  (who  were  the  orticialing  clergy  of  the  cathedral,)  and  the  sick. 

t  See  our  Annals,  passim. 

I  "  Thi!  Hnrverar  Saja  mentions  that,  at  one  period,  there  were  twelve  kingdom's  in  Norway  "—burner, 
Hist.  Anglo  S'li.,  hook  iii.  c   1      "  Fn  Upsal.  nineteen  of  these  petty  kingdoms:  are  enumerated  "—Ihir/. 

§  Lingua  Daiiorum  Angljciuia;  liiquclre  vicina  e»t.— Script.  Her.  Danic  "  'I'he  languages  (of  the  Danes  and 
Raxons,)  oriuinally  kindred,  were  melted  into  each  other;  their  ancestors  were  of  the  same  race,  and  might 
have  been  neighbours  in  tlieir  original  seats"  -Mackintosh.  Hist,  of  Ensltind.  c   ii.  ('.to  Cvc 

According  to  a  late  learned  work,  however,  (Ra?k's  Anglo-Saxon  Grammar.)  by  which  a  new  light  apiiears 
to  have  been  thrown  upon  this  Buhject,  the  AngIo-Sa.\on  deviates  considerably  from  the  Danish  and  other 
^andinuviun  dialccta.— Sec  I'rrfncc. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  193 

b«t  too  rarely  in  real  history.  After  a  sncccssfnl  course  of  warfare  in  different  parts  of 
the  kingdom,  the  particulars  of  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon,  the  Roy- 
damna  proceeded  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  and  attended  by  a  select  band  of  1200  noq* 
warriors*  from  his  own  principality,  to  gather  the  fruits  of  his  late  successes,  in 
the  shape  of  tribute  and  princely  hostages  from  the  conquered.  The  Danes  of  Dublin, 
in  acknowledgment  of  submission,  surrendered  to  him  their  prince,  Sitric;  while,  from 
the  Lagenians,  he  not  only  enforced  tribute,  but  carried  away  with  him  as  hostage  their 
king,  Lorcar.  But  it  was  in  Munster  that  the  proudest  trophy  of  this  triumphal  progressf 
awaited  him.  Entering  boldly  into  the  very  territories  of  his  rival,  Ctillachan,  he  re- 
quired of  the  Momonians,  no  less  as  a  pledge  of  future  fealty  than,  as  an  atonement  for 
past  transgressions,  that  they  should  deliver  up  their  king  unconditionally  into  his  hands. 
This  humiliating  demand  was,  after  some  hesitation  and  parley,  complied  with;  and  the 
fierce  Callachan,  led  in  bondage  from  his  own  dominions,  was  sent  soon  after  by  the 
triumphant  Roydamna,  with  all  his  other  captives  and  hostages,  to  the  monarch-l  How 
long  his  state  of  captivity  lasted  does  not  very  clearly  appear;  but  there  occurs  once 
only,  after  this  date,  any  particular  mention  of  him;  and  then,  faithful  to  his  old  habits 
of  intestine  warfare,  he  is  found  gaining  a  sanguinary  victory  at  Maighduine,  or  the 
Field  of  the  Fortress,  over  Kennedy,  the  father  of  the  celebrated  Brian  Boru.J 

Murkertach  survived  but  a  short  time  his  proud  and  triumphal  circuit  through- 
out  the  island,  and  died,||  as  he  had  for  the  greater  part  of  his  manhood  lived,  in     !„  ' 
fierce  conflict  with  the  Danes;  leaving,  as  a  poet  of  that  day  strongly  expresses  it, 
all  his  countrymen  orphans.1T     In  the  record  of  his  death  we  find  him  described  as  "a 
warrior  of  the  Saffron  hue,**  and  the  hero  of  Western  Europe."ft 

It  is  a  fact  both  curious  and  instructive,  as  showing  of  what  materials  the  idols  of  the 
multitude  are  most  frequently  fashioned,  that  while  such,  as  we  learn  from  authentic 
records,  were  the  respective  careers  of  these  two  warlike  contemporaries,  the  fame  of 
Callachan,  as  transmitted  by  tradition,  has  far  outrun  that  of  his  patriotic  rival ;  and  that 
even  some  modern  Irish  historians,  by  whom  Murkertach  is  barely  mentioned,  have 
devoted  whole  pages  to  the  narration  of  a  wild  and  imaginary  adventure  related  of  the 
King  of  Cashel.+t  For  this  flimsy  tale  of  romance  there  exist  no  grounds  whatever  in 
our  annals;  and  the  whole  fable  was  probably  the  invention  of  some  of  those  poet-histo- 
rians, or  seanachies,  of  the  Eugenian  princes,  who  sought  to  do  honour  to  their  royal 
masters  by  embalming  in  fiction  the  memory  of  a  chieftain  of  their  race.  The  very 
selection,  however,  of  Callachan's  name,  as  a  theme  for  fable,  shows  that  already  he  stood 
high  in  popular  fame,  having  been  handed  down  by  tradition  as  the  favourite  champion 
of  a  period  when  valour  was  the  virtue  most  in  request;  and  when  it  mattered  little  to 
the  fame  of  the  hero  whether  he  fought  on  the  wrong  side  or  the  right,  so  he  but  fought 
boldly  and  successfully,  and  with  the  due  heroic  disregard  to  life,  as  well  his  own  as  that 
of  others. 

After  a  reign  comprising  in  its  duration  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  this  year  saw 
another  of  those  shadows  of  royalty,  which  occupied  in  succession  the  throne  of 
Tara,  pass  undistinguished  into  oblivion.     This  monarch's  name,  it  may  be  re-    q.  .* 
membered,  was  Donough ;  and  the  annalist,  in  recording  his  death,  cites  a  dis- 
tich inscribed  by  a  poet  of  the  day  to  his  memory,  in  which  the  general  condition  of  the 


*  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  939. 

t  There  is  still  extant  a  poem  on  this  circuit  of  Murkertach.  said  to  have  been  written  by  a  contemporary 
and  friend  of  that  prince,  Coihmacan  Eigeas,  the  chief  poet  of  Ulster.  The  monarch,  gratified,  we  are  told, 
by  Murkertach's  loyalty,  in  delivering  to  him  all  the  hostages,  returned  them  again  into  his  hands,  consider- 
ing him  their  fittest  guardian.  "  To  cnnimemorale  this  event,  and  tlie  mighty  deeds  of  his  prince,  Corbnia- 
can  wrote  his  poem  of  256  verses,  beeinuing  'Oh  Muirceartach,  son  of  worthy  Niall,  who  hast  received 
hostages  from  Falia's  Isle.'  "—Trans.  Ibemo-Celt.  Society.  Mr.  O'Reilly  adds,  that  "  a  copy  of  this  poem  is  in 
the  O'Clery's  Book  of  Conquests,  and  in  the  pedigree  of  the  once  royal  family  of  O'Niell,  which  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  assistant  secretary  of  the  society." 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  adan.  941. 

?  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  942.    Annal.  Ult.  943.  (srE  com.  944.) 

P  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  941.     Aniial.  Ult.  ad  an.  942.  (teriE  com.  943.) 

TT  Verses  quoted  by  the  Four  lAFasters,  in  loc. 

**  The  use  of  this  colour  in  their  garments  continued  to  be  a  favourite  fashion  with  the  Irish  down  to  so 
late  a  period  as  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.,  when  it  was,  like  all  other  things  Irish,  rendered  punishable  by  law; 
and  there  is  a  statute  of  that  reign,  forbidding  any  one  to  "  use  or  wear  any  shirt,  sraocke,  kerchor,  bendol, 
neckerchout,  mocket,  or  linneu  cappe,  coloured  or  dyed  with  sartVon."  See,  for  some  amusing  remarks  upon 
this  statute,  Ledwich's  Antiquities  "  Of  the  ancient  Irish  Dress."  Campion,  who  wrote  his  account  of  Ire- 
land in  the  sixteenth  century,  says,  "  They  have  now  left  their  saffron,  and  learne  to  wash  their  shirts  four 
or  live  times  i[i  a  yeare." 

ft  "  The  Hector  of  Western  Europe,"  as  it  is  in  the  original  of  both  the  annalists  above  cited, — Ectoir  tar- 
lair  Korpa.  According  to  Dr.  O'Connor,  however,  Ectoir  is  a  very  ancient  Irish  word,  signifying  hero,  and 
compounded,  as  he  rather  too  fancifully  supposes,  n{  Eackl.  an  achievement,  and  Oir,  golden,  or  splendid. 

U  On  this  farrago  of  fiction  Keating  has  bestowed  no  less  than  ten  or  eleven  of  his  folio  pages,  while  Di'. 
Warner  has  filled  fourteen  of  liis  quarto  pages  w  itli  a  verbose  dilution  of  the  same  trasli. 

24 


194  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

country  is  thus  lamentably,  and,  we  must  believe,  truly  depicted.  "  Without  law  to 
guide  her,  with  rulers  treacherous,  false,  and  factious,  the  realm  of  Erin  hath  sunk  into 
darkness."* 

Donough  was  succeeded  in  the  supreme  throne  by  a  prince  named  Congelach,  who, 
but  a  few  months  before  his  accession,  had  acquired  considerable  renown  by  a  gallant 
attack  on  the  city  of  Dublin,  in  which,  being  aided  by  the  rare  alliance  of  the  people  of 
Leinster,  he  reduced  that  city  to  a  state  of  ruin  and  desolation,  on  which  some  of  the 
annalists  are  not  unpleased  to  dwell,t  describing  the  burning  of  its  ships  and  ramparts, 
the  flower  of  its  warriors  laid  in  the  dust,  and  the  blooming  youths  and  venerable  matrons 
all  led  away  in  chains.  The  repeated  attacks,  indeed,  made  by  the  natives  upon  Dublin, 
who  was  again  retaken  from  them  as  often  as  they  possessed  themselves  of  it,  showed 
with  what  obstinacy  the  work  of  warfare  was  carried  on,  and  by  how  little  else  the  atten- 
tion of  either  party  could  have  been  occupied.  In  the  course  of  the  very  next  year, 
Blacar,  the  Danish  king,  returning  with  fresh  supplies  of  force,  retook  the  city.  The 
game  alternations  of  success  and  reverse  were  exhibited  some  few  years  after,  when 
Godfred,  the  son  of  Sitric,  having  been  forced,  with  the  loss,  enormous  for  those  times,  of 
no  less  than  6000  men,  to  surrender  and  fly  from  Dublin,  was  enabled  in  like  manner, 
in  the  course  of  the  following  year,  to  recover  his  dominions.! 


CHAPTER  XX. 


Early  Life  of  Brian  Boru. — His  first  Battles  under  bis  Brother  Mahon. — Defeat. — Victory  at 
Sulchoid.—  Murder  of  Mahon, — Accession  of  Brian  to  the  Throne  of  Munster. — Attacks 
and  Defeats  the  Murderers  of  his  Brother. — Death  of  the  Monarch  Congelach. — Domnal, 
Iiis  Successor. — Charter  of  the  English  King,  Edgar,  a  Forgery. — Power  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Munster. — Increased  considerably  under  Brian. — Accession  of  the  Monarch  Malachy. — 
Gains  a  great  Victory  over  the  Danes. — Defeat  of  the  People  of  Leinster  by  Brian. — Grow- 
ing Jealousy  between  this  Prince  and  the  Monarch. — Irruption  of  the  latter  into  Brian's 
principality. — Cuts  down  the  Sacred  Tree  of  the  Daicassians. — Invades  and  lays  waste 
Leinster. — An  army  marched  against  him  by  Brian. — Convention  between  the  two  Kings. — 
Joint  Victories  over  the  Danes. — Renewal  of  their  mutual  hostilities. — Brian  invades  the 
Territory  of  the  Monarch. 

How  far  the  heroic  Murkertach,  had  he  lived  to  attain  the  supreme  sovereignty,  was 
likely  to  have  succeeded  in  delivering  his  country  from  the  foreigner,  the  imperfect 
outline  we  have  of  his  character  renders  it  vain  to  attempt  to  speculate.  But  there  had 
now  appeared  on  the  scene  of  strife  a  young  and  enterprising  warrior,  whose  proud  des- 
tiny it  was,  at  a  later  period,  to  become  the  instrument  of  eflecting  this  glorious  work; 
and  whose  whole  long  life  seems  to  have  been  a  course  of  maturing  preparation  for  the 
great  achievement  he  succeeded  in  accomplishing  at  its  close.  Tiiis  prince,  to  whose 
original  name,  Brian,  was  added  afterwards  the  distinctive  title  of  Boromh,  or  Boru, 5  was 
one  of  the  numerous  sons  of  Kennedy,  King  of  Munster  ;||  and,  at  the  time  of  the  acces- 
sion of  his  brother,  Mahon,  to  the  throne  of  that  kingdom,  was  in  his  thirty-fourth  year. 
Being  by  birth  a  Dalcassian,  he  had  naturally  been  nursed  up,  from  his  earliest  days, 
amidst  all  those  traditional  incitements  to  valour  which  the  history  of  the  chivalrous  tribe 
afforded.  Their  proverbial  character,  as  always  "  the  first  in  the  field,  and  the  last  to 
leave  it,"  was  in  itself,  as  repeated  proudly  from  father  to  son,  a  motive  and  pledge  for 
the  continued  valour  of  the  whole  race.  While  yet  a  youth,  his  high  reputation  for  sol- 
diership had  collected  around  him  a  number  of  young  followers;  with  whom,  posting 

•  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  942  (mr.  com.  941.)  t  Ibid. 

J  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  948. 

§  A  surname  given  to  him,  according  to  O'llalloran,  M'Curtin,  and  othsrs,  in  consequence  of  the  tributo 
(Boroimhe  signifying  a  tribute  of  cows  and  other  cattle)  which  he  exacted  from  llie  people  of  Leinster;  but 
derived  by  others  with  more  probability  from  the  name  of  the  town  Borumh,  wliich  stood  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  his  palace  of  Kincora  in  tlie  county  of  Clare.    See  O'Brien's  Dictionary,  in  voce  Borumha. 

II  I'here  is  extant  a  poem,  attributed  to  Mac  Liag,  the  secretary  of  Brian,  giving  aa  account  of  tlie  '  Twelve 
Sons  of  chaste  Cinneide."    (Kennedy.)— Tra/is.  Jbcrno-  Celt.  Society. 


HISTORY  01'    IRELAND.  195 

himself  at  defiles  and  mountain  passes,  or  lying  in  wait  in  the  depths  of  the  forest,  he 
frequently  intercepted  the  enemy  in  their  plundering  expeditions,  or  harassed  and  cut 
them  off  in  their  retreats.* 

Upon  the  accession  of  his  brother  Mahon  to  the  throne  of  Cashel,  the  constant  and 
active  career  of  warfare  in  which  that  intrepid  prince  engaged,  furnished  a  practical 
school  for  the  ripening  of  Brian's  military  talents,  and  by  inuring  him  to  service  in  a 
subordinate  rank,  rendered  him  the  more  tit  for  the  highest.  At  a  memorable  slaughter 
of  the  Danes,  by  Mahon,  near  Lake  Gur,  it  is  supposed  that  Brian,  though  not  expressly 
mentioned,  may  have  been  present;  but  the  first  important  event  connected  with  his 
name  was  an  expedition  led  by  Mahon  beyond  the  Shannon,  to  the  districts  bordering  on 
Lough  Ree.  There,  by  predatory  incursions  in  various  directions,  they  had  succeeded 
in  amassing  considerable  plunder;  when  Fergal  O'Ruarc,  Vv'ith  a  large  army  of  Cona- 
cians,  pouring  suddenly  down  upon  them,  the  brother  chiefs  were  compelled  reluctantly 
to  retreat.  Followed  closely  as  far  as  the  banks  of  the  river  Fairglin,  they  there  stood 
at  bay  and  engaged  their  pursuers.  But  Brian's  good  genius  had  not  yet  exempted  him 
from  all  failure.  Notwithstanding  the  valour  of  Mahon,  and  the  intrepid  bearing  of  the 
future  hero  of  Clontarf,  the  Momonian  troops  were  defeated ;  and  Mahon,  forced  to  swim 
across  the  river  to  save  his  life,  was  compelled  ingloriously  to  leave  his  shield  behind 
him.f 

But  the  victory  at  Sulchoid  over  the  Danes  of  Limerick,  achieved  principally  through 
Brian's  skill  in  partisan  warfare,  first  gave  earnest  of  the  successful  struggle  he  was 
destined  to  wage  against  the  oppressor.     A  strong  body  of  cavalry,  detached  from  the 
Danish  force  stationed  at  Sulchoid, |  having  advanced  to  reconnoitre  the  army  of  Mahon, 
a  sudden  attack  was  made  upon  them  by  Brian  at  the  head  of  some  squadron  of  light 
horse,  and  with  such  effect  that  one  half  of  their  number  lay  dead  upon  the  spot     The 
remainder  fled   in  confusion,  pursued  by  Brian,  to  the  main  body  of  the  army 
encamped  at  Sulchoid,     Thither  Mahon  also  followed  rapidly  with  the  whole  of  ggg* 
his  forces;  and  a  general  engagement  ensued  disastrous  to  the  Danes,  of  whom 
no  less  than  3000  were  slaughtered  on  the  spot.     The  remainder  fled,  in  confused  rout 
towards  Limerick,  pursued  so  closely  and  eagerly  that  the  victors  entered  the  city  along 
with  the  vanquished,  making  prisoners  of  all  whom  they  did  not  put  to  the  sword;  and 
then,  having  ransacked  that  rich  city  of  all  its  gold  and  merchandise,  they  left  it  a  mass 
of  ruins  and  flames. 5 

There  were  yet  other  triumphs,  won  by  the  two  brothers  in  concert,  on  which  it  is 
unnecessary  here  to  dwell.     To  the  gallant  Mahon,  however,  the  constant  success  that 
attended  him  in  all  his  enterprises  proved  in  the   end  fatal.     A  mortified  rival,  named 
Maolmua,  who,  having  failed  against  him  in  the  field,  was  resolved  to  accomplish  by 
treachery  what  he  despaired  of  in  fair  battle,  concerted  a  plan  by  which,  under  the  pre- 
tence of  an  amicable  meeting  for  the  purpose  of  conference,  he  induced  the  unsuspecting 
Mahon  to  trust  himself,  with  a  few  followers,  in  his  power.||     Thus  unguarded, 
the  king  was  made  prisoner  by  the  traitorous  Maolmua  and  his  brother  conspira-   q~.r^' 
tors;  and  being  then  hurried  away  by  night  to  a  solitary  place  in  the  mountains, 
was  there  basely  murdered. 

The  great  importance  attached  by  the  Irish,  from  the  earliest  periods  of  their  history, 
to  the  names  and  sites  of  places  connected  with  memorable  events,  is  shown  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  supposed  locality  of  Mahon's  murder,  which  appears  to  have  been  as  anxi- 
ously inquired  into  as  it  is  variously  stated.  While  some  authorities  mention,  as  the 
scene  of  the  crime,  a  mountain  now  called  Sliabh-Caon,  near  Magh-Feine,  or  the  Sacred 
Plain,  and  describe  the  very  spot  where  it  was  committed  as  being  near  the  Red  Gap,  or 
fissure,  in  the  hill  of  CaoUjiT  there  are  others  which  state  the  murder  to  have  occurred  on 

*  Vallancey  (from  Munster  Annals,)— Law  of  Tauistry,  S;c. 

t  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  961  (aer.  com.  963.)  Vallancey,  whose  guide  is  the  Munster  Annals,  makes  it  905.  In  tha 
account  here  given  of  the  result  of  this  battle,  I  have  followed  the  authority  of  the  Four  Masters,  which 
appears  to  me  far  more  trustworthy  than  that  of  the  poem  cited  from  the  Munster  Book  by  Vallancey,  attri- 
buting all  the  victory  and  the  glory  to  the  Munster  hero.  On  the  incident  of  the  shield,  it  is  fair  to  add,  the 
Four  Masters  are  silent. 

\  "  Sulchoid  is  frequently  mentioned  in  subsequent  ages  and  wars,  even  as  far  down  as  the  last  campaigns 
and  revolutions  that  happened  in  this  kingdom,  as  a  noted  post  for  the  encampment  of  armies ;  being  situ- 
ated in  a  plain,  which  is  guarded  by  heights  on  both  sides,  within  one  day's  march  of  Limerick,  and  in  the 
direct  road  from  Dublin  to  that  town  by  the  way  of  Cashel."— Law  nf  Tanistry. 

§  Annal.  Inisfall.  (God.  Bodleian.)  ad  an.  951.  The  events  in  this  series  of  the  Inisfallen  Annals  are  in 
general  antedated  by  fifteen,  sixteen,  or  even  a  still  greater  number  of  years. 

I)  Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  975 

TT  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  976.  "  In  my  copy  of  the  Inisfallenses,"  says  Vallancey,  "  Bearna-Dearg,  now 
Red-Chair,  on  the  mountain  which  was  then  called  SliabhCaoin,  but  now  Sliabh-Riach,  between  the  barony 
of  Fermoy  and  the  county  of  Limerick,  is  said  to  be  the  pass  on  which  Maolmuadh  and  his  brothers  waited 
for  the  royal  captive,  and  put  him  to  death.    But,  as  this  place  was  much  out  of  their  direct  road  (Vom  Dona- 


l96  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

one  of  the  Muskerry  mountains,  at  a  place  called,  from  this  melancholy  event,  Leacht- 
Magama,  or  Mahon's  Grave. 

On  the  death  of  this  prince,  his  brother  Brian,  vvlio  had  held  for  some  time  the  subor- 
dinate sovereignty  of  Tiiomond,  or  North  Munster,*  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  all  Mun- 
Bter;  and  the  very  first  act  of  justice  he  felt  himself  called  upon  to  perform,  was  the 
infliction  of  summary  vengeauce  on  the  base  murderers  of  his  brother.  Attacking  succes- 
Bively,  in  the  very  hearts  of  their  own  territories,  the  two  princes,  Donovan  and  Maol- 
mua,  who  had  been  chiefly  concerned  in  that  treacherous  plot,  he  succeeded,  notwith- 
standing- the  aid  aflxjrded  to  these  traitors  by  the  Danes,  in  nearly  exterminating  the 
whole  force  of  their  respective  armies.f  To  his  son,  Morrough,  who  in  one  of  these  battles, 
made  the  first  essay  of  his  military  prowess,  fell  the  good  fortune  of  encountering,  hand 
to  hand,  the  chief  instigator  of  the  base  deed,  Maolmua,  and  the  glory  of  sacrificing  him 
upon  the  spot  to  the  manes  of  his  murdered  relative.  Respecting  the  place  where  this 
latter  victory  was  gained,  there  appears  to  be  no  less  doubt  and  discussion  than  with  re- 
gard to  the  site  of  the  murder.  But,  that  the  battle  was  fought  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Mahon's  Grave,  which  is  one  of  the  opinions  on  the  subject  cited  by  the  annalists,  seems 
highly  probable,  from  the  name  popularly  given  to  the  conflict  being  Calh  Bhealaig- 
Leachta,  or  the  battle  of  the  Road  of  the  Sepulchre.l 

While  engaged  in  this  work  of  just  retribution,  Brian  found  time  also  to  give  battle  to 
those  Danes  who  had  a  few  years  before  taken  possession  of  the  isle  of  Iniscathy,  in  the 
mouth  of  ihe  Shannon  ;  and  who,  through  the  aid  of  the  Danes  of  Limerick,  still  main- 
tained themselves  in  that  station.  This  beautiful  island,  vvitli  its  eleven  churches,^  and 
the  ornamented  tomb  of  its  patron  saint,  Senanus,  was  one  of  those  favourite  places  of 
pilgrimage  and  penance  to  which,  in  defiance  of  all  danger,  and  even  of  death  itself, 
religious  persons  had  long  continued  to  resort ;||  and  still,  as  its  shrines  were  enriched 
with  new  offerings  by  these  visiters,  they  became  but  fresh  objects  of  plunder  and  outrage. 
About  the  middle  of  this  century  tlie  Northmen  had  used  Iniscathy  as  a  place  of  arms; 
and,  in  the  year  972,  Mark,  a  Danish  chieftain,  the  son  of  Harold,  appears  to  have  esta- 
blished himself  in  the  island.  But  Brian  now  landing  there,  at  the  head  of  1200  of  his 
own  brave  tribe,  the  Dalcassians*!!  succeeded,  though  opposed  by  the  Danes  of  Limerick, 
under  their  generals,  Ivar,  Amlaf,  and  Duibhan,  in  recovering  the  island  from  the  hands 
of  these  foreigners ;  having  slain,  in  the  battle  which  led  to  this  result,  the  chieftain 
Mark,  and  his  two  sons.**  After  affecting  these  important  objects,  he  proceeded  to  devas- 
tate all  the  other  small  islands  of  the  Shannon,  carrying  off  with  him  the  treasures  and 
effects  of  the  Danes  wherever  he  found  them  along  those  shores. 

On  the  death  of  the  monarch,  Congelach  (a.  d.  956,)  who  fell  in  a  great  battle  with 
the  Leinster  people  and  the  Danes,  he  was  succeeded  by  Domnal,  the  son  of  the  hero, 
Murkertach,  and  it  was  during  the  long  reign  of  Domnal  that  the  events  just  recounted 
took  place.  In  the  time  of  this  monarch  is  placed  the  date  of  a  pretended  charter  of  the 
English  king  Edgar,  claiming  dominion  over  "  the  greatest  part  of  Ireland,  together  with 

van's  house  to  their  own  home  near  Bandon,  T  rather  give  credit  to  another  designation  which  I  find  in  an 
old  roll  or  series  of  the  kings  of  Munster,  with  an  account  of  the  years  of  their  reigns,  and  the  manner  of 
their  death;  wherein  it  is  mentioned  that  Mahoii  was  murdered  on  the  mountain  of  Mussiry,  near  Macroomp, 
at  a  place  called  Leacht  Mhaghlhamlina,  or  the  Grave  of  Mahon,  from  his  name.  This  place  lies  in  ttie 
direct  line  between  the  pJaces  wliere  Maolmuadh  and  Donovan  (the  murderers)  had  their  residence."— iato 
of  Tanistrxj,  ^-c. 

The  reader  has  here,  in  the  name,  J\]haghihamhna,  a  Ej)ecimen.  in  addition  to  some  others  which  I  have 
already  given,  of  the  absurd  mode  of  spelliii;;  by  which  the  Irish  language  is  disfigured.  This  heap  of  con- 
sonants is  pronounced  simply  Magama.  I  have  before  given  the  instance  of  Tigernach,  which,  in  pronuncia- 
tion, is  softened  into  the  graceful  name  of  Tierna. 

The  Inisfallen  annalist,  in  noticing  the  different  opinions  as  to  the  site  of  the  murder,  refers  to  a  work 
which  he  calls  "The  History  of  lite  Saints  of  the  llace  of  Conary." 

*  In  the  same  manner,  Mahon  had  enjoyed  for  some  time  the  piincipality  of  TbomuDd  before,  in  the  course 
of  succession,  he  was  elevated  to  the  sovereignty  over  all  ftlunstcr. 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  978.— IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  970.  J  IbW. 

§  The  remarks  of  Mac  Culloch,  in  speaking  of  the  Western  Isles,  with  respect  to  the  proofs  they  afford  of 
the  strength  and  ardour  of  the  religious  feeling  in  early  times,  are  equally  applicable  to  the  isle  of  Iniscathy, 
and  its  numerous  churches  and  cells.  "  In  comparing  the  fcirmer  with  the  present  state  of  the  Western 
Islands,  few  circumstances  are  much  more  striking  than  the  enormous  disproportion  of  their  religious  esta- 
blishments at  that  period  ;  when  also,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  poverty  of  the  territory,  there  could  be  but 

few  temporal  motives  for  such  establishments Assuredly  the  rocky  and  barren  mountains  of  Harris 

seem  to  have  held  out  no  great  temptations  beyond  those  of  a  spiritual  nature,  for  the  erection  of  twelve 
churches,  while  its  present  population,  now,  perhaps,  more  than  doubled,  would  with  ditficulty  fill  one." 

II  For  an  account  of  this  island,  see  Sir  R.  c.  Hoare's  Tour  in  Ireland.  "  The  monument  of  St.  Senan  (says 
Archdall)  is  still  to  be  seen  here,  with  the  remains  of  eleven  small  churches,  and  several  cells.  In  the  stone 
that  closes  the  top  of  the  altar  window  of  the  great  church,  is  the  head  of  the  Saint,  with  his  mitre  boldly 
executed  and  but  little  defaced.  An  ancient  Round  Tower  of  ]'J0  feet  in  height,  and  in  complete  repair, 
graces  the  scene.  This  island  is  remarkable  for  the  resort  of  pilgrims  on  certain  festivals."  Monast.  Hibern. 
at  Iniscaltery.    See,  for  St.  Patrick's  prophecy  respecting  Senanus,  Usher,  Kcc/rs    I'rimord.  S74. 

IT  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  977. 

•■**  AarclidaH  at  Inniscarcity. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  197 

its  mosl  noble  city,  Dublin."*  Even  were  tliis  strange  document  authentic,  which  has 
lone  ceased  to  be  assumed,  the  pompous  and  boastful  character  of  Edgar  would  account 
sufficiently  for  its  large  pretensions,  without  having  recourse  to  any  more  substantial 
grounds.  It  is  related  of  him,  that  when  residing  once  at  Chester  he  obliged  eight  of 
his  tributary  kings  to  row  him  in  a  barge  upon  the  Dee.f  But,  in  the  list  of  the  royal 
liegemen,  there  is  not  one  from  Ireland. 

After  a  reign  of  twenfy-four  years,  Domnal  ended  his  days  in  penitence  at  Armagh,! 
and   was  succeeded  in  the  throne  by  Malachy  the  Great,  a  prince  who,  though  ^  ^ 
eminently  qualified  by  character  and  talents  to  uphold  nobly  the  Hy-Niell  sceptre,    ggQ* 
was  doomed,  under  the  spell  of  an  ascendant  genius,  to  see  it  pass  away  from  his 
hands. 

The  consequences,  moral  as  well  as  political,  of  that  endless  division  and  subdivision 
of  kingship^,  which  formed  the  principal  of  the  Irish  system  of  government,  have  been 
sufficiently  dwelt  upon  and  exemplified  in  the  preceding  pages.  For  this  distraction  of 
the  public  counsels  and  energies,  a  partial  remedy  would  appear  to  have  been  devised, 
in  that  two-fold  division  of  the  whole  island  whicli  took  place,  as  we  have  seen,  at  rather 
an  early  period  ; — the  northern  half,  Leath  Cuinn,  being  allotted  nominally  to  the  mo- 
narch, while  the  southern  portion,  Leath  Mogh,  formed  the  dominions  of  the  king  of  Cashel. 
But  this  improvement,  as  it  might  have  been  deemed,  on  the  ancient  quintuple  division, 
while  it  left  all  the  former  sources  of  dissension  still  in  full  play,  but  added  another  provoca- 
tive to  strife  and  rivalry  in  the  second  great  royal  prize,  which,  by  this  new  distribution  of 
power,  was  to  be  held  forth  to  the  ambitious.  Nor  was  it  from  the  competition  for  these  two 
prizes  that  the  mischief  chiefly  arose, — the  lines  of  succession  to  them  being  kept  in 
general  distinct, — but  from  the  collision  into  which  the  respective  parties  were  brought 
by  their  relative  position  afterwards.  Had  the  monarch  possessed  a  substantial  control 
over  the  portion  of  the  kingdom  allotted  to  him,  such  a  power,  aided  by  the  traditional 
reverence  which  still  encircled  the  throne  of  Tara,  might,  in  difficult  conjunctures,  have 
enabled  him  to  enforce  his  authority  with  success.  But  it  is  clear  that,  in  his  mere  mo- 
narchical capacity,  the  power  of  the  monarch  was  only  nominal,  or,  at  the  best,  occasional; 
and  that,  in  the  general  struggle  for  plunder  and  pre-eminence  in  which  all  were  alike 
engaged,  his  authority  depended  as  much  for  its  enforcement  on  the  amount  of  troops, 
alliances,  and  subsidies  he  was  able  to  command,  as  that  of  any  one  of  those  minor  kings, 
over  whom  he  was  by  courtesy  sovereign. 

When  to  this  it  is  added,  that  the  monarchs  themselves,  considered  in  their  personal 
characters,  were,  as  may  have  been  judged  from  the  scanty  space  their  names  have  oc- 
cupied in  these  pages,  a  series,  with  but  few  exceptions,  of  weak  and  insignificant  per- 
sonages, it  will  not  be  thought  wonderful  that  the  throne  of  Munster,  filled  alternately 
from  among  the  chiefs  of  two  warlike  tribes,  each  emulous  of  the  other's  valour  and  re- 
nown, should  in  the  race  of  power  have  gained  rapidly  on  its  monarchical  rival,  and  at 
length  outgone  and  eclipsed  it.  Throughout  the  two  centuries,  indeed,  preceding  the 
period  we  have  now  reached,  the  acts  and  achievements  of  the  kings  of  Munster  furnish 
the  chief  material  of  Irish  history ;  and  how  far,  in  the  early  part  of  the  ninth  century, 
Ihey  had  already  usurped  on  the  power  and  station  of  the  monarch,  may  be  collected 
from  an  historical  mistake  committed  by  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  who,  in  speaking  of  Feid- 
lim,  the  active  and  ambitious  ruler  of  Munster  at  that  period,  was  so  far  deceived  by  the 
prominent  station  this  prince  occupied,  as  to  style  him  "  king  of  all  Ireland. "||  The 
tjeveral  princes,  whether  Eugenian  or  Dalcassian,  who  succeeded  Feidlim  in  the  throne 
of  Cashel,  continued  each  to  strengthen  and  advance  the  aspiring  power  of  the  province; 
till  at  length,  under  the  military  genius  of  Brian,  it  received  an  impulse  onward,  which 
not  even  the  talent  and  public  spirit  of  the  monarch,  Malachy,  could  avert :  and  accord- 
ingly, as  we  shall  find,  the  venerable  fabric  of  the  Hy-Niell  dynasty,  rich  as  it  was  in  the 
recollections  and  associations  of  nearly  600  years,  sunk  almost  unresistingly  beneath  the 
shock. 

*  "Maximam  partem  Hiberniffi,  cum  sua  nobilissima  civitate  Dublinia."'  Thfs  charter  may  be  found  in 
Usher's  Sylloge.  The  original,  he  says,  is  preserved  in  Worcester  Cathedral,  and  there  is  a  copy  of  it  among 
the  records  in   the  Tower. 

■  t  Hume.  These  eight  kings,  according  to  Turner,  were  "Kenneth  III,  king  of  Scotland,  Malcolm  of  Cum- 
bria, Macchus  of  Anglesey  and  the  Isles,  three  kings  of  Wales,  and  two  others."— Hist.  Jivglo-Sax.  c.  vi. 
Tliere  is  extant  a  charter  of  Edgar,  professing  to  be  signed  by  Kenneth  III  , — "  Ego  Kinadius  rex  Albanite 
adquievi,'  which  has  no  less  the  appearance  of  being  a  forgery  than  the  arrogant  charier  respecting  Ireland. 

J  Archdall,  who  quotes  Annul.  JMuiist. 

§  According  to  Procopius,  the  practice  of  bestowing  the  title  of  King  on  mere  generals  was  prevalent 
among  what  are  called  the  barbarous  nations :  A^A*  P'l^  K'j.houfAivi(  S'nCtcc-  ovTce  ja^  ir<piv  t'juc  >ij«|«cv«c 
(i  (SagCago/  vivofjiiKtL^iv. — Goth.  L.  2. 

0  Topog.  Hibern.  Dist,  3.  c.  43. 


198  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

When  raised  to  the  throne,  the  new  monarch,  Malachy,  was  in  his  thirtieth  year; 
and  a  victory  as  important  as  it  was  splendid,  which  he  gained  over  the  Danes  almost 
immediately  on  his  accession,  threw  a  lustre  of  hope  and  promise  around  the  commence- 
ment of  his  reign.  Invaded,  in  the  heart  of  his  own  dominions,  by  the  Northmen  of 
Dublin  and  of  the  Isles,  he  not  merely  repelled  the  incursion  with  spirit,  but,  turning 
assailant  in  his  turn,  attacked  the  main  body  of  the  enemy's  force,  consisting  of  Danes 
^  ^    collected  from  all  parts  of  Ireland ;  and,  continuing  the  conflict  with  but  little 

ggQ*  interruption  for  three  days  and  nights,  forced  them  to  submit  to  whatever  terms 
he  chose  at  the  sword's  point  to  dictate.  Among  other  conditions,  he  stipulated  for 
the  instant  release  from  captivity  of  all  such  natives  as  were  held  in  bondage  by  the 
Danes  ;  and  the  language  of  the  "  noble  Proclamation,"  as  it  is  justly  styled,  in  which  he 
announced  to  the  country  this  result  of  his  victory,  was  in  substance  as  follows  ; — "  Let 
all  the  Irish  who  are  suffering  servitude  in  the  lands  of  the  stranger  return  now  to  their 
several  homes,  nnd  enjoy  themselves  in  gladness  and  peace."* 

How  far  this  declaration  of  enfranchisement  was  allowed  to  have  effect  throughout  the 
country,  does  not  appear  from  the  records;  but  the  number  of  hostages,  as  well  as  of 
captives  on  other  grounds,  which  the  Danes,  in  obedience  to  this  edict,  released,  is  stated 
to  have  been  no  less  than  2000,  among  whom  were  Domnal,  the  king  of  Leinster,  and 
O'Niell,  prince  of  Tirone;  while,  as  a  farther  proof  of  submission,  all  the  O'Niells,  from 
the  source  of  the  Shannon  to  the  sea,  were  declared  to  be  exempt  from  all  future  pay- 
ment of  supplies  or  subsidies  to  the  Northmen. f  To  judge  from  the  results,  indeed, 
attributed  to  this  battle,  which  was  called  from  the  district  where  it  commenced,  the 
battle  of  Tara,  it  may  be  pronounced  that,  next  to  the  crowning  achievements  of  Brian 
himself  on  the  glorious  field  of  Clontarf,  it  was  by  far  the  most  signal  and  decisive  advan- 
tage gained  over  the  Danes  during  the  whole  course  of  their  ruinous  sway.  Besides  the 
immense  slaughter  of  their  troops,  they  had  lost  likewise  nearly  all  their  distinguished 
captains,  and  among  them  Reginald,  the  son  of  Aniaf,  their  king  ;|:  a  loss  which,  com- 
bined with  the  humiliating  sense  of  defeat,  so  deeply  affected  the  royal  father,  that,  to 
relieve  his  mind,  he  went  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  island  of  lona,  and  there  died  of  grief. 

As  by  the  subjection  of  the  southern  moiety  of  Ireland  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  king 
of  Munster,  the  province  of  Leinster  was  made  a  dependency  on  that  kingdom,  and 
forced  to  pay  to  its  sovereign  the  tribute  of  Eidirsgeol, — a  mulct  imposed  from  early 
times, — frequent  efforts  had  been  made  by  the  states  and  princes  of  Leinster  to  rid  them- 
selves of  so  humbling  a  mark  of  submission.  With  this  view  they  joined  in  a  confederacy 
now  formed  against  Brian  by  O'Felan,  prince  of  the  Desies,  in  which  were  associated 
also  the  prince  of  Ossory,  and  the  Danes  of  Cork  and  Waterford.  But  the  rapid  move- 
ments of  the  watchful  Brian,  who  suddenly  attacking  their  united  forces  at  a  place  called 
iri  our  annals,  the  Circle  of  the  Sons  of  Conrad, 5  chased  them  from  thence,  with  prodi- 
gious slaughter,  into  Waterford,  completely  disconcerted  and  broke  up  the  whole  con- 
federacy. Proceeding  directly  after  this  achievement  to  Ossory,  ho  forced  the  chiefs  of 
that  district  to  deliver  up  to  him  hostages,  and  made  their  hereditary  prince,  Mac-Gilla- 
Patrick,  his  prisoner.  From  thence  sweeping  over  the  plains  of  Leinster,  and,  according 
to  the  ordinary  practice  of  Irish  warfare,  desolating  them  as  he  went,  Brian  succeeded 
for  the  time  in  reducing  the  refractory  province  to  obedience.  Hostages  were  given  in 
pledge  of  future  fidelity  ;  and  the  two  kings  of  Leinster,  in  person,  tendered  their  alle- 
giance and  homage  in  the  tent  of  the  conqueror. 

Placed  as  the  monarch  and  his  rival  Brian  were  at  this  crisis,  each  flushed  with  recent 
victory,  and  meditating  farther  enterprises,  there  could  hardly  have  existed  a  doubt  in 
the  mind  of  either  that  they  must  ere  long  be  committed  together  in  the  field;  and,  as 
usually  happens,  it  was  from  the  younger  and  least  tried  of  the  two  parties  that  the  pro- 
vocative to  the  onset  first  proceeded.  In  pursuance  of  the  will  of  Olill-Ollum,  already 
more  than  once  adverted  to,  the  district  of  Dalcas,  or  Dalcassia,  the  present  county  of 
A.  D.  pl^'*'^».was  inherited   by  Brian,  as  prince  of  the  Dalcassian  tribe.     A  predatory 

782'.  ^"^"""sion  under  the  monarch  into  this  territory,  at  the  commencement  of  his  reign, 

■  gave  a  sufficiently  clear  indication  of  hostile  feeling;  but  a  still  more  wounding 

offence  to  the  pride  of  the  gallant  tribe  to  which  Brian  belonged,  was,  about  the  period 

we  have  now  reached,  wantonly  committed.     The  sacred  tree  in  the  Plain  of  Adoration, 


*  Tigernach  nd  an.  080.    IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  979  {xrx  com.  081.) 

T  Ibid.,  and  Ware's  ^niiqvilics  c.  24.  Jlbid. 

ir^  tt^  ^^^^'^  "^"^  Conniadh."— An.  Inisfall.  .id  an.  970.    See  also,  for  this  battle,  Vallancoy.— /.<"«  of  Tarns- 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  199 

at  Adair*,  under  whose  boughs  the  Dalcassian  princes  used  in  former  times  to  be  inau- 
gurated, was,  by  Malachy's  order,  in  the  course  of  this  inroad  cut  dovvn.f 

But  these  pointed  aggressions,  among  whicli  the  latter  stands  fortit- the  most  promi- 
nently in  all  our  annals,  having  failed  to  arouse  the  resentment  of  the  hero  of  Munster, 
the  monarch  again,  in  the  following  year,  held  forth  the  signal  of  defiance,  by  marchinor 
his  troops  into  the  province  of  Leinster,  which,  as  forming  a  part  of  the  kingdom  of 
Leath  Mogh,  was  now  under  the  dominion  of  Brian,  and  there  spreading  havoc  and  devasta- 
tion over  its  plains  "  to  the  very  sea."!  Such  an  infringement  of  his  royal  rights  was  not 
to  be  submitted  to  by  the  king  ofMunster,  who,  putting  himself  at  the  head  of  a  large 
force,  marched  directly  against  the  monarch,  and,  by  this  prompt  and  decisive  qq?' 
movement,  rendered  hostilities  for  the  time  unnecessary.  Yielding  to  remon- 
strances  so  strongly  backed,  Malachy  consented  to  acknowledge  his  rival's  claims ;  and  a 
sort  of  convention  was  then  mutually  agreed  upon,  confirming  to  Brian  his  right  of 
dominion  over  the  kingdom  of  Leath  Mogh,  in  like  manner  as  it  assured  to  the  monarch 
his  right  of  sovereignty  over  Leath  Cuinn.  It  was  moreover  stipulated  on  both  sides, 
that  all  persons  held  in  captivity  by  either,  who  belonged  to  the  dominions  of  the  other, 
should  be  forthwith  delivered  up;  and  lastly,  in  reference  to  the  claim  upon  Leinster — 
the  point  immediately  at  issue, — it  was  settled  that  Donald,  the  king  of  that  province, 
was  bound  to  pay  tribute  to  Brian. 5 

Through  the  tour  or  five  following  years  this  amicable  arrangement  appears  to  have  - 
been  respected  by  botli  parties;  but,  in  the  year  968,  whether  in  revenge  for  some 
aggression,  or  moved  by  the  one  sole  aim  and  object  of  his  career,  the  supplanting  '^'qq* 
of  the  power  of  the  monarchy,  we  find  Brian  actively  preparing,  both  by  land  and 
water,  for  the  invasion  at  once  of  the  two  provinces,  Meath  and  Connaught.     Embarking 
the  whole  of  his  force  in  boats  on  the  Shannon,  he  thus  conveyed  them  as  far  as  Lough 
Ree,  laying  the  country  on  each  side  under  contribution.     Then  dividing  his  forces  into 
two  corps,   he  detached  one  of  them  to  the  western  parts  of  Connaught,  which  they 
plundered  and  laid  waste,  slaying  Murgisius,  the  Roydamna  of  that  province;  while  with 
the  other  he  himself  marched  into  Meath,  devastating  all  that  lay  in  his  course,  on  the 
western  bank  of  the  Shannon,  and  returned  to  his  palace  of  Kinkora,  laden  with  rich 
spoils.ll 

The  two  great  rivals  were  now  again  in  open  conflict;  though,  for  the  three  following 
years,  alternate  inroads  into  each  other's  territories,  for  the  purpose  of  spoil  and  plunder, 
appear  to  have  been  the  only  means  of  mutual  annoyance  resorted  to  by  them.     Against 
the  Danes,  however,  the  spirited  monarch  continued  to  carry  on  a  brisk  and  efl^ective 
warfare;  and  so  closely  laid  siege  to  them  in  Dublin,  for  the  space  of  "twenty 
nights,"  that  they  were  .at  length  reduced  to  salt  water  for  their  only  drink.     In    poq' 
this  extremity,  finding  themselves  compelled  to  submit,  they  agreed  to  pay  to  the 
monarch,  in  addition  to  the  accustomed  tributes,  one  ounce  of  gold  out  of  every  principal 
dwelling-house  in  Dublin,  to  be  paid  yearly  on  Christmas-night  to  him  and  his  heirs  for 
ever.  IT 

In  the  year  994,  Dublin  must  again  have  been  the  scene  of  his  triumphs,  as  he  is  said 
to  have  then  carried  oft'  from  thence  two  trophies, — the  collar  of  Tomar,  and  the  sword 
of  Carlus  ;**  to  which,  from  the  emphatic  manner  in  which  they  are  always  mentioned, 

*  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  ami.  982.  See  an  account  of  the  practice  of  tree-worship  among  the  ancient  Irish,  in 
c.  ii.  p.  43,  &.C.  of  this  Work. 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  982—983.  Our  antiquary,  Ledwich,  in  his  great  anxiety  to  j)rove  the  Irish  to 
have  been  of  Teutonic  origin— a  supposition  which,  with  regard  to  a  small  portion  of  lier  population,  the 
Scots,  has  been  shown  to  be  highly  probable,— has  adduced,  "among  other  evidence,  the  ancient  custom  of 
inaugurating  the  kings  of  Cashcl  on  a  large  stone.  "  This  was  a  Firbolgian  custom,"  he  says,  "introduced 
from  the  north;  where  the  people  erected  great  stones,  or  stone  circles,  for  tlie  election  and  inauguration  of 
their  princes."  He  forgot,  however,  that  though  the  Eugenian  branch  of  the  Munster  kings  adopted  this 
form  on  their  election,  those  of  the  Dalcassian  line  were  inaugurated  under  the  BileMagh-Adair,  or  sacred 
tree,  in  Thomond;  a  custom  which,  being,  according  to  him,  aproof  of  Celtic  descent,  is  sufficient  to  neu- 
tralize at  least  the  inference  deduced  by  him  from  the  other. 

t  "  Oo  Jtfuir,"— Tigernach,  ad  an.  983.    IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  982,  (;erjB  com.  983.) 

6  Inisfall.  ad  an.  983. 

|[  IV.  Mag.  Vallancey  (Z,a?cs  of  Tanisinj,)  from  Jilunsler  Records.  Vallancey  gives  to  this  Eoydamna  the 
name  of  Muiredach. 

IT  Tigernach.  ad  an.  989. 

**  Harris  could  not  have  seen  this  record,  or  he  would  not  have  asserted  that  the  sword  of  Carlus  belonged 
to  Carolus  Knute,  who  was  killed  at  Clontarf  The  collar  of  Tomar  was  a  golden  torques,  which  the  monarch 
.Malachy  took  from  Die  neck  of  a  Danish  chieftain  whom  he  had  conquered;— 

"Let  Erin  remember  the  days  of  old. 

Ere  her  faithless  sons  betrayed  her. 
When  Malachy  wore  the  collar  of  gold 

Which  he  won  from  her  proud  invader.'— /WsA  Melodies. 


200  HISTORY  OF  IKELAND. 

peculiar  interest  must  have  been  attached.  In  the  course  of  the  same  year,  during  an 
inroad  made  by  him  into  Munster,  an  engagement  ensued  between  iiis  forces  and  those 
of  Brian,  in  which  the  latter  was  defeated.*  But  this  passing  eclipse  of  the  Momonian 
hero's  good  fortune  was  amply  redeemed  in  the  following  year,  when  invading,  in  hia 
turn,  the  dominions  of  the  monarch,  he  gained  a  complete  victory  over  him  ;  and,  carry- 
ing conflagration  into  the  Royal  Rath,  in  which  stood  the  palace  of  the  kings  of  Tara,+ 
burned  that  ancient  and  stately  structure  to  the  ground.  At  length,  recalled  perhaps  by 
some  worthier  feelings  than  appear  in  general  to  have  actuated  their  conduct,  to  a  sense 
of  the  lasting  injury  they  were  inflicting  upon  their  country  by  these  feuds,  the  rival 

sovereigns  again  formed  with  each  other  a  treaty  of  peace,  on  the  basis,  as  before, 
qq^'  of  mutual  recognition  of  their  respective  rights,  as  rulers  of  the  two  great  divi- 

■  sions  of  the  island,  Leath  Cuinn  and  Leath  Mogh.|; 
That  an  honest  zeal  for  the  public  welfare  bore  some  share  in  the  motives  that  led  to 
this  step,  may  be  fairly  inferred  from  the  first  fruits  of  their  reconcilement  having  been 
an  active  campaign  in  concert  against  the  Danes.  Marching  with  their  united  forces  to 
Dublin,  they  there  demanded  and  received  hostages  from  the  Northmen  ;  and  in  the  same 
year,  having  renewed  their  joint  invasion  of  that  city,  they  carried  off  from  thence  both 
spoil  and  hostages,  and,  as  the  chroniclers  exultingly  add,  "  with  much  triumph  to  the 
Irish."5  A  yet  more  brilliant  success  awaited  them  in  the  following  year,  when,  as  they 
lay  encamped  with  their  respective  armies  in  the  valley  called,  in  those  times,  Glen-Mama, 

the  Danes  poured  forth  from  their  seat  of  strength  an  immense  force,  with  the 
lOno'  ^^P^  '^^  surprising  and  overwhelming  the  two  sovereigns.     But,  in  the  conflict 

that  then  ensued,  the  superior  fortune  of  the  day  was  with  the  Irish  ;  and,  among 
the  Danish  princes  and  nobles  who  fell  in  the  action,  is  recorded  Harold,  the  son  of 
Anlaf.ll 

Not  long  after  this  event  the  Northmen  of  Dublin,  under  the  command  of  their  king, 
Sitric,  making  an  irruption  into  Leinster,  carried  away  with  them  the  king  of  that  pro- 
vince, Donogh  Mac-Donald  ;  on  hearing  of  which  outrage  upon  his  liegeman,  the  active 
Brian  marched  instantly  with  a  select  force  to  their  city,  and  having  delivered  the  royal 
captive,  burned  down  their  principal  dun,  or  fortress,  making  himself  master  of  the  gold, 
silver,  and  other  precious  effects  they  had  amassed,  and  then  forced  them  to  expel  king 
Sitric,  the  author  of  the  outrage,  from  the  country.  The  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters 
represent  Malachy  as  acting  with  Brian  in  this  expedition  ;  but  Tigernach,  the  annals  of 
Ulster,  and  of  Inisfallen,  all  agree  in  attributing  the  credit  of  it  to  Brian  alone. IT  It  is, 
indeed,  manifest  that,  about  this  period,  the  monarch  had  seen  reason  to  separate  his  in- 
terests from  those  of  the  aspiring  king  of  Munster ;  whether  from  jealousy  of  that  prince's 
increasing  fame,  or,  as  seems  more  probable,  from  a  clearer  insight  into  the  real  nature 
of  his  designs,  and  a  too  late  conviction,  perhaps,  that,  in  aiding  so  active  a  rival's  schemes, 
he  was  but  hastening  forward  the  march  of  a  power  already  threatening  the  rights  and 
safety  of  the  supreme  throne  itself. 

Whatever  may  have  been  his  real  motives  for  such  conduct,  the  fact  of  a  change,  at 
this  time,  in  the  policy  of  the  monarch  is  sufficiently  evinced  by  his  marching  his  troops 
on  a  predatory  expedition  into  Leinster  (that  province  being  now  in  relations  of  allegi- 
ance with  Brian)  in  the  very  same  year  that  had  just  been  signalized  by  Brian's  victory 

*  Inisfall.  ad  an,  094.  Willi  a  spirit  of  partisanship  which  deserves  praise,  at  least,  for  its  ardour,  t>eing 
ready  to  kindle  even  on  matters  as  far  back  as  the  tenth  century,  Vallancey  suppresses  all  mention  of  this 
defeat  of  his  favourite  hero  ;  though,  in  the  annals  most  partial  to  the  cause  of  Munster — those  of  Inisfallen 
— it  forms  almost  the  only  record  for  the  year. 

t  Annal.  Innisfall.  ad  an.  995.  These  annals  style  the  structure  that  was  burned  down  "Teach  n  aoi<Ihe," 
or,  the  House  of  the  Learned  IMan,  or  Preceptor;  but,  according  to  Vallancey's  authorities,  it  was  the  Uegal 
House,  or  Rath,  of  Meath. 

X  Inisfall.  ad  an.  997. 

§  IV.  Maij.  ad  an.  997.    "  Fii  suabhais  Gaoidhelaibh." 

|(  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  999. 

TT  Tigernach  and  Inisfall.  ad  an.  999.  We  have  here  another  historical  partisan  in  the  field.  The  aiilhor 
of  Cambrensis  Eversus,  with  wliom  Malachy  is  not  undeservedly  a  favourite,  assigns  to  him  alone  all  the 
glory  of  this  achievement.  "He  attributes  (says  Vallancey)  the  wliole  honour  of  this  .iction  to  Malachy, 
witli  an  utter  e.xclusiou  of  Brian,  although  the  annals  of  Tigernach  e.tpressly  mention  Brian  as  solely  engaged 
in  the  affair,  without  attributing  any  share  of  it  to  Malachy."  Vallancey  then  proceeds,  with  much  warmth 
and  energy,  to  contend  that  Malarliy  liad  no  share  whatever  in  tliis  e.xploit. 

As  long  as  this  sort  of  partisanship  cotilines  itself  within  the  bounds  of  honest  zeal,  it  is,  however,  mis- 
placed, respectable  ;  but  too  often  unfairness  is  one  of  the  weapons  to  which  it  resorts,  and  Vallancey  himself 
is  not  always  e.vempt  from  this  charge.  In  order  to  palliate  the  violence  of  Brian's  proceedings,  attetnpts 
have  been  made  by  some  of  his  enthusiastic  admirers  to  make  it  appear  that  the  first  aggression  came  from 
Malachy;  and,  with  this  view,  Vallancey,  in  giving  an  account  of  an  attack  upon  Munster,  in  the  year  988, 
by  the  |teople  of  (Jonnaught,  asserts,  without  the  slightest  authority  from  any  of  our  authentic  annals,  thatthe 
monarch's  own  principality  of  Meatli  took  a  part  in  the  aggression.  "  In  9S:!,"  he  says,  "  the  people  of  Con- 
naught,  assisted  by  those  of  Meath,  in  open  violation  of  their  king's  treaty  with  Brian,  invaded  the  west  of 
Munster Brian,  to  revenge  this  insult,  inarched  at  the  head  uf  a  powerful  army,"  &.c. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  201 

over  the  Northmen.  In  consequence,  as  it  is  said,  of  this  overt  act  of  hostility,  but 
clearly  in  pursuance  of  his  own  long-meditated  scheme  of  usurpation,  Brian  collected 
together  a  large  army  from  the  provinces  of  Coiinaught,  Munster,  and  Leinster,  together 
with  an  auxiliary  corps  furnished  by  the  Danes  of  Dublin,  whom  he  had  now  brought 
into  obedience;  and,  at  the  head  of  this  imposing  force,  marched  towards  Tara.  Learn- 
ing that  the  monarch  had  retired  with  his  troops  to  the  plain  of  Bregia,  he  detached 
to  that  place  a  squadron  of  Danish  cavalry,  which,  coming  in  conflict  with  the  trwps  of 
Malachy,  were,  almost  to  a  man,  cut  to  pieces.  On  the  appearance  however,  of  .  jj 
Brian,  with  the  main  body  of  his  immense  force,  the  monarch  saw  that  to  continue  ,qqq 
his  resistance  would  be  for  the  present  unavailing,  and  that  by  concession  only 
could  he  hope  to  purchase  a  brief  respite  for  the  monarchy.  Accordingly,  appealing  to 
his  rival's  generosity,  on  account  of  the  disparity  in  the  numbers  of  their  respective  forces, 
and  giving  hostages -in  pledge  of  fidelity  and  present  submission,  he  succeeded  for  the 
time  in  averting  the  danger  with  which  he  was  threatened;  and  Brian,  withdrawing  his 
troops  peaceably  from  the  royal  territory,  departed,  as  the  chroniclers  express  it,  "  with- 
out battle,  without  waste,  without  burning."* 

According  to  some  accountsf  of  this  transaction,  the  monarch,  in  pleading  the  compara- 
tive weakness  of  his  own  force,  requested  that  a  certain  time  should  be  allowed  him  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  into  the  field  his  whole  military  strength  ;  engaging  solemnly 
that  if,  within  that  period,  he  should  find  himself  unable  to  try  the  question  with  the 
sword,  he  would  at  once  resign  his  throne  and  pay  homage  and  tribute  to  Brian  as  mo- 
narch. With  this  plausible  arrangement  the  king  of  Munster,  it  is  added,  politely  com- 
plied. That  such  instances  of  courtesy  in  warfare  were  not  unfrequent  among  the 
Scandinavians,  we  learn  from  one  of  their  own  historians;  who  tells  of  a  Danish  general 
voluntarily  reducing  his  force  in  order  to  be  on  a  level  with  that  of  his  antagonist.|;  But 
the  story  of  Brian's  still  more  chivalrous  flight  of  complaisance,  besides  that  it  is  men- 
tioned in  none  of  the  authentic  Irish  chronicles,  bears  evident  marks  of  modern  fabrication. 


CHAPTER  XXL 


Usurpation  of  the  Throne  of  Tara  by  Brian. — His  triumphant  Progress  through  the  Coun- 
try.— Gifts  and  privileges  bestowed  by  him  upon  the  Church. — State  of  the  Country  under 
Ilia  dominion. — Unusually  long  interval  of  Peace. — Disturbed  by  the  restlessness  and  per- 
fidy of  the  People  of  Leinster. — M  ilachy,  Defeated  by  them,  applies  for  assistance  to  Brian. — 
Is  refused. — Preparations  of  the  Northmen,  in  league  with  the  Lagenians,  for  a  Descent  upon 
Ireland. — Forces  collected  from  most  of  the  Danish  dominions. — Great  battle  of  Clontarf 
and  its  consequences. 

The  following  year  beheld  the  accomplishment  of  the  ambitious  Brian's  pro- 
jects  and  hopes.     It  is  commonly  stated,  with  a  view  of  exonerating  him  from  the  jaqj 
odium  of  usurpation,  and  investing  his  acts  with  the  sanction  of  popular  approval, 
that  he  had  been,  previously  to  his  first  rebellion,  solicited  earnestly  by  the  princes  and 
states  of  Connaught  to  depose  Malachy  from  the  supreme  throne,  and  take  the  sceptre 
into  his  own  hands.     But  in  none  of  our  really  trustworthy  records  is  there  to  be  found 
the  slightest  authority  for  this  assertion;  and  the  term  "  rebellion,"  applied  by  the  an- 
nalists to  Brian's  first  march  upon  Tara,^  sufficiently  points  out  the  sort  of  aspect  under 
which  that  agression  must  have   been  generally  regarded.     Though  left  to  linger  on 
through  a  few  more  feverish  months,  in  the  mere  semblance  of  sovereignty,  the  fate  of 
the  monarch  was  by  that  step  finally  sealed,  and  his  rival's  supremacy  secured.     In  the 
following  year,  at  the  head  of  a  force  as  formidable  in  numbers  as  before,  Brian  again 
marched  to  Tara;  and  there,  in  the  palace  of  her  ancient  monarchs,  received  the  homage 

*  "Gan  cath,  gan  indradh,  gan  loscc." — IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1000  (Eers  com.  1001.) 

\  O'Halloran.  I  Mallet,  torn.  i.  231. 

§  Tigernach,  ad.  an.  1000,  and  IV  Mag.  ad  an.999(sr«  com.  1000  )    Tigernach  calls  it  "  a  rebellion  tlirougb 
treachery ;" — impod  tre  meabkal. 

25 


202  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

of  their  last  legitimate  successor,  the  descendant  of  a  series  of  fifty  Hy-Niell  kings,  and 
was  by  him  acknowledged  supreme  sovereign  of  all  Ireland. 

However  strong  and  ascendant  was  the  power  acquired  by  Brian  over  the  minds  of  his 
fellow  countrymen,  by  a  long  life  of  military  success,  so  daring  a  step  as  he  had  now 
ventured  upon,  in  utter  defiance  of  all  those  long  cherished  prejudices  in  favour  of  old 
and  prescriptive  rights  which  we  have  seen  to  be  innate  in  the  national  character,  could 
hardly  have  been  risked  by  him  without  some  misgivings,  and  even  apprehensions,  as  to 
the  result.  Accordingly,  though  in  no  quarter  does  there  appear  to  have  been  open 
resistance  to  his  authority,  nor  any  instance  of  a  recourse  to  arms,  in  favour  of  Malachy, 
it  is  yet  clear,  from  the  constant  and  watchful  activity  with  which  the  new  monarch 
kept  the  field  through  the  two  or  three  following  years,  and  his  restless  movements 
throughout  all  Ireland,  demanding  hostages  in  every  quarter,  that  the  apparently  willing 
submission  of  the  country  was  mainly  the  work  of  his  own  vigilance  and  vigour;  and 
that  what  he  had  acquired  by  the  sword,  was  chiefly  by  the  sword  maintained. 

The  powerful  houses  of  the  Hy-Niells,  as  well  the  two  branches  long  excluded  from 

the  succession  as  those — the  Tirone  and  Clan-Colman, — which  had,  down  to  this  period, 

alternately  enjoyed  it,*  made  common  cause  in  opposing  and  thwarting  the  new  monarch, 

but  only  in  one  instance  appear  to  have  ventured  on  open  hostilities  with  him  in  the  field. 

The  southern  Hy-Niells  having,  with  the  aid  of  the.  forces  of  Connaught,  taken  up 

,QQQ  arms  against  his  authority,  he  gave  them  battle  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Alhlone, 

'  and  obtained  an  easy  victory  over  them.f 

The  prince  who  governed  at  this  time  the  Hy-Niells  of  the  north  was  Aodh,  the  grand- 
son of  the  heroic  Murkertach, — a  chief  who,  as  being  the  roydamna,  or  successor  appa- 
rent to  Malachy,  was  the  person,  next  to  this  prince,  the  most  aggrieved  by  his  deposi- 
tion. But  a  menacing  movement  or  two,  not  followed  up  by  any  actual  hostility,  was 
all  that  the  usurper  had  to  encounter  from  the  young  Aodh;  who,  making  war  soon  after 
(a.  d.  1005,)  on  the  province  of  Ulad,  fell  gallantly,  as  became  a  descendant  of  the  Chief 
"  of  the  Warriors  of  the  Saffron  Hue,"  in  an  engagement  called,  from  the  place  where 
it  occurred,  the  Battle  of  the  Wood  of  Tulka.J:  Among  the  few  faint  attempts  at  resist- 
ance made  by  the  Hy-Niells  of  the  north,  was  that  of  a  prince  of  Ulidia,  Flahertach 
O'Neill,  who  refused  to  give  hostages  to  Brian.  But  the  military  dictator  extorted  these 
sureties  by  force  ;5  and,  soon  after,  carried  off  Flahertach  himself  as  his  prisoner. 

The  ready  acquiescence  with  which,  in  general,  so  violent  a  change  in  the  polity  of 
the  country  was  submitted  to,  may  be  in  a  great  degree  attributed  to  the  example  of 
patience  and  disinterestedness  exhibited  by  the  immediate  victim  of  this  revolution,  the 
deposed  Malachy  himself.  Nor,  in  forming  our  estimate  of  this  prince's  character  from 
a  general  view  of  his  whole  career,  can  we  well  hesitate  in  coming  to  the  conclusion, 
that  not  to  any  backwardness  in  the  field,  or  want  of  vigour  in  council,  is  his  tranquil 
submission  to  the  violent  encroachments  of  his  rival  to  be  attributed ;  but  to  a  regard, 
rare  at  such  an  unripe  period  of  civilization,  for  the  real  interests  of  the  public  weal,  and 
an  unwillingness  to  risk,  for  his  own  personal  views,  the  explosive  burst  of  discord  which, 
in  so  inflammable  a  state  of  the  political  atmosphere,  a  struggle  for  the  monarchy  would, 
he  knew,  infallibly  provoke.  Acting  on  this  prudent,  and,  as  far  as  we  can  judge, 
patriotic  motive,  he  even  generously  lent  his  aid  to  the  usurper  in  preserving  the  general 
peace  of  the  country;  and  when  Brian,  attended  by  the  kings  of  Leath-Mogh,  proceeded 
on  his  circuit  through  the  provinces, — passing,  as  his  progress  is  described,  "  beyond  the 
Red  Cataract,||  into  Ula," — we  find  Malachy,  with  the  contingent  of  troops  supplied  by 
his  principality,  following  quietly  among  the  other  liegemen  in  the  royal  train. 

During  one  of  these  progresses,  having  remained  a  week  in  the  city  of  Armagh,  the 
new  monarch  left,  as  a  devout  offering,  on  the  great  altar  of  the  cathedral,  a  gold  collar 
weighing  twenty  ounces. IT  A  most  marked  feature,  indeed,  in  the  policy  of  this  prince, 
was  the  regard  manifested  by  him  for  the  interests  of  religion,  and  his  liberal  patronage 
of  the  ministers  of  the  church.  In  the  course  of  a  subsequent  visit  to  Ulster  he  afforded 
a  substantial  mark  of  his  feeling  on  this  subject,  when,  in  order  to  repair  the  ravages 
committed  by  the  Northmen,  he  granted,  in  addition  to  a  gift  of  glebe  lands  to  the 
churches  of  Ireland,  a  considerable  extension  of  their  immunities  and  rights.  After 
depositing  his  pious  oblation  at  .Armagh,  he  proceeded,  attended  by  the  kings  of  the  south, 

*  See  Dissertation  <^c.,  by  O'Connor  of  Balenagar,  sect.  15. 
t  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1001  (rnra^  com.  1003.) 
J  "  Cath  Craoibhe  Tulcha."  IV.  Mag. 
(,  Anna).  Inisfall.  ad  an.  lOOti. 

jl  Easruaidh,  the  present  Ballyslianiioii,— called  the  Ucd  Calatact,  from  the  salnionlcap,  for  which  Ihia 
epot  is  celebrated. 
V  The  value  of  gold  was,  I  suppose,  at  that  time,  about  five  limes  as  great  as  at  the  present  day. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  203 

to  the  royal  seat  of  the  Dalriedans  in  Antrim,  called  Rath-mor-Muige-Line,  or  the  Great 
Fortress  near  the  Water,'*'  where  he  received  hostages  from  all  the  princes  of  that  region, 
as  well  as  from  the  whole  of  the  remaining  dynasts  of  Leth-Cuinn. 

To  follow  in  detail  the  various  progresses  of  this  description  which  he  performed 
during  the  first  few  years  of  his  reign,  would  be  little  more  than  a  mere  repetition  of  the 
same  uninteresting  and,  for  the  most  part,  bloodless  course  of  events;  the  few  instances 
that  occurred  of  resistance  to  his  demands,  having  led  rarely  to  any  more  serious  result 
than  the  seizure  of  the  refractory  chieftains  as  prisoners;  and  all  such  captives  of  this 
rank  as  fell  into  his  power  were  led  in  chains  to  his  regal  fortress  at  Kinkora. 

This  vigorous  policy  appears  to  have  completely  succeeded.  An  interval  of  peace 
for  some  years  followed  upon  these  measures,  such  as  it  has  rarely  been  Ireland's  fortune, 
whether  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  to  enjoy;  and  the  void  left  by  the  dearth  of  the 
usual  stirring  events  in  the  bloodless  annals  of  these  few  tranquil  years  has  been  filled 
up,  by  the  fancy  of  later  writers,  with  a  glowing  picture  of  the  peace,  prosperity,  and 
civilization  which  was  now  diffused  throughout  the  whole  country,  by  the  salutary  laws 
and  wise  government  of  its  ruler.  In  addition  to  the  endowments  and  privileges  newly 
conferred  upon  the  church,  the  schools  and  colleges  ravaged  by  the  Danes  were  all  re- 
stored to  their  former  condition  and  now  institutions  of  learning  and  piety  founded. 
The  wealth  of  the  state  devoted  to  objects  of  public  utility  was,  we  are  told,  employed 
in  the  erection  of  fortified  places,  in  the  building  of  numerous  bridges,  and  the  construc- 
tion of  massive  causeways;  while,  to  provide  also  for  the  dignity  of  the  regal  state,  the 
various  royal  houses  and  palaces  throughout  Munster,  more  especially  the  monarch's 
favourite  abode  at  Kinkora,  were,  by  his  orders,  all  rebuilt  and  embellished.  It  is  added 
likewise  by  the  same  romantic  authorities,  as  a  proof  of  the  influence  of  Brian's  laws  on 
society,  and  the  consequent  purity  of  the  public  morals,  that  a  beautiful  maiden,  adorned 
with  gold  and  jewels,  and  bearing  in  her  hand  a  white  wand,  with  a  costly  ring  on  its 
top,  travelled  alone  over  the  whole  island  without  any  attempt  being  made  on  her  honour 
or  her  treasures.! 

Through  the  whole  of  this  prosperous  picture  it  is  easy  to  trace  the  florid  colouring  of 
the  fabulist;  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  endowment  granted  to  the  churches,  and  the 
repairs  of  some  of  the  royal  forts  in  Munster,  there  is  not  one  of  the  acts  attributed  thus 
to  Brian,  of  which  any  record  is  to  be  found  in  our  genuine  annals;  while  the  story  of 
the  maiden,  travelling  safely  with  her  ring  and  jewels  over  the  island,  is  but  an  improve- 
ment on  similar  fables  long  current  among  the  Danes  and  Anglo-Saxons.  It  was  the 
boast  of  the  Danish  lawgiver,  Frotho,  that  he  could  expose,  without  fear  of  theft,  the 
most  precious  things  on  the  public  paths;  and,  in  Alfred's  time,  as  a  similar  test  of  the 
honesty  of  the  people,  rich  bracelets  were,  it  is  said,  hung  up  by  the  road-side.J 

But  though,  in  the  instance  of  our  Irish  hero, — and  the  same  has  been  the  fate  of  all 
such  lights  of  obscure  periods, — romance  supplies  the  place  amply  of  authentic  history, 
there  is  yet  enough,  in  the  genuine  records  of  his  actions,  to  entitle  him  to  the  rank  he 
holds  in  historic  fame.  Had  he  no  other  claim  to  distinction,  his  name  would  fully  merit 
commemoration  for  the  vigorous  policy  with  which,  when  advanced  to  the  supreme 
power,  he  succeeded  in  quelling  and  keeping  down  that  whole  swarm  of  petty  kings  and 
dynasts,  who,  at  once  tyrants  and  rebels,  have  been  at  all  times  the  worst  scourge  of  the 
country,  leaving  neither  peace  to  the  people,  nor  security  to  the  throne.  To  his  prompt 
vigour  in  suppressing,  or  rather  coercing  into  harmlessness  this  most  mischievous  as  well 
as  most  absurd  of  all  forms  of  aristocracy,  is  to  be  attributed  the  rare  and,  in  those  times, 
unexampled  tranquillity  which  the  country  enjoyed  under  his  sway. 

*  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1004.  See  Beauford  {Ancient  Topography  of  Ireland,)  at  Ratli-mor-muighe-line :— Collectan. 
vol.  iii. 

t  Verses  quoted  by  Keating.  We  find  in  Feller  {Diet.  Hist.)  a  translation  of  these  vsrses  by  M.  Lally  To- 
lendal:— "Lee  lois  et  les  moeurs  6taient  tellement  respectts,  que  les  bardes  Irlandois,  en  cliantant  le  regne 
heureux  de  Brien  Boroilimh,  ont  dit,— 

"  Une  vierge,  unissant  au.x  dons  de  la  nature 
De  Tor  et  de  rubis  I'eclat  et  la  valeur, 
A  la  clarte  du  jour  on  dans  la  nuit  obscure 
D'une  mer  jusqu'  a  I'autre  allait  sans  protecteur, 
Ne  perdait  rien  de  sa  parure, 
Ne  risquait  rien  pour  sa  pudeur." 

t  "  II  fit  de  si  bona  ri^glemens  centre  le  brigandage,  et  veilla  si  a  leur  observation  qu'il  exposoif  dea  bagues 
d'or  sur  les  grands  cheniins  sans  que  personne  osat  les  prendre.  Les  histeriens  Anglais  racontent  la  meme 
chose  du  grand  Alfred," — Mallet,  Hist,  de  Dannemarc. 

Of  William  the  Conqueror's  time,  a  similar  romantic  account  is  given.  "  Amongst  other  things,  is  not  to 
be  forgotten  that  good  peace  that  he  made  in  thig  land  ;  so  that  a  man  of  any  a  ccount  might  go  over  his 
kingdom  unhurt,  with  his  bosom  full  of  gold."— .Saron  Chronicle. 


204  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

A  storm,  however,  was  now  gathering,  which  boded  interruption  to  this  short  interval 
of  peace.  The  high  hand  with  which  Brian  had  carried  his  usurpation,  setting  at  defiance 
all  competitors  and  opponents,  had  the  effect  of  awing  also  into  submission  the  Danish 
princes  of  the  island ;  and  although,  in  the  seaport  towns,  the  Northmen  were  still 
numerous,  being  encouraged  by  a  policy,  dangerous  under  such  circumstances,  to  con- 
tinue their  commerce  with  the  natives,  not  an  attempt  appears  to  have  been  made 
^kyi  by  them  to  disturb  the  general  peace.  In  the  year  1013,  however,  the  people  of 
■  Leinster,  who  had  been  always  the  most  shamefully  forward  among  their  country- 
men, both  in  serving  as  auxiliaries  to  the  foreigner,  and  in  using  his  alliance  for  their 
own  purposes,  joined  their  forces  to  those  of  Sitric,  King  of  Dublin,  and,  with  more  than 
ordinary  ferocity,  invaded  the  province  of  Meath.*  The  King  of  Leinster,  Maolmorda, 
had,  in  the  year  999,  been  aided  by  the  forces  of  the  Danes  in  usurping  the  crown  of  that 
kingdom,  and  now  co-operated  with  them  in  this  plundering  expedition  into  Meath,  de- 
spoiling and  burning  all  that  lay  in  their  way,  as  far  as  "  the  Sacred  Ground  of  St. 
Fechin,  and  the  Plain  of  Bregia."f 

To  avenge  this  violation  of  his  territory,  the  deposed  monarch,  now  only  King  of  Meath, 
set  fire  to  the  neighbouring  districts  of  Leinster  as  far  as  Benadar,|  the  present  Hill  of 
Howth.  There,  being  attacked  by  the  combined  force  of  Maolmorda  and  his  Danish 
allies,  he  was  entirely  defeated  with  the  loss  of  200  of  his  best  troops,  his  son,  Flann,and 
several  of  the  noble  chiefs  of  Meath.  Under  the  pressure  of  this  defeat,  and  threatened 
with  still  farther  aggression,  Malachy  adopted  the  resolution  of  applying  for  assistance 
to  Brian ;  and  accordingly  hastening  to  the  palace  of  Kinkora,  where  the  monarch's 
court  was  now  held,  he  there  presented  himself  as  an  humble  suitor  in  the  presence  of 
that  prince  whom  he  had,  but  a  few  years  before,  looked  down  upon  from  the  supreme 
throne.  Representing  in  pathetic  terms  the  constant  alarm  to  which  he  was  exposed  by 
the  joint  hostility  of  two  such  formidable  neighbours,  he  implored  earnestly  the  aid  and 
interference  of  Brian  to  avert  from  his  territory  so  dreadful  a  scourge.  To  this  entreaty 
the  veteran  hero,  wholly  untouched,  as  it  would  seem,  by  the  appeals  to  his  generosity, 
which  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  case  involved,  returned  a  stern  refusal;  and  the 
King  of  Meath  was  left  to  defend  his  possessions  by  such  means  as  his  own  narrow  re- 
sources supplied.} 

In  the  summer,  however,  of  that  year,  so  menacing  an  aspect  had  the  combined  move- 
ments of  the  Danes  and  Lagenians  begun  to  assume,  that  Brian,  to  meet  the  coming 
danger,  advanced  his  quarters  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Dublin,  laying  waste  the  country 
of  Ossory  in  his  march.  At  the  same  time  he  detached  into  Leinster  his  son,  Morrough, 
with  a  select  body  of  troops  which,  in  like  manner,  devastated  the  country  with  fire  and 
sword  as  far  as  Glendalough,  and  the  Sacred  Ground  of  St.  Caimin;  and  then  returned, 
with  a  number  of  prisoners  and  abundant  spoil,  to  Brian,  whose  camp  was  pitched  on 
that  ground,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Dublin,  now  called  Kilmainham.  Here  he  re- 
mained from  the  month  of  August  until  Christmas;  when,  finding  that  he  could  not 
succeed  in  bringing  the  Danes  or  Lagenians  to  action,  he  broke  up  his  quarters  and 
returned,  laden  with  ample  spoil,  to  Kinkora. 

Mean  while  the  Northmen,  encouraged  by  his  absence  from  Munster,  had  made  a 
descent  with  a  large  fleet  ou  the  south  of  Ireland,  and  plundered  and  burned  the  city  of 
Cork;  but,  before  they  could  re-embark,  were  attacked  with  success  by  the  natives,  and 
lost  in  the  action  that  ensued,  among  other  distinguished  leaders,  the  young  Anlaf,  son 
of  Sitric,  the  King  of  Dublin. 

No  sooner  had  Brian  withdrawn  from  his  cantonments  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Dublin, 
than  the  Danes  of  that  city,  as  well  as  of  every  other  part  of  Ireland  where  these  fo- 
reigners were  dispersed,  began  to  prepare  with  the  utmost  activity  for  a  combined  effort 
against  the  Irish,  by  despatching  envoys  in  every  direction  to  summon  auxiliaries  to 
their  banner.  Not  only  from  Scotland,  from  the  Orkneys  and  Hebrides,  the  Isle  of  Man, 
and  the  Isles  of  Shetland,  did  they  muster  together  all  the  disposable  force  of  their  fel- 
low Northmen,  but  even  to  Denmark,  Norway,  and  other  parts  of  Scandinavia,||  messen- 
gers were  sent  to  solicit  immediate  succours;  and  such  were  the  accounts  circulated  by 
them  of  their  pros()rcts  of  success,  that,  as  a  French  chronicler  of  that  age  states,  a  large 
fleet  full  of  northern  adventurers  were  induced  by  these  representations  to  crowd  to  the 
Irish  shores,  bringing  with  them   their  wives  and  children,  and  hoping  to  share,  as  he 

*  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1013.     IV.  Mng.  ad  an.  1012(8ereB  eom.  1013.) 

T  Gur  airg  Tarmon  Peit.'ain  7  Maigh  Breagh.— Inisfall.  ib.    Fechin  was  a  saint  of  the  ie?enth  century  to 
fvhon,  in  many  pans  of  Ii  eland,  this  sort  of  Terraon,  or  free  lands,  were  dedicated. 
I  i.  t.  The  Mountain  of  ABirds. 
§  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1013. 
i  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  JOH 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  ii05 

adds,  in  the  conque-st  and  enjoyment  of  a  country  "  which  contained  twelve  cities,  most 
ample  bishoprics,  and  abundant  wealth."* 

Though  long  prepared,  by  the  unnatural  alliance  which  had  placed  Leinster  in  the 
hands  of  the  Danes,  to  expect  a  struggle  of  no  ordinary  description,  Brian  could  little 
have  foreseen  so  formidable  an  array  of  force  as  was  now  collecting  to  assail  him.  No- 
thing daunted,  however,  by  their  numbers,  he  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his  own  brave 
army  of  Munster;  and,  joined  by  Malachy  with  the  troops  of  Meath,  and  by  the  forces 
of  Connaught  under  the  command  of  Teige,  the  king  of  that  province,  marched  directly 
to  the  Flam  of  Dublin,  and  took  up  his  station  in  front  of  the  enemy  on  the  very  same 
ground  which  had  been  occupied  by  him  in  the  summer  of  the  preceding  year.  Having 
reconnoitred  the  state  of  the  opposing  force,  he  ventured  to  detach  into  Leinster  a  select 
body  of  troops,  consisting  of  the  choice  of  his  Dalcassian  warriors,  together  with  a  small 
body  also  of  Eugenians,  for  the  purpose  of  devastating  the  dominions  of  the  King  of 
Leinster,  and  thereby  causing  a  diversion  of  the  enemy's  force.  The  command  of  this 
secret  expedition  the  monarch  intrusted  to  his  son,  Donough,  with  orders  to  despatch  his 
mission  quickly,  and  return  to  the  army  within  two  days,  before  which  period  it  was  not 
expected  a  general  engagement  would  take  place. 

Some  traitor,  however,  in  the  camp  of  Brian,  had  contrived  to  apprize  the  Danes  of 
the  departure  of  this  detachment;  urging  earnestly,  at  the  same  time,  the  policy  of  com- 
mencing their  attack  before  this  gallant  band  should  have  returned.  It  is  stated  in  the 
Annals  of  Inisfallen,  but  in  that  alone  of  all  our  native  chronicles,  that  the  traitor  who 
conveyed  this  intelligence  and  advice  to  the  enemy  was  no  other  than  the  deposed 
monarch,  Malachy,  who  also  promised,  it  is  added,  to  draw  off  his  own  troops  in  the 
approaching  engagement,  and  remain  with  his  1000  men  of  Meath  inactive.  Had  this 
wronged  and  despoiled  monarch,  so  lately  a  suitor  in  vain  to  the  usurper  of  his  crown  for 
the  means  of  defending  the  small  remains  of  ancient  dignity  still  left  to  him,  been  so  far 
templed  by  the  present  occasion  of  revenge  as  to  forget  at  once  all  his  sense  of  duty 
and  patriotism,  and  close  a  long  life  of  public  virtue  in  disgrace,  such  a  fall,  hurried  on 
as  it  had  been  by  wrongs  and  insults,  would  have  excited  far  more  of  painful  regret  than 
of  surprise.  It  is  no  small  relief,  however,  to  discover  that  there  exist  no  valid  grounds 
for  this  story;  that,  as  presently  shall  be  shown,  it  is  wholly  at  variance  with  subsequent 
established  facts,  and  owed  its  origin  solely  to  a  wretched  spirit  of  provincial  partisanship 
which,  in  order  to  exalt  by  comparison  the  character  of  the  popular  hero,  Brian,  did  not 
hesitate  to  blacken  unjustly  the  fame  of  his  competitor,  Malachy. 

The  intimation,  by  whomsoever  conveyed,  of  the  diminution  of  Brian's  force  by  the 
late  detachment,  appears  to  have  been  acted  upon  by  the  enemy;  who,  having  spent  the 
whole  of  the  night  in  preparing  for  a  general  action,  presented  themselves  at  the  first 
dawn  of  light  before  the  Irish  army,  which  had  taken  up  its  position  at  this  time  ^   ^ 
on  the  plain  of  Clontarf.     It  liad  been  the  wish,  we  are  told,  of  Brian  to  avoid  jqj^' 
engaging  on  this  day  (Friday,  April  23J,)  which,  as  being  the  anniversary  of 
Christ's  Passion,  ouglit  to  have  been  kept  sacred,  as  he  felt,  from  the  profanation  of  war- 
fare.    Being  forced,  however,  to  waive  his  scruples  upon  this  point,  he  afterwards  skil- 
fully, as  we  shall  see,  turned  the  incident  to  account;   making  it  the  means  of  calling 
forth  the  religious  as  well  as  the  military  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  countrymen. 

While,  according  to  Irish  tradition,  tiie  motive  of  the  Danes  for  provoking  the  conflict 
on  this  day  was,  the  wish  to  avail  themselves  of  the  diminished  state  of  Brian's  force, 
the  Scandinavian  authorities,  on  the  other  hand,  attribute  it  to  supernatural  suggestion; 
and  tell  of  some  oracular  idol  which,  on  being  consulted  by  the  Danish  general,  Bruadair, 
answered,  that  if  the  engagement  took  place  on  a  Friday,  King  Brian  would  assuredly 
fall  in  the  field.f 

The  confederate  army  of  the  Danes  and  Lagedians  was  composed  of  three  separate 
corps,  or  divisions;  the  first  of  which  consisted  of  the  Danes  of  Dublin,  led  by  two  dis- 
tinguished officers,  Dolat  and  Conmaol,  together  with  a  select  body  of  1000  Northmen, 
clad  in  coats  of  mail  from  head  to  foot,  and  commanded  by  two  Norwegian  princes, 
Anrud  and  Charles,  the  sons  of  While  Danes.  The  second  division,  formed  of  the  forces 
of  Leinster,  was  commanded  by  Maolmurda,  principal  king  of  that  province;  and,  sub- 

*  "  His  temporibus  Normanni  supiadicti  quod  palres  eoruin  nunquam  p  rpetrasse  ausi  sunt,  cum  intiu- 
mera  classe  Hibeiniajn  insulam,  quK  Irlanda  dicilur,  ingressi  sunt,  una  cum  u.xoribus,  et  liberis  et  captivis 
Christianis,  quos  feceraiu  sibi  servos,  ut  Hirlandis  e.xtinctis,  ipsi  pro  ipsis  inhabilarent  opulentissimam  ter- 
rain, quffi  nil  civitates,  cum  amplissimis  episcopaiibus  et  unum  regem  liabet,  ac  propriam  linguara,  sed  Lati- 
nas  lileras." — Ademar  ap.  Labbe. 

t  Mala  Saga,  ap.  Johnstone,  Antiq.  Celto-Scand.  Thus,  in  the  Latin  version  :— "  Hoc  psr  veneficia  explo- 
rante  quemadmodum  abitura  esset  pugna,  responsum  oraculi  sic  tulerat :  si  die  Veneris  pugna  foret  Brianem 
regem  adepta  victoria  casurum;  sin  prius  confligeretur,  omnes  qui  hunc  adversum  consisterent,  occasuroi 
ejse,  hinc  Broder  ante  diem  Veneris  acip  dimicandum  negavit." 


206  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

orclinately  to  him,  by  some  minor  dynasts,  among  whom  were  the  Prince  of  Hy-Falgia, 
and  Tuathal,  of  the  LifFey  territory.  With  these  were  joined  also  a  large  body,  or  bat- 
talion of  Danes.*  The  third  corps  consisted  of  the  auxiliaries  from  the  coasts  of  the 
Baltic,  and  from  the  isles,  under  the  orders  of  Bruadair,  the  admiral  of  the  fleet  which 
had  brouo'ht  them  to  Ireland,  and  of  Lodar,  earl  of  the  Orkney  islands.  Attached  to  this 
division,  there  were  also  a  number  of  Britons  from  Cornwall  and  Wales,  under  the  petty 
princes  of  their  respective  territories.! 

To  confront  this  array  of  the  enemy's  forces,  the  army  of  Brian  was  likewise  divided 
into  three  separate  columns;  at  the  head  of  one  of  which  he  placed  his  eldest  son,  Mor- 
rough,  intending  to  oppose  it  to  the  first  division  of  the  enemy.  This  column  was  com- 
posed of  the  troops  of  the  King  of  Meath,  of  the  brave  Dalgais,  now  diminished  in  num- 
bers, but  strong  in  valour  and  fame,  and  a  body  of  men  from  Conmacnemara,  a  maritime 
district  of  Western  Connaught.  Of  the  loyal  devotion  of  the  blood  of  Brian  to  the 
national  cause,  there  was  no  want  of  pledges  on  that  day ;  as,  in  addition  to  the  intrepid 
Morrough,  there  fought  also  in  the  ranks  of  this  column  four  other  sons  of  the  monarch 
named  Teige,  Donald,  Conor,  and  Flan,  besides  the  grandson  of  Brian,  young  Turlough, 
the  son  of  the  commander,  Morrough. 

The  division  whose  task  it  was  to  oppose  the  second  of  the  enemy's  corps,  was  com- 
manded by  Cian  and  Donald,  both  princes  of  the  Eugenian  line,  and  of  whom  the  former 
is  said,  by  the  annalists,  to  have  exceeded  in  stature  and  beauty  all  other  Irishmen. 
Under  these  chiefs  were  ranged,  in  addition  to  the  warriors  of  their  own  gallant  tribe, 
the  forces  of  the  King  of  the  Desics,  and  of  all  the  other  various  septs  and  principalities 
of  the  south  of  Ireland.  Among  the  dynasts  named  as  assisting  with  their  troops  in 
this  division  are  found  Scanlan,  Prince  of  Loch  Lene,  and  O'Dubhlon,  King  of  the 
O'Connals  of  Gabhra.  Nor  did  the  jealousy  so  long  subsisting  between  the  two  moieties 
of  the  island  prevent  the  northern  portion  from  contributing  its  share  of  aid  on  this  great 
occasion;  as,  in  the  list  of  the  chiefs  commanding  the  second  column,  we  find  O'Carroll, 
Prince  of  Orgiall,  in  Ulster,  and  Maguire,  Prince  of  Fermanagh, — the  two  most  illus- 
trious Irishmen,  says  the  chronicler,  that  graced  the  field  on  that  day  ;|;  and  therefore 
worthy,  he  adds,  of  fighting  under  the  banner  of  Cian. 

To  the  third  division  of  Brian's  army,  which  was  under  the  command  of  O'Conor,  son 
of  the  King  of  Connaught,  was  assigned  the  task  of  engaging  the  auxiliaries  brought  by 
the  enemy's  ships  from  Norway  and  the  isles;  and,  in  forming  this  corps,  a  number  of 
Uitonian  kings  and  chiefs  combined  their  forces.  Among  these  are  found  enumerated 
O'Hedian  of  Adnia,  O'Kelly  of  Hy- Mania,  Aodh  "the  Wounder,"  King  of  Ely,  and 
Echtigern,  Prince  of  Aradia.J 

From  the  above  enumeration  of  the  forces  of  the  Irish  on  this  occasion,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  emergency  of  the  crisis,  threatening  danger  not  only  to  their  liberties,  but  to 
their  very  existence  as  a  nation,  had  aroused  in  them  a  spirit  of  unanimity,  as  rare  then, 
as  it  has  continued  unluckily,  ever  since,  though  leaving  noble  evidence  of  the  energies 
that  a  country  like  Ireland  is  capable  of  in  a  cause  that  rallies  around  it  cordially  the 
arms  and  hearts  of  all  her  sons. 

Having  thus  arranged  his  order  of  battle,  the  veteran  monarch  went  himself  among 
the  troops,  accompanied  only  by  his  son  Morrough;  and,  addressing  them  all,  from  the 
hififhest  to  the  lowest,  conjured  them  to  summon  up  their  utmost  strength  and  fortitude 
ao-ainst  the  base  confederacy  of  pirates  now  before  them.  Fearing  lest  their  confidence 
in  their  own  good  fortune  might  be  diminished,  by  missing  from  among  them  so  many 
of  those  brave  Dalcassians  who  stood,  in  all  emergencies,  the  brunt  of  the  conflict,  he 
explained  to  them  the  importance  of  the  service  on  which  that  active  corps  had  been 
detached,  and  the  salutary  efiects  it  would  produce  in  weakening  and  diverting  the  ene- 


*  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1014.    "Catli  do  Ghallaib;"  the  word  catli  signifying  both  a  battle  and  a  battalion. 

t  "  Chein  inc  Maolmuadh  os  e  b.  faide  b.  dheas  an  Eirinn. "—/nis/aW-  ad  an.  1014.  Cian  was  the  chief  of 
the  Eiiaeniansof  Cashell.  and  sonin-law  of  Brian.  There  remain  some  lamentations  or  elegies  on  this  war- 
rior's death,  written  by  Mac  Giolla  Caoimh,  a  poet  who  flourished,  we  are  told,  in  the  time  of  Brian.  Of 
these  elegies  which  are  found  in  the  collection  called  the  IMunster  Book,  Mr.  O'Reilly  gives  the  following  ac- 
count:—" 1st.  A  poem  of  forty  four  verses,  beginning, '  Dreadful  the  night,  this  night.'  It  is  the  lamentation 
of  the  poet  after  Cian,  Brian,  and  his  son,  Morrough.  2d.  A  poem  of  lOS  verses,  beginning. '  Raithlean's  Rath 
of  Core  and  Cian,'  upon  the  deserted  state  of  Rath  Raithlean,  and  other  palaces,  after  the  death  of  Core,  Cian, 
and  other  Momonian  princes." — Trans.  Ibcrno-Celt.  Society. 

X  "  Ar  na  radh  don  dis  sin,  o  b.  hiad  b  sia  badh  thuaidh  an  Eirin  san  shinigh  sin." 

§  This  account  of  the  disposition  of  the  respective  forces  is  taken  chiefly  from  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen. 
According  to  these  and  other  native  records,  it  does  not  appear,  that  there  were  any  Danes  in  Brian's  army  ; 
but  that  it  was  a  purely  national  force.  It  would  seem  from  Torfius,  however,  that  there  were  some  North- 
men on  the  side  of  Brian,  as  he  mentions  that  Bruadair  and  Upsac,  another  of  the  pirate  chiefs,  fought  on 
opposite  sides: — "  Evidens  e.xamplicans  prnesentis  scripti  cap.  10.,  exhibit,  Broderum  et  Upsacum,  piratUB, 
Bello  Brianico  diversas  paries  secutos. "-flcr.  Oread.  Hist.  Prcrf. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  207 

my's  force.  Then,  reverting  to  the  crimes  and  enormities  of  the  Danes  throughout  the 
long  period  of  their  tyranny  over  Ireland,  he  reminded  them  how  constantly  and  cruelly 
these  swarms  of  foreign  barbarians  had  employed  tiiemselvos  in  murdering  the  native 
kings  and  chieftains,  in  spreading  conflagration  through  all  their  castles  and  holy  houses, 
laying  prostrate  the  churches  of  God,  and  plundering  and  violating  the  rich  shrines  of 
the  saints.  "The  blessed  Trinity,"  he  then  exclaimed,  in  a  loud  and  solemn  voice, 
"  hath  at  length  looked  down  upon  our  sufferings,  and  endued  you  with  the  power  and 
the  courage,  this  day,  to  extirpate  for  ever  the  tyranny  of  the  Danes  over  Ireland;  thus 
punishing  them  for  their  innumerable  crimes  and  sacrileges  by  the  avenging  power  of 
the  sword."  On  saying  these  words,  he  exhibited  in  his  left  hand  a  bloody  crucifix, 
while  in  his  right  he  waved  triumphantly  his  sword;  and  then  exclaiming,  "  \Yas  it  not 
on  this  day  tiiat  Christ  himself  suffered  death  for  you?"  gave  the  signal  for  action.* 

Of  the  details  of  the  memorable  battle  which  then  ensued,  and  whici)  lasted,  without 
pause  or  breathing  time,  from  a  little  after  sunrise  till  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  there  is 
but  little  told  in  our  authentic  annals;  while  the  accounts  derived  from  other  sources, 
as  well  Scandinavian  as  Irish,  come  through  channels  which  render  them  liable  to  sus- 
picion, or  at  least  suggest  the  necessity  of  caution  in  the  use  of  them.  According  to 
some  writers,  the  veteran  monarch,  notwithstanding  his  advanced  period  of  life,  being 
then  in  his  eighty-eighth  year,  commanded  in  person  throughout  the  battle.  But  the 
most  probable  and  consistent  accounts  represent  him  as  yielding  so  far  to  his  infirmities 
as  to  retire  early  in  the  course  of  the  action  to  a  tent  or  pavilion  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  scene  of  conflict,  where  he  could  be  consulted  in  every  emergency,  and 
preside  in  spirit,  if  not  in  person,  over  the  field. 

In  the  mean  while  his  son  IMorrough,  who  had  himself  reached  his  great  climacteric, 
directed  actively  the  operations  of  the  whole  army;  and,  being  followed  into  the  thick  of 
the  fight  by  his  son,  Turlough,  a  youtli  but  fifteen  years  old,  performed  such  prodigies  of 
valour  and  prowess  throughout  the  day,  as  to  concentrate  almost  solely  upon  himself  the 
attention  of  most  of  tiie  historians  of  battle.f  Among  the  chiefs  slain  by  him  in  personal 
combat  during  the  action,  was  the  gallant  Sitric,{  son  of  the  earl  of  the  Orkneys,  whom 
he  is  said  to  have  despatched  by  a  single  blow  of  his  battle-axe,  cutting  the  body  of  the 
Dane  in  two  through  his  armour. 

The  prowess  of  the  1000  men  in  mail,  commanded  by  the  two  Norwegian  brothers, 
had,  at  the  beginning  of  the  action,  struck  panic  into  the  troops  opposed  to  them;  but  the 
bravery  of  Morrough  and  his  gallant  Dalgais  soon  broke  through  the  spell  that  surrounded 
these  mailed  warriors,  and  not  a  man  of  the  thousand  escaped  to  tell  the  fortunes  of  that 
day.  Nor  did  the  hero  himself  who  performed  these  deeds  long  survive  his  brave  vic- 
tims. Having  put  to  the  sword  this  chosen  band  of  Northmen,  and  cut  down  with  his 
own  hand  one  of  the  chiefs  who  commanded  them,  Murrough  had  hurried  away  to  ano- 
ther quarter  of  the  field,  and  was  there  pursuing  the  same  victorious  career,  when  Anrud, 
the  brother  of  the  Norwegian  prince  he  had  just  slain,  singled  him  out  for  deadly 
conflict  and  revenge.  On  seeing  him  approach,  the  Irish  hero  rushed  forward  to 
meet  him,  and  seizing  him  firmly  with  his  left  hand, — the  right  having  been  enfeebled 
by  constant  use  of  bis  sword, — shook  him  fairly  out  of  his  coat  of  mail  to  the  earth,  and 
there  transfixed  him  with  his  sword.  The  Norwegian,  however,  in  dying,  had  his  full 
revenge;  for,  as  the  conqueror  stooped  down  over  him,  he  drew  forth  the  knife  or  dag- 
ger which  hung  by  Morrough's  side,  and   plunged  it  into  his  breast. 

This  fatal  wound,  though  not  followed  by  death  for  some  hours,  having  robbed  the 
Irish  of  their  gallant  leader,  the  active  command  devolved  upon  Malachy,  the  King  of 
Tara;  under  whom,  the  ultimate  success  of  the  day  was  accomplished;,  and  the  Danes 
and  their  traitorous  confederates  driven  with  immense  slaughter  from  the  field. || 

*  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1014.  t  Ibid. 

1  Silric  is  mentioned  in  the  Alu/a  Saga  as  commanding  one  of  the  win2.s  of  the  Danish  army. 

§  IV'.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1U13  [sr.  com.  1014.)  With  the  usual  party  view  of  depressing  their  hero's  rival,  this 
fact,  so  impoitant  to  the  memory  of  Malachy,  as  entirely  absolving  him  from  the  odious  charge  of  having 
been  false  to  the  cause  of  his  country  on  this  day,  is  wholly  suppressed  by  the  Munster  annalists;  and  Val- 
lancey,  without  the  same  excuse  for  his  partisanship,  has  been  guilty  of  the  same  unfair  omission.  It  is, 
indeed,  strange  that  evea  such  writers  as  Sir  James  Ware  fchap.  •24,  ad  aim.  1014)  and  Dr.  Lanigan  (chap.  23, 
§  xi.)  should  have  fallen  into  the  general  error  respecting  Malachy's  conduct,  and  taken  the  same  unjust  and, 
in  every  sense  of  the  word,  false  view  of  his  public  character  and  career. 

\,  The  details  of  the  battle  given  above,  are  all  from  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen;  but  the  particulars  that  fol- 
low, respecting  the  death  of  Brian,  are  found  in  the  J\'iala  Saga,  or  \orse  account  nf  the  battle.  The  follow- 
ing is  Johnstone's  version  of  a  pait  of  what  I  have  extracted  : — "Turn  Broder  sic  e.xclaniare;  referat  homo 
homini  Brianem  a  Brodere  dejecium.  Mox  ad  eos,  qui  in  tergis  fugientium  hsrebant,  decurritur,  iisque  occa- 
sus  regis  nuntiatur,  reversi  oppido  L'Ifus  Hr^da  et  Kerthialfadus  Broderem  ac  suos  corona  circiimdant  ingesta 
in  eos  undique  materia,  sic  Broder  vivus  cai>it\iT."—.intiquitat.  Scando-Celt.  The  agreement  on  several  im- 
portant points  between  the  Scandinavian  and  the  Irish  accounts  of  the  battle,— the  ^hare  taken  by  citric,  or 
*'S'r>'gg.  iu  the  expedition,— the  rank  of  Bruadair,  as  commander  of  the  pirate  fleet,  and  llie  great  e\enl  of 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  rout  and  carnage  of  their  retreat  that  the  Danish  admiral, 
Bruadair,  having  fled  with  a  few  followers  for  refuge  to  a  small  wood  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Brian's  tent,  perceived  from  his  lurking  place  that  the  monarch  was  surrounded 
with  but  few  attendants, — most  of  his  body-guards  having  joined  in  pursuit  of  the  ene- 
my,— and  was  kneeling  with  hands  upraised,  and  his  mind  intent  on  prayer.*  Taking 
advantage  of  the  moment,  Bruadair  rushed  into  the  tent  witii  his  followers,  and,  after  a 
short  struggle,  put  the  aged  monarch,  and  a  boy  who  was  in  attendance  upon  him,  to 
death.  Then,  unable  to  restrain  his  triumph,  he  held  up  the  blade,  still  warm  from  the 
royal  veteran's  heart,  and  cried  out,  "Let  it  be  proclaimed,  from  man  to  man,  that  Brian 
has  fallen  by  the  hand  of  Bruadair."  The  ill-omened  tidings  spread  more  rapidly  than 
he  could  have  desired,  and  soon  reached  the  ears  of  the  absent  body-guard;  who,  hurry- 
ing back  to  the  royal  tent,  were  only  consoled  for  the  sad  spectacle  there  presented  to 
them,  by  their  success  in  seizing  the  murderer  alive,  and  making  him  expiate,  by  a  death 
of  lingering  torment,  the  ruthless  act  of  which  he  had  been  guilty. 

The  numbers  of  the  slain  in  this  battle  have  been  variously  stated;  some  computing 
the  loss  of  the  Danes,  between  killed  and  drowned,  to  have  been  no  less  than  13,000  or 
14,000  men,  and  that  of  the  Legenians  3000  ;  while  the  number  killed  on  the  Irisli  side 
is,  in  the  same  accounts?,  calculated  at  not  more  than  7000.  The  estimate  most  likely, 
however,  to  be  near  the  truth,  is  that  in  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen,  which  represents  the 
loss  of  the  Danish  and  Leinster  forces  combined,  to  have  been  about  6012.  On  the 
amount  of  slaughter,  however,  in  the  ranks  of  the  national  army,  our  annals  are  silent.f 
It  appears  pretty  certain  that  the  loss  of  life,  in  the  battles  of  those  days,  was  considerably 
less  than  in  the  warfare  of  modern  times.  An  Italian  historian,  in  describing  a  battle  so 
late  as  the  fifteenth  century,  which  he  describes  as  the  greatest  that  had  then  taken  place 
for  fifty  years,  mentions,  as  a  proof  of  the  determined  valour  with  which  it  was  contested, 
that  the  number  of  killed  on  both  sides  amounted  to  more  than  a  thousand  men;|  and  it 
is  apparent,  from  the  accounts  given  by  our  native  chroniclers  themselves,  that  the  battles 
of  the  Irish,  in  the  times  whose  history  we  have  been  recording,  were,  however  frequent, 
by  no  means  attended  with  any  greater  proportion  of  loss  of  life. 

Judging  from  the  number,  however,  of  princes  and  chieftains  who  fell  on  both  sides  at 
Clontarf,  the  amount  of  the  general  slaughter  may  well  be  supposed  to  have  been  im- 
mense ;  as,  besides  Brian  himself,  his  son,  Morrough,  and  the  son  of  the  latter,  young 
Turlough,  we  find  a  long  list  enumerated  by  the  annalists,  of  princes  and  heads  of  tribes 
who  died  fighting,  as  it  appears,  in  the  ranks  confusedly  with  the  other  combatants.  On 
the  adverse  side,  the  havoc  made  of  the  principal  chieftains  is  represented  as  still  more 
considerable.  Among  the  native  princes  who  fell  were  the  king  of  Leinster,  the  prime 
cause  of  all  the  strife,  together  with  his  roydamna,  or  successor,  and  the  king  of  Hy-Fal- 
gia ;  while,  of  the  many  Danish  princes  and  carls  whom  the  fleet  of  Bruadair  had  wafted 
to  the  Irish  coast,  the  greater  number  found  their  graves  upon  the  shore  of  Clon- 
tarf. But  this  immense  proportion  of  loss  among  the  commanders,  as  compared  with 
that  of  the  rank  and  file,  is  to  be  attributed  mainly  to  the  chivalrous  practice  of  single 
combat  between  the  chief?',  which  prevailed  in  the  warfare  of  those  day?,  as  in  the  heroic 
ages  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

On  the  day  after  the  battle  all  the  wounded  of  the  Irish  army  were  conveyed  by  Teige, 
the  son  of  Brian,  and  the  Eugenian  prince,  Cian,  to  the  camp  at  Kilmainham  ;  and  on  the 
following  day,  the  monks  of  St.  Columba,  at  Swords,  hearing  of  the  death  of  the  mo- 
narch, came  to  bear  away  his  body  for  the  purpose  of  having  it  interred  in  the  cathedral 
of  Armagh.  From  Swords  it  was  conveyed  to  the  monastery  of  St.  Ciaran,  at  Duleek, 
and  from  thence  to  Louth,  where  the  archbishop  of  Armagh,  Maelmury,^  awaited  the 

Brian  falling,  in  the  moment  of  victory,  by  his  hand,— those  striking  points  of  agreement  between  the  two 
narratives,  are  thus  noticed  byToiftEiis:  "  Mirus  utrobique  consensus  apparcbil,  nam  Sitricus  illis,  nobis 
Biglryggus,  idem  quod  victoriosus,  el  qui  Broder  nobis,  Bruodiius  illis,  et  classis  Danics  prsfuctus,  hie  Pira- 
tarum  antesignnnus,  utrisque  Briani  interfector:  victoriam  vera  penes  Brianuni  iiterque  statuit,  eiimque  ex 
vulnere  mortuum  " 

*  Marianus  Scotus,  in  his  short  record  of  the  battle,  represents  Brian  as  engaged  in  prayer  at  the  moment 
of  the  attack: — "  Brianus,  rex  Hiberniae,  Parasceve  Paschae,  sexta  feria  9  Caleiidas  Maii.  munibuset  mente 
ad  Deum  intentus  necalur  ;" — all  which  Torfcpus  pronounces  to  be  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  Scandina- 
vian accounts: — '  Q.uo  nihil  nostroruui  traditionibus,  si  annum  exceperis,  convenientius  dici  vel  scribi  po- 
terat;  nam  et  genus  mortis  P'stumqiie  idem  nobiscum  expressit." — Rer.  Oread,  c.  10. 

t  Vallancey  says,  "  According  to  the  account  inserted  in  the  Inisfallen  Annals,  there  were  4000  of  Brian's 
forces  killed  during  the  engagement,  and  many  wounded;"— but  I  can  find  no  such  statement  in  either  of  the 
series  of  the  Inisfallen  Annals,  edited  by  Dr.  O'Connor 

\  Machiavel.— "  E  fu  questa  giornata  couibattuta  con  piii  virlii  che  alcun  altra  che  fosse  stala  fatta  in 
cinquanta  anni  in  Italia  ;  perche  vi  mori  tr:\  1'  una  parte  e  1'  altra  piu  che  mille  uciniini.'"— />c«c  hlorie,  1.  8. 

§  Maelinury,  i.  e.  servant,  of  Mary.  This  prelate  is  mentioned  with  high  praise  by  the  Four  Masters  (ap. 
Colgan,)  who  style  him,  "  The  head  of  the  clergy  of  Western  Europe,  the  chief  of  ihe  holy  orders  of  the  West, 
and  a  most  wise  doctor." 


HISTORV'  OF  IRELAND.  209 

royal  remains,  and  had  them  borne,  with  religious  solemnity,  to  the  archiepiscopal  city. 
The  bodies  of  Morrough  and  two  other  chieftains  of  the  family  were  carried  thither  at 
the  same  time,  and  the  remains  of  Brian  deposited  at  the  north  side  of  the  cathedral, 
those  of  Morrough  and  his  heroic  kinsmen  at  the  south.  During  twelve  successive  nights 
the  religious  of  St.  Patrick  kept  watch  over  tlie  dead,  chaunting  hymns  and  offering  up 
prayers  for  the  peace  of  the  departed  souls.* 

Before  we  pause  to  take  a  review  of  the  life  and  actions  of  this  monarch,  and  endea- 
vour to  define,  through  the  magnifying  mist  of  antiquity,  the  true  dimensions  of  his  fame 
and  character,  there  remains  an  episode,  or  rather  sequel,  to  the  great  battle  in  which  he 
died,  too  characteristic  as  well  of  the  contentious  as  of  the  heroic  spirit  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple, not  to  be  specially  noticed. 

On  the  evening  of  Holy  Saturday,  which  was  the  day  after  the  battle  of  Clontarf, 
Donchad,  the  son  of  the  late  monarch,  who  had  been  sent  with  his  Dalcassians  on  a  pre- 
datory expedition  into  Leinster,  returned  with  immense  booty  to  the  camp  of  Kilmainham  ; 
and,  as  a  tribute  of  pious  affection,  sent  several  rich  offerings  to  the  archbishop  of  Armagh 
and  his  community.  The  chief  of  the  Eugenian  tribe,  Cian,  who  was  then  also  with  the 
army  at  Kilmainham,  and  whose  ambition  to  assert  his  right  to  the  now  vacant  throne  of 
Munster,  was  too  impatient  to  brook  even  decent  delay,  lost  no  time  in  acquainting  the 
sons  of  Brian  with  his  determination  to  enforce  that  claim  ;  alleging,  as  the  grounds  on 
which  he  rested  it,  not  only  the  right  of  alternate  succession  secured  to  the  Eugenians 
by  the  will  of  Olill-Ollum,  but  also  the  seniority  of  their  royal  house  over  that  of  the 
Dalcassians.  He,  therefore,  demanded  that  the  sons  of  Brian  should  deliver  hostages  to 
him,  in  acknowledgment  of  his  claim.  This  Donchad  determinedly  refused;  saying 
that,  diminished  in  strength  and  numbers  as  was  the  brave  force  by  his  side,  he  would 
neither  acknowledge  Cian's  claim,  nor  yet  consent  to  give  him  hostages.f 

This  angry  contention  between  two  such  rival  tribes,  both  encamped  on  the  same 
ground,  and  both  flushed  with  their  common  victory,  seemed  to  threaten  for  a  time  con- 
sequences by  which  the  mourning  as  well  as  the  triumph  of  that  memorable  hour  would 
have  been  sullied,  when,  fortunately,  another  Eugenian  prince,  named  Domnal,  who 
commanded,  jointly  with  Cian,  the  troops  of  their  tribe,  interfered  to  check  the  unseemly 
strife  ;  and,  calmly  expostulating  with  his  brother  chieftain,  succeeded  in  withdrawing 
both  him  and  the  whole  of  their  force  quietly  from  the  camp.l 

Thus  relieved  from  the  chances  of  a  conflict  to  which  his  reduced  and  weakened  fol- 
lowers were  now  unequal,  Donchad  broke  up  from  the  camp  at  Kilmainham,  and,  with  his 
small  army,  including  the  sick  and  wounded,  proceeded  slowly  on  his  march  into  Munster. 
Farther  trials,  however,  awaited  them  ere  they  reached  their  own  home;  and  the  sudden 
change  which  a  short  day  had  made  in  the  fortunes  of  the  son  of  Brian,  showed  how 
even  triumph  may  lead  adversity  in  its  train.  On  arriving  in  Ossory  they  found  the 
prince  of  that  country,  Mac-Gilla-Patrick,  preparing  to  oppose  by  force  their  passage 
through  his  territories,  unless  they  consented  to  acknowledge  submission  to  his  authority. 
"Hostages,"  said  that  chief,  "or  battle  !"5— "  Let  it  then,"  replied  Donchad,  "be  battle; 
for  never,"  he  added,  "  was  it  yet  heard  of,  within  the  memory  of  man,  that  a  prince  of 
the  race  of  Brian  had  given  hostages  to  a  Mac-Gilla-Patrick."|| 

Having  thus  declared  his  purpose,  the  heroic  chief  prepared  for  action;  first  taking 
care,  as  a  humane  precaution,  to  appoint  some  of  the  bravest  men  of  his  troop  to  guard 
the  sick  and  wounded.  But,  instead  of  allowing  themselves  to  be  so  protected,  these 
weak  and  suffering  men  all  eagerly  insisted  upon  taking  their  share  in  the  combat;  pre- 
ferring death  by  the  side  of  their  comrades,  to  the  ignoble  safety  proposed  to  them.  "  Let 
there  be  stakes,"  cried  they,  "  fixed  in  the  ground  ;  and  to  each  of  these  let  one  of  us  be 
firmly  tied,  holding  our  swords  in  our  hands."  This  extraordinary  suggestion  was 
acted  upon  ;  and  the  troops  of  Ossory,  on  advancing  to  the  attack,  beheld  intermixed  in 
the  foremost  ranks  with  the  sound  men,  these  pale  and  emaciated  warriors,  as  if  all  were 
alike  determined  on  death.  At  the  sight  of  so  strange  and  mournful  a  spectacle,  the 
advancing  army  paused  ;  and  their  chief,  whether  touched  with  admiration  of  such  noble 
self-devotion,  or  fearing,  as  the  annalist  suggest  to  contend  with  men  thus  pledged 


*  Annal.  Ult.    Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  aim.  1014. 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1014.    Vallancey,  from  Munster  Annals. 

i  Vallancey  has  here  misrepresented  the  meaning  of  the  Inisfallen  annalist,  making  him  say  that  Domnal 
"withdrew  the  troops  under  his  command  from  supporting  Cian  in  his  pretensions;"  whereas,  the  language 
of  the  original  is,  "  Domhnal  ag  dealugh  re  Cian  is  re  na  miiintear."  i.  e.  Domnal  secretly  departing  from 
thence  with  Cian  and  his  people." 

S  "  Braighde  no  oath."— Inisfall.  loe.  citat.  !|  Inisfall.  ib. 

26 


210  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

against  surrender,  drew  off  his  force  without  striking  a  blow,  and  left  the  brave  Dalgais 

to  pursue  their  marcli  through  Ossory  uninterrupted.* 

In  estimating  the  character  of  Brian  Boru,  it  will  be  found  that  there  are  three  distinct 
points  of  view  in  which  he  stands  forth  prominently  to  the  eye,  namely,  as  a  great  war- 
rior, a  successful  usurper,  and  a  munificent  friend  to  the  church.  In  the  attributes 
belonging  to  him,  under  these  three  several  aspects,  are  to  be  found  the  main  as  well  as 
subsidiary  sources  of  his  fame.  The  career  of  Brian  as  a  military  leader  appears  to  have 
been  uniformly,  with  one  single  exception,  successful ;  and,  from  the  battle  of  Sulchoid 
to  that  of  Ciontarf,  his  historians  number  no  less  than  fifty  great  battlesi  in  which  he 
bore  away  the  palm  of  victory  from  the  Northmen  and  their  allies. 

In  his  usurpation  of  the  supreme  power  he  was  impelled  evidently  by  motives  of  selfish 
ambition;  nor  could  he  have  entailed  any  more  ruinous  evil  upon  the  country,  than  by 
thus  setting  an  example  of  contempt  for  established  rights,  and  thereby  weakening,  in 
the  minds  of  the  people,  that  habitual  reverence  for  ancient  laws  and  usages  which  was 
the  only  security  afforded  by  the  national  character  for  the  preservation  of  public  order 
and  peace.  Tlie  fatal  consequences  of  this  step,  both  moral  and  political,  will  be  found 
but  too  strikingly  evolved  in  the  course  of  the  subsequent  history.  Attempts  have  been 
made  to  lend  an  appearance  of  popular  sanction  to  his  usurpation,  by  the  plausible  pre- 
tence that  it  was  owing  to  the  solicitations  of  the  states  and  princes  of  Connaught,  that 
he  was  induced  to  adopt  measures  for  the  deposition  of  Malachy.J  In  like  manner,  to  give 
to  this  step  some  semblance  of  concert  and  deliberation,  we  are  told  of  a  convention  of 
the  princes  of  the  kingdom  held  at  Dundalk,^  preliminary  to  the  assumption  of  the  mo- 
narchy, and  convoked  in  contemplation  of  that  step. 

But  the  truth  is,  for  none  of  these  supposed  preparatives  of  his  usurpation  is  there  the 
slightest  authority  in  any  of  our  records;  and  the  convention  held  at  Dundealga,  or 
Dundalk,  so  far  from  being  a  prelimiiiary  measure,  did  not  take  place  till  after  "the  first 
rebellion,"  as  it  is  styled  by  our  annalists,  of  the  king  of  Munster  against  the  monarch. 
This  very  term,  indeed,  applied  by  Tigernach,  by  the  Annals  of  Inipfallen,  and  the  Four 
Masters,!!  to  the  daring  enterprise  of  Brian,  sufficiently  proves  in  what  light  it  was 
viewed  by  all  the  most  trustworthy  of  our  historians.  That  the  feelings  of  a  people, 
whose  chief  occupation  vvas  warfare,  would  be  easily  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the  veteran 
of  fifty  battles,  even  in  an  aggression  on  the  ancient  throne  of  the  Hy-Niells,  may  with- 
out difficulty  be  believed;  but,  that  he  ever  attempted  to  disguise  or  smooth  away  his 
usurpation  by  any  such  show  of  respect  for  public  opinion  as  his  later  apologists  have 
attributed  to  him,  is  a  supposition  founded  on  modern  notions,  and  wholly  unauthorized 
by  the  authentic  records  of  his  acts  ;  which  simply  state  that  he  twice,  at  the  head  of  a 
numerous  army,  entered  hostilely  the  royal  precincts  of  Tara  ;  that,  on  the  second  of  these 
occasions,  he  dispossessed  the  legitimate  monarch  of  his  authority,  and  placed  himself 
on  the  supreme  throne  in  his  stead. 

By  some  inquirers  into  his  conduct,  a  far  more  enlarged  and  noble  motive  than  the 
mere  desire  of  self  aggrandizement,  has  been  assigned  for  this  bold  step,  which  they 
suppose  to  have  been  dictated  by  the  patriotic  conviction  that  the  whole  strength  of  the 
country  ought  then  to  be  directed  unitedly  against  the  Danes;  and  that  it  was  only  by 
the  grasp  of  one  vigorous  hand,  consolidating  her  resources  and  collecting  her  scattered 
energies,  that  so  great  and  vital  an  object  could  be  accomplished. 

Of  the  spirit  and  wisdom  of  this  view  of  the  policy  then  required,  there  can  exist  no 
rational  doubt.  It  was  the  same  acted  upon,  as  we  shall  see,  by  Brian,  at  an  interval  of 
nearly  fourteen  years  after,  and  with  perfect  and  glorious  success.     But  a  work  neglected 

"  Annal.  Inisfall.  ut  supra.    IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1001  (xris.  com.  1003.) 

t  Mac  Cnricti  (Brief  Discourse,  Sfc.)  He  adds,  however,  after  quoting  his  aulhnrities,  "  The  same  authors 
saj'  that  twenty  of  these  battles  were  but  skirmishes,  though  successful;  but  thirty  were  great  snd  destruc- 
tive to  the  cnuimon  enemies."  The  great  English  hero,  Alfred,  is  said  to  have  fought,  by  sea  and  land,  fifly- 
six  set  battles. 

I  '•  Brian  then  was  proclaimed  and  crowned  King  of  Ireland  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  all  the  princes  and 
clergy  of  Lcath  Moglia  "— Mac  Curten,  Brief  Discourse,  ^c. 

"  To  ^ive  a  ijooil  impression  of  his  intentions,  he  (Brian)  proposed  a  convention  of  the  states,  for  settling 
the  niition:  Mal>ir,hy  agreed.  The  chiefs  of  the  kingdom  met  at  Dundalk,  &c."— O'Connor,  Dissertat.  "They 
(the  nobility  af  Alunstcr)  desired,  therefore,  that  the  chiefs  of  Connaught  would  join  them  in  a  resolution 
10  depose  Uie  monarch,  and  set  the  King  of  Munster  on  the  throne.  This  proposal  being  agreed  to,  the  chiefs 
of  the  two  provinces  met  in  council,  &c.  /kc."— Warner. 

§  Out  of  this  wholly  unauthorized  notion,  which  appears  to  have  had  its  origin  in  an  old  life  of  Brian, 
attributed  to  Mac  l^iag,  a  Jong  and  circumstantial  account  has  been  fabricated  of  the  proceedings  of  this 
alleged  council,  and  of  the  negotiations  that  took  place  in  consequence,  not  only  between  the  monarch  and 
Biian,  but  between  Malachy  and  some  of  the  other  provincial  princes;  and  this  being  e.\actly  the  sort  of  dull 
embroidery  of  fact  in  which  historians  like  Warner  delight  to  indulge,  he  has  expended  on  it  no  less  tban 
seven  of  his  ditFuse  quarto  pages. 

II  "  Cead  iiupodh  Briain." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  211 

through  so  long  an  interval,  and  then  forced  upon  him  by  a  great  and  perilous  exigency, 
will  hardly  be  assumed  as  one  of  the  chief  and  pressing  considerations  that  now  impelled 
him  to  usurp  the  supreme  power.  On  the  contrary,  so  remote  and  subordinate  was  the 
place  held  by  the  Danish  intruders  in  his  views,  that,  though  they  still  had  possession  of 
all  the  chief  maritime  towns  of  the  kingdom,  not  a  single  effort  did  he  make,  during  the 
ten  or  twelve  years  following  his  accession,  to  dislodge  or  molest  them.  But  intent 
chiefly  on  strengthening  and  guarding  his  own  usurped  position,  he  left  to  the  Danes  by  far 
the  longest  interval  of  repose  they  had  ever  been  suffered  to  enjoy  on  Irish  ground  ;  con- 
tent with  awing,  by  his  name,  into  peaceful  submission  as  well  the  foreign  as  the  native 
princes  over  whom  he  ruled.  How  little  even  he  had  transcended  the  level  of  his  times, 
or  risen  to  any  clear  views  of  a  patriot's  duty  or  dignity,  may  be  judged  from  his  employ- 
ing a  squadron  of  Danes  as  his  vanguard  in  the  first  mcursion  he  made  into  the  territory 
of  Tara;  thus  sanctioning,  by  his  own  example,  the  treason  of  alliance  witii  the  invader, 
and  resorting  to  the  ranks  of  his  country's  enemies  for  aid  in  assailing  and  overturning 
her  ancient  monarchy. 

Of  the  beneficial  effects  attributed  to  his  government,  his  wise  laws  and  strict  system 
of  police,  the  numerous  edifices  he  either  built  or  repaired,  the  bridges  and  roads  con- 
structed by  his  orders  throughout  the  country, — of  these,  and  other  such  happy  results  of 
his  reign,  there  occurs  no  mention  whatever  in  our  annals;  nor  have  we,  I  fear,  any 
graver  authority  for  them,  than  that  of  the  veracious  chronicler,  who  has  described  so 
minutely  the  corridors,  kitchens,  and  wine-cellar  belonging  to  the  monarch's  favourite 
banqueting-house,  Ball-Borume.* 

At  the  same  time,  as  peace  may  be  not  less  the  parent  than  rt  is,  in  general,  the  off- 
spring of  prosperity,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  so  long  and  unusual  a  pause  from  war- 
fare, as  ensued  on  Brian's  accession  to  the  monarchy,  must  have  been  highly  favourable 
to  all  those  pursuits  which  advance  the  intellects  and  ameliorate  the  condition  of  man- 
kind. Even  his  acquiescence  in  the  continuance  of  the  Danish  settlements,  however 
fatal  it  might  have  proved  ultimately  to  the  country's  independence,  was,  for  the  time, 
favourable  to  the  extension  of  commerce  and  its  sure  result,  civilization.  It  is  true,  the 
disinclination  of  the  Irish  to  trade,f  and  their  consequent  willingness  to  leave  in  the  hands 
of  these  foreigners  most  of  the  traffic  of  the  country,  had  been  one  of  the  chief  sources 
of  the  apathy,  or  ready  submission,  with  which  they  had  seen  all  their  maritime  towns, 
one  after  another,  become  the  established  depositories  of  Danish  commerce.  But  the 
example  of  these  enterprising  foreigners  could  iiardly  have  been  lost  upon  the  natives  : 
in  the  course  of  dealing  with  adventurous  traders,  they  would  most  probably  learn  to  be 
traders  themselves;  and  it  is,  therefore,  possible,  that,  during  the  twelve  years  of  peace 
which  Brian's  policy  maintained,  the  spirit  of  commerce  may  have  so  far  diffused  its 
civilizing  influences  through  the  land,  as  in  some  degree  to  jiistify  the  flattering  picture 
which  tradition  has  drawn  of  that  period. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  bringing  to  the  test  of  truth  any  such  high  coloured  representa- 
tions respecting  princes  who  flourished  in  dark  and  uninstructed  times,  it  is  necessary  to 
take  into  account  how  far,  by  their  zeal  for  the  worldly  interests  of  the  Church,  those 
princes  may  have  rendered  themselves  popular  among  ecclesiastics  ;  as  the  pen  of  history 
being,  in  those  times,  guided  chiefly  by  churchmen,  would  take  naturally  a  strong  bias 
from  the  partialities  and  temporal  interests  of  their  order.  By  one  of  those  fanatics  in 
the  cause  of  our  history  and  antiquities,  whose  deserved  martyrdom  is  ridicule,  an  attempt 
has  been  made  to  compare  Brian  with  the  great  English  king  Alfred,— a  parallel  injurious, 
in  different  senses,  to  both;  as  there  is  not  to  be  found,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  range  of 
human  record,  a  prince,  warrior,  or  legislator,  to  whom,  ort  the  supposition  that  all  we 
are  told  of  him  to  be  true,Jthe  epithet  Great,  in  its  most  extended  heroic  and  moral  sense, 
can  be  more  justly  applied  than  to  Alfred.  There  exists  on  one  important  point,  however, 
a  coincidence  between  the  two  heroes,  to  which  in  sifting  the  nature  of  the  evidence  on 
which  their  respective  reputations  rest,  it  is  not  unwise  to  advert.  They  were  both 
devout  and  zealous  disciples  of  the  Church,  both  munificent  in  their  endowments  of 
ecclesiastical  institutions,  and  both,  in  addition  to  their  high  station  in  secular  history, 

*  See  O'Halloran,  vol.  iii.  cap.  7,  where,  in  liis  usual  flourishing  style,  be  describes,  on  the  authority  of  the 
Bruodin  Chronicle.  Ihe  noble  banqueting  houso  erected  by  Brian,  in  the  neiglibnurhnod  of  Kincura.  "  From 
the  kitchens,"  he  tells  us,  "  were  two  long  galleries,  or  corridors,  parallel  to  each  other,  carried  across  a  flat 
to  this  banqueting-house.  A  hundred  servants  were  every  day,  at  dinner  and  supper,  arranged  in  each  of 
these  galleries.  The  business  of  one  set  was  lo  pass  from  hand  to  hand,  from  the  kitchens,  the  ditti^rent 
dishes  for  the  entertainment,  and  of  the  others  with  equal  celerity  to  return  them,"  &c  &c. 

t  auoniam  ehim  innatEe  ociosftatis  vitio  gens  Hibernica,  ut  diximus,  flee  maria  lustrare,  nee  mercatura? 
indulgere  aliquatenus  volueral. —GiraW.  Tljpo^.  i//6.  Dist.  iii.  c.  43.  lAir    ii 

J  Je  ne  sais  s'il  y  a  jamais  eu  sur  la  terre  un  homme  plus  digne  des  respects  do  la  posterite  qu  Allred  le 
Grand  ;  suppose  que  tout  ce  qu'on  racoate  de  lui  soit  veritable."— Voltaire,  Essai  sur  les  Mattm,  Jj-c. 


212  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

were,  after  their  deaths,  enrolled  by  the  grateful  Church  in  the  number  of  her  martyrs 
and  saints. 

The  exact  nature  and  extent  of  the  privileges  accorded  by  Brian  to  the  clergy  of  Ire- 
land, none  of  our  annalists  have  stated.  But  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  any  boon  to 
have  been  more  precious  and  welcome  to  them,  than  was  the  security  his  reign  afforded  to 
their  holy  labours  and  pursuits, — the  respite  from  outrage  and  profanation  which,  during 
twelve  years  of  tranquillity,  they  enjoyed  under  his  sceptre.  The  course  of  our  annals, 
which  before  this  period,  presents  a  series,  almost  uninterrupted,  of  the  most  barbarous 
acts  of  sacrilege  and  spoliation  on  the  part  of  the  Northmen,  is,  during  the  interval 
between  his  accession  and  the  war  of  1013,  wholly  unstained  by  any  such  horrors ;  and 
the  means  afforded  by  this  season  of  calm  for  repairing  the  wreck  of  so  long  a  hurricane, 
and  raising  from  the  dust  their  ruined  and  prostrate  shrines,  had  been  too  long  prayed 
for  by  a  people  innately  religious  not  to  be  employed,  with  grateful  eagerness,  when  it 
came. 

Advantageous,  however,  as  was  tliis  state  of  calm  to  the  country,  and  ultimately  credi- 
table to  the  firm  policy  which  prolonged  it,  yet,  had  Brian  been  snatched  from  the  scene 
by  any  accident  during  this  interval,  far  diflierent  might  have  been  the  character  of  the 
results  with  which  his  evidently  selfish  policy  would,  in  that  event,  have  been  chargeable- 
Most  fortunately,  however,  for  his  glory,  the  course  of  events  was  otherwise  decreed. 
The  traitorous  Lagenians,  by  inviting  a  new  invasion  of  the  barbarians,  aroused  seasonably 
the  veteran's  slumbering  vigour  ;  and  the  victory  of  Clonlarf,  in  putting  an  end  to  his 
mortal  career,  added  also  the  crowning  trophy  to  his  fame. 

The  preparations  made  for  this  battle  throughout  all  the  dependencies,  as  well  as  the 
dominions  of  the  Danes,  sufficiently  attest  the  importance  attached  to  its  issue.  A  foreign 
chronicler  of  the  same  age  asserts,  that  the  Northmen  of  the  expedition  expected  to  be 
able  "to  extinguish  the  Irish  natives,  and  to  inhabit,  in  their  stead,  that  most  opulent  land."* 
The  efl^ects  of  the  failure  of  the  enterprise  were  fully  proportionate  to  the  amount  of  the 
hope  it  had  raised,  and  the  conflict  and  carnage  accordingly  heightened  and  exaggerated. 
The  foreign  chronicler  just  cited  asserts,  that  the  battle  was  maintained  through  three 
successive  days,  that  the  Northmen  engaged  in  it  were  all  killed,  and  that  crowds  of 
the  women  by  whom  they  were  accompanied  had  thrown  themselves  into  the  sea.  Under 
the  same  impression,  in  a  Scandinavian  account  of  the  battle,  one  of  the  Danish  princes 
is  represented  as  asking,  "  Where  are  my  troops  1"  and  the  answer  he  receives  is,  "  They 
are  all  slain. "f 

While  such  was  the  impression  produced  in  foreign  countries  by  this  victory,  its  effects 
at  home,  in  disheartening  and  breaking  the  strength  of  the  Danes  though  not  instanta- 
neous in  their  operation,  were  not  the  less  substantial  and  essential.  Attempts  were 
made,  as  we  shall  see,  from  time  to  lime,  by  the  numerous  Northmen  still  remain- 
ing in  Ireland,  to  make  head  against  the  native  princes;  but  the  heart  of  their  courage 
had  been  plucked  out  on  the  memorable  field  of  Clontarf :  the  blow  struck  in  that  battle 
by  Brian  was  followed  up  worthily  by  his  able  successor,  Malachy  ;  and  the  sword  con- 
tinuing thus  constantly  to  thin  away  their  numbers,  without  any  reinforcement  ever 
arriving  to  them  from  abroad,  their  feeble  remains  at  length  mingled  with  the  general 
mass  of  the  population,!  and  they  disappeared  as  a  distinct  people. 

In  thus  forestalling  events,  so  far  in  advance  of  my  narrative,  I  have  been  led  by  a 
wish  to  impress  upon  the  minds  of  my  readers,  that  it  is  not  without  justice  the  popular 
hero  of  Irish  history  has  been  styled  the  Conqueror  of  the  Danes;  as,  whatever  footing 
they  may  have  still  retained  in  the  country,  and  however,  in  the  disgraceful  feuds  of  the 
natives  among  themselves,  the  sword  of  the  foreigner  may  have  been  appealed  to  alter- 
nately by  both  parties  they  were  no  lonjrer  formidable  but  as  so  many  septs  or  tribes,  and 
at  length  lost  even  that  evanescent  distinction, — leaving  but  some  scattered  vestige  of 
their  language  in  the  vocabulary  of  a  country,  where  they  had  remained  in  possession 
of  the  chief  maritime  towns  fi)r  more  than  200  years.  The  whole  of  their  history,  there- 
fore, subsequent  to  the  period  we  now  iiave  reached,  fully  bears  out  the  assertion,  that  on 
the  field  of  Clontarf  was  given  the  deathblow  to  the  Danish  power  in  Ireland. 

*  Ut  Hirlandis  fxtinctis,  ipsi  pro  ipsis  intiabilarent  opulentissimam  terrnm. —Memar,  ap.  Labbe. 

By  a  writer  cited  in  Col;;an's  Jlr.t.  Sanctorum,  it  is  asserted,  and  probably  wiih  some  truth,  that  the  slaughter 
of  that  day  was  almost  as  disastrous  to  the  rri>h  as  lo  the  IJanes,  and  that  neither  people  ever  after  entirely 
recovered  it;—"  Quo  ingenti  prslio  in  Cluain  Tarbh  inxta  Dubliiiium  conimisso,  miUuas  vires  ila  irrepari- 
biliter  debilitarunt,  nt  neutra  s.v.iMi  in  hmio  usque  diem  prislinas  vires  recuperaverint." 

t  From  the  JViate  Sfl^fQ,  rendered,  in  Johnstone's  version,  thus ;  "Tunc  Flosius,  de  meis  vero  sociis  quid 
refers?     Universi  acie  occubuerunt,  ait  Hrafn." 

X  From  the  intermarriage  of  Danes  with  the  natives  are  said  to  have  sprung  many  of  our  ancient  families,— 
8*je  Cruises,  Coppingers,  Dowdals,  Evcrards,  Plunkets,  Revels,  &c. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  213 

In  comparinoc,  indeed,  the  historians  of  England  and  Ireland  at  this  period,  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  be  struck  by  the  strong  contrast  which  they  exhibit.  The  very  same  year 
which  saw  Ireland  pouring  forth  her  assembled  princes  and  clans  to  confront  the  invader 
on  the  sea-shore,  and  there  make  of  his  myriads  a  warning  example  to  all  future  in- 
truders, beheld  England  unworthily  cowering  under  a  similar  visitation,  her  king  a  fugi- 
tive from  the  scourge  in  foreign  lands,  and  her  nobles  purchasing,  by  inglorious  tribute,* 
a  short  respite  from  aggression  ;  and  while,  in  the  English  annals  tor  this  year,  we  find 
little  else  than  piteous  lamentations  over  the  fallen  and  broken  spirit  both  of  rulers  and 
peoplef,  in  the  records  of  Ireland,  the  only  sorrows  which  appear  to  have  mingled  with 
the  general  triumph  are  those  breathed  at  the  tombs  of  the  veteran  monarch,  and  the 
numerous  chieftains  who  fell  in  that  struggle  by  his  side. 

Whether  Brian  was  himself  imbued  with  any  of  the  learning  of  the  age,  or  possessed 
the  yet  more  useful  merit  in  a  monarch  of  encouraging  learning  in  otiiers,  we  have  not 
any  means  of  ascertaining.  That  he  was  a  musician  has  been  taken  for  granted^  on  no 
better  grounds  than  the  rather  suspicious  tradition  which  has  connected  with  his  name  a 
curious  old  Irish  harp,  long  preserved,  as  we  are  told,  in  the  Clanrickarde  family,  and 
supposed  to  have  originally  belonged  to  the  hero  of  Clontarf.  But  were  even  the  details 
respecting  the  channels  through  which  this  harp  has  reached  us:f  entirely  free  from  sus- 
picion, the  fact  of  the  arms  of  the  O'Brian  family  being  found  among  the  ornaments, 
chased  in  silver,  on  the  instrument,  sufficiently  marks  it  as  of  too  modern  a  date  for  the 
illustrious  vocation  assigned  to  it;  as  the  hereditary  use  of  armorial  ensigns  was  unknown 
to  Europe  before  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  and,  in  England,  was  not  established  till  the 
reign  of  Henry  III, 

It  would  seem  a  reproach  to  the  bards  of  Brian's  day  to  suppose  that  an  event  so  proudly 
national  as  his  victory,  so  full  of  appeals  as  well  to  the  heart  as  to  the  imagination,  should 
have  been  suffered  to  pass  unsung.  And  yet  though  some  poems  in  the  native  language' 
are  still  extant,  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  an  Ollamh,  or  Doctor,  attached  tp  the 
court  of  Brian,  and  describing  the  solitude  of  the  halls  of  Kincora  after  the  death  of  their 
royal  master,  there  appears  to  be,  in  none  of  these  ancient  poems,  any  allusion  to  the 
inspiriting  theme  of  Clontarf  By  the  bards  of  the  north,  however,  that  field  of  death, 
and  the  name  of  its  veteran  victor,  Brian,  were  not  so  lightly  forgotten.  Traditions  of 
the  dreams  and  portentous  appearances  that  preceded  the  battle,  formed  one  of  the 
mournful  themes  of  Scaldie  song;  and  a  Norse  ode  of  this  description,  which  has  been 
made  familiar  to  English  readers,^  breathes,  both  in  its  feeling  and  imagery,  all  that  gloomy 
wildness  which  might  be  expected  from  an  imagination  darkened  by  the  recollections  of 
defeat. 

But  a  more  grave,  if  not  also  more  valuable  testimony  to  the  truly  brave  and  patriotic 
spirit  with  which,  up  to  this  period,  the  Irish  people,  however  degenerately  they  after- 
wards quailed  before  an  invader,  resisted  every  attempt  to  subject  them  to  a  foreign  yoke, 

*  Henry  of  Huntingdon  says,  that,  in  his  own  times,  the  same  tribute  continued  to  be  paid  to  the  kings  of 
England,  from  custom,  which  had  been  originally  paid  to  the  Danes  under  the  influence  of  ineffable  terror. 
"  R'egibus  namque  nostris  inodo  persolvimus  ex  consuetudine  quod  Dacis  persolvebatur  ex  ineffabili  terrore." 
— foi;  205. 

t  "  Nee  fuit  inventus  quispiam  (says  Mattliew  of  Westminster)  qui  hostibus  obviaret."    The  same  writer 

thus  speaks  of  the  wretched  Ethelred  :— "  Inertia  torpens,  timidus,  suspiciosus exercitum  congregare 

vel  contra  hostes  ducere  non  audebat,  m«tuens  tte  nobiles  regni  quos  injusle  exh<-eredaverat,  in  campo  eumr' 
relinquenles  hostibus  traderent  ad  damnandum."— Ad  ann.  1013.  Iiigulfiis,  too,  describing  the  same  miserable 
times,  represents  the  English  as  cowering  before  every  assailant  :—'•  Omnes  hostes  in  capite  super  anglos 
semper  vincere,  et  ex  omni  cenamine  semper  ])r<Evalere." 

The  sermon  of  Bishop  Lupus,  preserved  in  Hickes's  T/tausaurus,  contains  some  painful  instances  of  ttee 
outrage  and  insult  to  which  the  Thanes  were,  at  that  gloomy  period,  exposed 

I  In  the  account  of  this  harp,  given  in  the  Collectan.  de.  Reb.  Hibcrn.  vol.  iv.,  it  is  said  thatDonchaa 
Brian's  son,  who,  in  the  year  1064,  went  on  a  journey  of  penance  to  Rome,  carried  with  him  the  crown,  harp*, 
and  other  regalia  of  Brian  Boru,  which  he  laid  at  the  feet  of  the  pope.  Th«se  regalia,  it  is  adiled,  were  de- 
posited in  the  Vatican  till  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  when  the  pope  sent  the  harp  to  that  monarch,  with  the 
title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith,  but  kept  the  crown,  which  was  of  massive  gold.  Setting  no  value  on  the  harp, 
Henry  gave  it  to  the  first  earl  of  Clanrickard,  in  whose  family  it  remained  till  the  beginning  of  this  century, 
when  it  came,  by  a  lady  of  the  De  Burgh  family,  into  that  of  Mac  Mahon  of  Clenagh,  in  the  county  of  Clare. 
In  the  year  1782,  it  was  presented  to  the  right  honourable  William  Conyngham,  who  deposited  it  in  the  Mu- 
seum of  Trinity  College,  where  it  now  remains. 

§  The  Fatal  Sisters,  an  Ode  from  the  Norse  tongue,  by  Grey.  The  original  may  be  found  in  the  Jfiala  Saga. 
In  allusion  to  the  fate  of  Brian,  the  Scandinavian  poet  says,  "  But  on  the  race  of  Irar  (Erin)  such  a  sorrow 
will  fall  as  can  never  be  forgotten  among  men."  Out  of  this  simple  passage  Grey  has  thus  called  up  llie 
spirit  of  poesy: 

Fate  demands  a  nobler  head. 

Soon  a  king  shall  bite  the  ground. 
Long  his  loss  shall  Erin  weep. 

Ne'er  again  his  likeness  see. 
Long  her  strains  in  sorrow  steep, 

Strains  of  immortality. 


214  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

is  to  be  found  in  the  remarks  of  an  old  English  historian,  William  of  Neubridge,  in  intro- 
ducing his  account  of  the  submission  of  Ireland  to  Henry  II.  "  It  is  a  matter  of  wonder," 
says  this  writer,  "that  Britain,  which  is  of  larger  extent,  and  equally  an  island  of  the 
ocean,  should  have  been  so  often,  by  the  chances  of  war,  made  the  prey  of  foreign  nations, 
and  subjected  to  foreign  rule,  having  been  first  subdued  and  possessed  by  the  Romans, 
then  by  the  Germans,  afterwards  by  the  Danes,  and,  lastly,  by  the  Normans,  while  her 
neighbour,  Hibernia,  inaccessible  to  the  Romans  themselves,  even  when  the  Orkneys 
were  in  their  power,  has  been  but  rarely,  and  then  imperfectly,  subdued;  nor  ever,  in 
reality,  has  been  brought  to  submit  to  foreign  domination  till  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1171."* 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


state  of  the  schools  of  Ireland  in  the  tenth  century. — Armagh  stilt  visited  by  strangfers. — 
Eminent  native  scholars  during  this  period. — Probus,  lecturer  cf  the  school  of  Slanc. — 
EochaidO'Floinn,  a  Bardic  historian. — Kenneth  O'Artegan,  a  poet. — School  established  by 
the  Irish  in  England,  called  Glastonbury  of  St.  Patrick. — Monasteries  of  the  Scots  or  Irish 
in  France  and  Germany. — Literary  works  of  an  Irish  ecclesiastic,  named  Duncan. — Num- 
bers of  Bishops  from  Ireland  on  tlie  continent. — Efforts  by  councils  to  suppress  them. 

The  night  of  ignorance  and  barbarism,  which  had  been  so  long  gathering  around  the 
western  world,  is  supposed,  in  the  century  we  are  now  considering,  to  have  reached  its 
utmost  gloom.  How  far  this  comparative  view  is  well  founded  may  be  a  matter  of  ques- 
tion ;t  but  of  the  positive  prevalence  of  darkness  throughout  this  age  there  can  exist  no  doubt. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  wonderful  that  even  Ireland,  which  had  hitherto  stood  as  a  beacon  of 
learning  in  the  west,  should  begin  to  share  in  the  general  obscuration  of  the  times;  and, 
being  acted  upon  by  the  same  causes  which  had  already  uncivilized  some  of  the  fairest 
regions  of  Europe,  should  feel  the  fated  tide  of  barbarism  gaining  fast  upon  her  shores. 
The  exceeding  rapidity  with  which  the  chief  schools  and  monasteries  throughout  the 
country,  though  so  frequently  ravaged  and  burnt  by  the  Northmen,  again  arose  from  their 
ashes,  and  resounded  afresh  with  the  voice  of  instruction  and  prayer,  seems  hardly  less 
than  marvellous.  Nor  was  this  intrepid  and  persevering  enthusiasm,  in  the  cause  of 
learning  and  holiness,  confined  to  the  natives  of  the  country  alone,  but  inspired  also  its 
visiters ;  as,  but  a  few  months  after  a  desperate  inroad  of  the  Danish  spoilers  into  Ar- 
magh,J  we  are  told  of  a  youth  of  the  royal  house  of  the  Albanian  Scots,  named  Cadroe,- 
repairing  to  the  schools  of  that  univer-sity  for  the  completion  of  his  education.^ 

Among  the  obituary  notices  scattered  throughout  the  annals  of  this  age,  there  occur 
the  names  of  several  di\^ines  who  are  described  as  learned  and  eminent,  but  of  whom  no 
farther  mention  is  to  be  found.  Towards  the  middle  of  the  century  flourished  Probus, 
or,  as  his  Irish  name,  of  the  same  import,  is  said  to  have  been,  Coenachair,  whose  Life  of 
St.  Patrick,  still  extant,  is  praised  by  a  high  authority  on  the  subject  of  our  ecclesiastical 
history,  as  "a  very  valuable  work."||  That  Probus  was  an  Irishman,  he  has  himself 
plac6d  beyond  doubt  by  several  expressions  which  occur  in  his  pages.     Thus,  when 

*  Sane  hoc  quoque  de  hac  insula  mirabile  est,  quod  curti  major  Britannia,  spque  oceanf  insula,  necspacio 
longiori  sojuncla,  tantos  bellorutn  casus  experta  sit,  tolies  exteris  gentibus  pra;da  fuer'it,  toties  externain 
dorninatiunpni  incurrerit,  expiignata  et  possessa  primo  a  Roinanis,  deinde  a  Germanis,  consequenter  a  Danis, 
postrenio  a  Norniannis;  Hibernia  Koinanis  etiaui  Orchadum  insularum  dominium  tenentibus  inaccessa,  rare' 
et  (epide  ab  ullo  unquam  expugnata,  et  subacta  est,  nunquam  externa;  subjacuit  ditioni,  usque  ad  annum  a 
partu  Virgiriis  M.  C.  spptuagesimum  primum. — Rerum  Angl.  lib  2.  cap.  xxvi. 

t  Leibnitz,  among  others,  dissents  from  this  opinion,  affirming  that  there  was  more  knowledge  and  learning' 
in  the  tenth  century  than  in  either  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth.    See  Note  on  Mosheim,  cent.  x.  part  if.  chap.  f. 

X  "  Nimirum  vere  dixit  scriptor  vetus,  quod  '  in  Armacha  summum  studium  literale  manet  semper.'  Nam 
studia  literarum  ita  continenter  in  ilia  acadeiiiia  floruerunt,  ut  ne  rabies  qiiidem  Danorum  per  sacra  et  pro- 
fana  caedibus  et  inccndjis  furosissime  grassantium  cursum  eorum  inter  rupeiit." — Oratianus  Lucius  c  xxii. 

§  Cadroe  has  Ikmmi  sometimes  claimed  as  an  Irish  Scot;  but  it  apjiears  evident  that  he  was  a  Scot  of  North 
Britain.    Sec  Lmugriv,  chap.  23.  §2. 

II  •'  The  Life  of  bt.  Tatriclt  by  Probus,  in:  two  books,  is  a  very  valuable  work."— Lanigan.  Ecdee.  Hist.  vol. 
J.  chap.  3.  §  2. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  315 

speaking  of  the  Saint  embarking'  from  Britain  for  Ireland,  he  says,  that  "  he  entered  upon 
our  soa  ;  and  the  harbour  first  reached  by  the  missionary,  wliotn  he  styles  "  our  most 
holy  fatlier,  is  represented  by  him  as  "one  much  celebrated  among  ms."  Probus  was 
Chief  Lecturer  of  the  school  of  Slane;  and  fell  a  victim  there,  as  already  has  been  re- 
lated, during  an  attack  upon  the  church  of  that  place  by  the  Danes.* 

In  giving  an  account  of  those  bardic  or  metrical  historians  by  whom  the  adventures  of 
our  earliest  colonists  and  the  romantic  achievements  of  the  sons  of  Milesius,  were  first 
invented,  I  mentioned,  as  ranking  among  the  chief  contributors  to  this  stock  of  fiction,  a 
poet  of  the  tenth  century,  named  Eochaidh  O'Floin.  In  the  poems  of  this  writer,  of  which 
there  are  a  number  still  extant,t  may  be  found  those  fables  respecting  Partholan,  the 
battles  of  the  Formorians,  and  the  storming  of  the  Tower  of  Conaing,  which  have  all,  by 
Keating  and  others,  been  gravely  promulgated  as  history  ;  and  which  Vallancey  could 
not  otherwise  account  for,  than  by  supposing  all  these  marvellous  transactions  to  have 
taken  place  among  the  oriental  ancestors  of  the  Irish,  before  their  departure  from  Greece.^ 
In  the  year  975,  according  to  the  annalist  Tigernach,  took  place  the  death  of  Keneth 
O'Artegan,  "  Chief  of  the  Learned  of  Leath  Cuinn."  A  poem  of  this  writer  is  still  pre- 
served,§  descriptive  of  the  beauty  of  the  celebrated  Hill  of  Tara,  and  moralizing  mourn- 
fully over  its  history  ;  nor  should  those  who  visit,  in  our  days,  that  seat  of  long  extinguished 
royalty  feel  any  wonder  on  not  discovering  there  some  vestige  of  its  grandeur,  when 
told  that,  even  in  the  time  of  this  poet,  not  a  trace  of  the  original  palace  still  remained ; 
while  the  hill  itself  had  become  a  desert,  overgrown  with  grass  and  weeds. || 

As  thus,  in  the  midst  of  the  general  darkness  of  the  age,  there  were  still  preserved 
in  Ireland  some  relics  of  the  lore  of  better  days,  so,  in  the  schools  and  religious  establish- 
ments of  the  continent,  her  sons  still  continued  to  retain  all  their  former  superiority,  and, 
among  the  dwarf  intellects  of  that  time,  towered  as  giants.  In  England,  where,  since 
the  death  of  her  great  Alfred,  both  sacred  and  literary  knowledge  had  sunk  to  so  low  an 
ebb,  that  at  length  no  priest  could  be  found  capable  of  writing  or  translating  a  Latin  letter,ir 
the  Irish  were,  in  this  century,  the  means  of  restoring  some  taste  for  liberal  studies. 
With  that  devotion  to  the  cause  of  religion  and  instruction  which  had  become,  in  this 
people  (as  an  author  of  those  times  expresses  it,)  a  second  nature,  a  number  of  Irishmen  de- 
scribed as  conversant  with  every  department  of  knowledge,  secular  as  well  as  sacred, 
retired,  some  time  before  the  year  940,  to  Glastonbury.  This  monastery  had  already 
been  long  distinguished  as  a  favourite  retreat  of  their  countrymen  ;  and,  within  its  walls, 
so  great  was  the  reverence  felt  for  their  patron  saint,**  that,  from  an  early  period,  the 
establishment  had  been  called  "Glastonbury  of  St.  Patrick."  From  the  Irish  who  fixed 
themselves  there  in  this  century,  the  able  St.  Dunstan  chiefly  received  his  education; 
and  while  he  imbibed,  as  we  are  told,  under  their  discipline,  the  very  marrow  of  scriptural 
learning, ft  they  also  instructed  him  in  the  sciences  ofarithmetic,  geometry,  and  astronomy, 
in  all  of  which  they  were,  it  is  intimated,  more  df>eply  skilled  than  in  the  refined  niceties 
of  classical  literature.|:}:     With  a  taste,  too,  highly  characteristic  of  their  country,  they 

*  Among  the  relics  destroyed  on  tliis  occasion  were  ftie  pastoral  stafT  of  the  patron  saint  of  Slane,  and 
"  a  bell  (says  the  annalist)  the  best  of  all  bells." — IV.  Mag.  ad.  ann.  048.  In  Archdall's  Monastic.  Hihem. 
these  last  words  are  incorrectly  translated  "  the  best  clock  in  Ireland,"  on  the  strength  of  which  mistake, 
combined  with  the  mention  of  a  "  clock"  in  king  Cormac's  pretended  Will,  some  sapient  persons  have  claimed 
for  the  Irish  of  those  times  a  knowledge  of  the  art  of  clock  making. 

t  See  for  an  account  of  these  poems,  the   Transactions  cf  the  Iberno- Celtic  Society,  ad.  ann.  CS'f. 

X  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that,  though  in  many  respects  so  qualitied  to  illustrate  and  advance  the  study 
of  Irish  antiquities,  Vallancey,  through  false  zeal  and  fantastic  sppculation,  should  have  ended  only  in 
drawing  down  ridicule  on  the  subject.  One  of  his  earliest  essays,  "The  Laws  of  Tanistry  illustrated,"  to 
which  I  have  frequently  had  occasion  to  refer  in  these  pages,  shows  how  well  and  usefully  he  could  turn  to 
account  the  materials  contained  in  onr  own  authentic  annals,  without  calling  in  the  aid  of  the  Sadder  of 
Zerdusht,  or  of  his  favouhte  "  Pishdadian  Dynasty." — See  Vindication  of  the  Ancient  History  of  Ireland,  Col- 
lectan  vol.  iv. 

§  Trails.  IbernoCelt.  Society,  ad  ann.  975. 

I]  If  this  poem  be  not  antedated  by  a  century  or  two,  the  mansion  which  Malachy  and  his  immediate  pre- 
decessors in  the  throne  of  Tara  must  have  recently  occupied,  at  the  time  when  the  poet  wrote,  could 
not  have  been  the  sanve,  of  course,  nor  built  upon  the  same  site  with  that  whose  ruin  and  utter  disappearance 
he  bewails. 

IT  "  Very  few  churchmen  were  there,"  says  Alfred,  "  on  this  side  the  Humber,  who  could  understand  their 
daily  prayers  in  English,  or  translate  any  letter  from  the  Latin.  I  think  there  were  not  many  beyond  the 
Humber;  they  were  so  few,  that  I,  indeed,  cannot  recollect  one  single  instance  on  tlie  south  of  the  Thames 
when  1  took  the  kingdom."— See  Turner,  Hist.  Anglo  Sax.  book  v,  chap.  1.  A  few  years  before  the  Norman 
conquest  (says  Mr.  Berington,on  the  authority  of  VVilliam  of  Malmesbury,)  "  the  clergy  could  hardly  stammer 
through  the  necessary  service  of  the  church,  and  he  who  knew  the  rules  of  grammar  was  viewed  as  a  prodigy." 

**  Nee  Normannorum  solum  sed  Anglosaxonum  quoque  teniporibus  sacro-sanctam  apud  Glastonienses  B. 
Patricii  fuisse  memoriam,  Baldredi,  Iiiie'et  Ealdredi  ostenduiit  Chartae— Usher,  Eccles.  Primord 

ft  Horum  ergo  disciplinatu  sacram  scripturam  medullitus  adextremam  satietatem  exhausit.— Gulielm.  Mai 
mesbur.  Vit.  S.  Dunstan. 

XX  Arithmeticam  porro  cum  genmetria  et  astronomia  ac  musica.  qua  appendent,  gratanter  addidicit,  et  dili- 
genter  excoluit.  Harum  scientiarum  Hibernienses  pro  niagno  pollicentur ;  ccelerum  ad  fornianda  Latine  verba 
et  ad  integre  loquendum  minus  idonei.— /iirf. 


216  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

succeeded  in  awakening  in  their  pupil  so  strong  a  love  and  talent  for  music,  that  it  was 
in  after  life  his  frequent  practice,  when  worn  with  business  or  study,  to  fly  for  refresh- 
ment to  the  soothing  sounds  of  the  harp.* 

On  the  continent  of  Europe,  in  like  manner,  the  fame  of  the  Island  of  Saints  continued 
to  be  upheld  by  the  learning  and  piety  of  her  sons;  and  in  the  course  of  this  century, 
there  flourished  in  France,  as  well  as  in  Germany  and  the  Netiierlands,  a  number  of  emi- 
nent Irishmen,  whose  names  belong  not  so  much  to  the  country  which  gave  them  birth, 
as  to  those  which  they  benefited  by  the  example  and  labours  of  their  lives.  Among  the 
prelates  present  at  a  synod  held  m  the  year  947,  at  Verdun,  was  an  Irish  bishop  named 
Israel,  whose  character  and  accomplishments  must  have  been  of  no  ordinary  stamp,  as  he 
had  been  one  of  the  instructors  of  the  great  and  learned  archbishop  Bruno,  the  brother  of 
the  emperor  Olho.t 

An  Irish  abbot  of  considerable  celebrity,  named  Fingan,  who  had  been  honoured  with 
the  notice  and  patronage  of  the  dowager  empress  Adelhard,  the  zealous  relict  of  Olho 
the  Great,  was,  through  her  interest,  invested  with  the  government  of  the  abbey  of  Sym- 
phorian,  at  Metz,  on  the  singular  condition  that  he  and  his  successors  should  receive  no 
other  than  Irish  monks  into  their  establishment,  as  long  as  any  such  could  be  found ;  but, 
in  case  of  a  deficiency  of  monks  from  Ireland,  should  then  be  allowed  to  admit  those  of 
other  nations.]; 

Another  of  these  "  monasteries  of  the  Scots,"  as  they  were  to  a  late  period  called,  had 
been  established  about  this  time  on  an  island  in  the  Rhine,  near  Cologne,  having  for  its 
first  abbot  an  Irishman  named  Mimborin;  and  it  is  clearly  to  this  establishment  at  Cologne 
that  such  frequent  reference  is  made  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  and  others.} 
Helias,  a  successor  to  this  abbot,  had,  previously  to  his  departure  from  Ireland,  belonged 
to  the  monastery  of  Monaghan  ; — one  of  many  proofs  of  the  close  intercourse  then  main- 
tained between  the  foreign  religious  establishments  and  those  of  Ireland. 

Of  the  attention  early  paid  to  the  study  of  Greek  in  the  native  schools  of  the  Irish, 
some  notice  has  already  been  taken;  and  a  proof  of  their  continued  attention  to  the  culti- 
vation of  that  language  is  to  be  found  in  the  interesting  fact,  that,  in  the  diocese  of  St. 
Gerard,  at  Toul,  where  there  had  assembled  at  this  time  a  number  of  Greek  refugees,  as 
well  as  of  Jrish,  the  church  service,  in  which  both  nations  joined,  was  performed  in  the 
language  of  the  Greeks,  and  according  to  the  Greek  rite.|| 

One  of  the  few  of  our  learned  countrymen  at  this  period,  who  have  left  behind  them 
any  literary  remains,  was  an  Irish  bishop  named  Duncan,  or  Duncant,  who  taught  in  the 
monastery  of  St.  Remigius,  at  Rheims,  and  wrote  for  the  use  of  the  students  under  his 
care  a  "  Commentary  on  the  Nine  Books  of  Martianus  Capella," — an  author  who.se 
claims  to  attention,  such  as  they  are,  concern  the  musician  rather  than  the  scholar,? — 
and  also,  "  Observations  on  the  First  Book  of  Pomponius  Mela,  De  Situ  Terrse  ;"  both  of 
which  writings  are  still  extant. 

With  respect  to  those  Irish  bishops  we  frequently  read  of,  as  connected  with  foreign 
religious  establishments,  and  passing  their  whole  lives  abroad,  it  is  right  to  explain,  that 
there  existed  at  this  time  a  custom  in  Ireland  of  raising  pious  and  exemplary  monks  to 
episcopal  rank,  without  giving  them  any  fixed  sees.  In  addition  to  these  there  was  also, 
as  in  the  primitive  times  of  the  Church,  an  order  of  Chorepiscopi,  or  country  bishops,  to 
whom  the  care  of  the  rural  districts  was  entrusted,  with  powers  subordinate  to  those  of 
the  regular  bishop  in  whose  diocese  they  were  situated.  From  these  two  classes  of 
ministers  were  furnished,  doubtless,  the  great  majority  of  those  Episcopi  Vagantes,  or 

*  Ispe  cittiaram,  si  qiianflo  a  Uteris  vacaret,  sumere.— Gulielm.  Malmesbur.  Vit.  S.  Dunstan. 
t  Lanigan,  Ecclesiast.  Hist.  chap,  xxiii.  §4. 

I  A  cnpy  of  the  doed,  confiriiiing  the  rights  and  possessions  of  the  establishment  on  this  condition,  is 
given  hy  Colgan  in  the  ^cla  Sanctorum;  and  the  stipulation,  as  expressed  in  the  deed,  is  as  follows: — "  Ea 
videlicet  ratione,  lit  alibas  primus  nomine  Fingenius  i/iAcrnioises  wa/ione,  quern  ipse  proelibatus  episcopua 
tunc  temporis  ibi  constituit.  suique  successores  Hibernienses  monachos  habeant,  quanidiu  sic  esse  poteril;  et 
si  defuerint  ibi  monaehi  de  Hibemia,  de  quibuscunique  nationibus  semper  ibi  monachi  habeantur." 

§  IV.  Mag.  ad  an  WH.  and  l()5-2.  An.  Ult.  1042.  In  the  Ulster  Annals  for  the  year  1027,  we  tind  the  fol- 
lowing record  : — "  'I'he  wisest  of  the  Scots  in  Cologne  died." 

II  The  following  is  the  account  given  of  this  circumstance  by  the  Benedictines,  in  one  of  those  clever 
sketches  prefixed  by  them  to  the  several  volumes  of  their  valuable  work  : — "  Un  autre  moien  qui  servit  beau- 
coup  a  repandre  la  connoissance  de  cette  langue  parmi  nos  Francais  furent  ces  Grecs  aux  quels  S.  Gerard, 
Eveque  de  Toul,  donna  retraite  dans  son  diocese,  lis  y  formerent'des  communaut(Js  entieresavec  des  Hiber- 
nois  qui  s'titoient  meles  avec  eux,  et  y  faisoient  separSment  I'office  divin  en  leur  langue  et  suivant  leur  rit 
particulier.    L'utablissement  de  ces  communautes  de  Grecs  est  tout-a-fait  remarquable."— His*.  Litfcrarie. 

IT  A  manuscript  copy  of  this  work  of  Duncan,  which  was  formerly  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Remigius,  at 
Rheinis,  is  deposited  at  present  in  the  British  Museum.— Bibliothec.  Keg.  15.  A.  xxxiii.  The  name  of  the 
transcriber  is  Gifardus,  and  on  the  margins  of  some  of  the  pages  there  are  very  neatly  traced  with  the  pen 
various  geometrical  figures.  By  an  odd  confusion,  Stuart,  in  his  History  of  Armagh,  states  that  Duncant,  an 
Irish  bishop,  delivered  lectures  in  St.  Remigiiis's  monastery,  in  Doien. — Append.  No.  5. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  217 

"  vague  bishops,"  as  they  were  called,  of  whom  such  numlsers,  principally  Irish,  were 
found  on  the  continent  in  the  middle  ages;  and  whose  assumed  power  of  ordaining  came 
at  length  to  be  so  much  abused,  that,  at  more  than  one  Council,  an  effort  was  made  to 
abate  the  evil,  by  declaring  all  such  ordinations  to  be  null  and  void.*  Notwithstanding, 
however,  such  occasional  laxity  of  discipline,  it  is  admitted  by  one  of  the  most  liberal  as 
well  as  most  learned  of  theologians,  that  the  bishops  of  this  description  from  Ireland 
were  of  great  service,  as  well  to  the  Gallican  as  the  Germanic  church.f 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


Restoration  of  the  monarch  Malachy. — His  victories  over  the  remains  of  the  Northmen. — 
Battle  at  the  Yellow  Ford. — Death  of  Malachy. — Social  state  of  Ireland  at  this  period.— 
Decline  of  religion  and  morals  throughout  the  country. — Ecclesiastical  abuses. — Corbes  and 
Krenachs, — Succession  of  the  monarchy  suspended. — Provisional  government  established, — 
Kingdom  of  Munster  ruled  jointly  by  Teige  and  Donchad,  the  sons  of  Brian. — Murder  of 
Teige  through  the  contrivance  of  his  brother. — Donchad,  titular  monarch  of  Ireland. — 
Turlogh,  his  nephew,  aspires  to  the  throne. — Is  supported  by  the  princes  of  Leinsler  and 
Connaught. — Donchad,  defeated,  flies  to  Rome.— Turlogh,  monarch  of  Ireland. — Events  of 
his  reign. — Death. — Is  succeeded  by  Murkertach. 

When  the  mortal  wound  received  by  Morough,  the  son  of  Brian,  in  the  battle  of  Clontarf, 
had  deprived  the  army  of  the  presence  of  its  acting  leader,  the  command  devolved,  as  we 
have  seen,  on  the  patriotic  and  hiijh-minded  Malachy,  by  whom  the  victory,  then  all  but 
accomplished,  was  followed  up  to  its  full  and  perfect  success.  Almost  immediately,  too, 
without,  as  it  appears,  any  preparatory  process  or  intervening  forms,  this  prince  reassumed 
the  high  station  from  which  he  had  been  so  vvronnffully  deposed,!  and  was  acknowledged, 
by  tacit  and  general  assent,  supreme  monarch  of  Ireland.  Could  any  doubt  exist,  as  to 
the  view  taken  in  Brian's  own  times,  of  the  lawless  means  by  which  he  got  possession 
of  the  supreme  throne,  the  ready  acquiescence,  if  it  did  not  amount  even  to  loyal  satisfac- 
tion, with  which  the  same  prince,  who  had  been  so  triumphantly  set  aside  twelve  years  be- 
fore, was  now  seen  to  resume  his  due  station,  would  be  sufficiently  convincing  on  this  point; 
— showing,  at  once,  how  strong  was  still  in  the  popular  mind  the  regard  for  hereditary 
right,  and  how  bold  and  powerful  must  have  been  the  hand  that  had  dared  so  successfully 
to  violate  it.} 

Attempts  have  been  made  by  some  modern  historians,  as  already  has  been  remarked, 
to  invest  with  an  appearance  of  respect  for  the  popular  voice  the  self-willed  act  of  the 
usurper.  But  the  general  feeling  entertained  on  the  subject,  in  times  bordering  on  those 
of  Brian,  may  be  collected  from  tiie  manner  in  which  the  annalist  Tigornach,  who  wrote 
in  the  following  century,  has  recorded  the  death  of  Malachy.  Not  acknowledging  those 
twelve  years,  during  which  the  usurpation  lasted,  to  have  been  any  interruption  of  the 
rule  of  the  leaitimate  monarch,  this  chronicler  states,  as  the  period  of  Malachy's  reign, 
the  whole  of  the  forty-three  years  which  intervened  between  his  first  accession  to  the 
throne  and  his  death  ; — thus  denying  to  the  name  of  Ireland's  great  hero  any  place  in  the 
list  of  her  legitimate  monarchs.[f  It  should  be  added,  too,  that  in  this  tacit  but  signifi- 
cant verdict  on  the  lawless  act  of  Brian,  the  old  chronicler  has  been  fltithfully  followed 
by  the  writers  of  the  Annals  of  Ulster. 

The  calumnious  story  referred  to  in  a  former  chapter,  of  Malachy's  treachery  in  draw- 
ing off  his  troops  during  the  heat  of  the  action  at  Clontarf,  has  already  been  disposed  of 

•  In  consequence  of  this  abuse,  it  was  decreed  by  the  council  of  Calcuitli  (a.  d.  816.)  that  no  Irishman 
should  be  permitted  to  exercise  clerical  duties  : — "  Ut  Scoti  non  admiltentur  sacra  ininislrare." 

t  Mabillon. — "  Plurimum  ecclesi?e  turn  GallicanEe  turn  Germaniacae  T^xoi\x'issQ."—Annal.Benediclin.stc.  ii. 
prffif. 

I  IV.  Mag.  1014  (.era?  com.  1015.) 

5  Inisfall.ad  an.  lOKi.  1016.     Wtire..  Jlnliquities,  c.  -xxiv. 

I  Those  who  are  guided  by  less  strict  views  of  legitimacy  in  their  calculation  limit  Malachy's  reign  to  the 
thirty-four  years  during  which  he  occupied  the  throne.  "  Quern  codex  Cluanensis  (says  Colgaii)  tradi5  4J 
annis  regnasse,  alii  veroconimuniter  23."— rWas  TUaum.  Sect.  .Append,  ad  Act.  S.  Patties 

27 


218  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

as  it  deserved  ;  but,  were  any  farther  refutation  of  the  calumny  wanting,  we  should  find 
it,  not  only  in  the  fact  alleged  by  the  Four  Masters  of  his  heading  the  army  after  the 
fate  of  its  leader  Morough,  but  also  in  the  prompt  and  according  assent  of  the  whole 
nation  to  his  immediate  resumption  of  the  supreme  power,  and  tlie  instant  vigour  with 
which,  on  his  accession,  leaving  no  respite  to  the  remnant  of  the  Danish  force,  he  attacked 
them  in  their  head-quarters,  Dublin,  and,  setting  fire  to  the  citadel  and  the  houses 
around  it,  destroyed  the  greater  part  of  tiiat  city.* 

In  the  following  year,  these  daring  ravagers,  having  received  some  recruitment  of 
their  force,  again  poured  forth,  under  the  command  of  their  king  Sitric,  extending  the 
course  of  their  depredations  over  all  the  region  then  called  Hy-Kinsellagh.  But  the  mo- 
narch, with  the  aid  of  his  kindred,  tlie  southern  Hy-Niells,  surprised  the  spoilers  in  the 
midst  of  their  havoc,  and  put  them  to  the  rout  with  immense  slaughter.!  About  the 
same  time,  a  signal  instance  of  retribution  was  exhibited  in  the  ftite  of  the  royal  family 
of  Leinsler,  whose  reigning  prince,  the  son  and  successor  of  that  king,  who  had  been  the 
promoter  of  the  late  coalition  against  Ireland,  was  deprived  of  his  eyes — the  usual  mode 
of  incapacitating  a  prince  from  reigning — by  order  of  the  Danish  king,  Sitric.|  In  con- 
sequence of  this  and  similar  outrages,  the  people  of  Leinster,  at  length  provoked  into 
resistance,  gained,  at  Delgany,  a  complete  victory  over  the  fierce  Sitric  and  his  Danes.5 
Decisive  and  prompt  as  appear  to  have  been  the  measures  of  Malachy,  it  is  evident 
that  the  strong  grasp  by  which,  in  his  predecessor's  time  the  swarm  of  minor  kings  had 
been  curbed  and  kept  down  was  now  no  longer  felt;  and,  accordingly,  in  the  north  and 
west,  as  well  as  in  the  south,  his  presence  was  called  for  to  repress  pretensions  and  revolts. 
In  the  year  1016 — a  year  distinguished  in  our  annals  by  the  rare  record  of  "Peace 
•jA-jp*  in  Erin"|l — the  monarch  proceeded  at  the  head  of  an  army  to  Ulster,  and  com- 
■  polled  the  princes  of  that  province  to  deliver  to  him  hostages.  In  the  course  of 
the  following  year  we  find  him  ngain  wreaking  his  revenge  on  the  restless  Danes,  at  a 
place  called  Odhba  ;  and  in  1018,  the  O'Niells  of  the  north,  being  up  in  arms,  assisted 
by  the  warlike  tribe  of  the  Eugenians,  he  hastened  to  encounter  their  joint  force,  having 
gained  an  easy  victory  over  them,  drove  the  Eugenians,  as  it  is  stated,  "  beyond  the 
mountain  Fuad,  towards  the  north. "IT  About  the  same  time,  a  portion  of  his  army  com- 
mitted great  slaughter  upon  the  Fercallians,  a  people  of  the  district  now  called  the  King's 
County ;  and  in  the  year  1020,  accompanied  by  the  O'Niells,  and  by  Donchad,  the  son  of 
Brian,  with  his  Dalcassians,  the  monarch  marched  at  the  head  of  an  army  into  Connaught, 
and  received  hostages  from  the  kings  of  that  province.** 

In  approaching  the  close  of  this  eminent  prince's  career,  it  should  not  be  forgotten, 

among  his  other  distinguished  merits,  that,  unlike  the  greater  part  of  those  chief- 

1020"  *^^'"^  ^''°  flourislied  in  what  may  be  called  the  Danish  period,  he  never,  in  any 

one  instance,  sullied  his  name  by  entering  into  alliance  with  the  foreign  spoilers 

of  his  country  ;  and  as  the  opening  year  of  his  reign  had  been  rendered  memorable  by  a 

great  victory  over  the  Danes,  so,  at  the  distance  of  nearly  half  a  century,  his  closing 

hours  were  cheered  by  a  triumph  over  the  same  restless,  but  no  longer  formidable  foe.ff 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1022,  being  summoned  to  the  field  by  some  aggression  of  the 

Northmen,  he  encountered  their  force  at  the  Yellow  Ford,  a  place  now  called  Athboy, 

and  defeated  them  with  great  slaughter.     Retiring,  soon  after  the  battle,  to  a  small 

1022*  '^^^"'^  upon  the  Lake  Annin,  in  Meath,  he  there  devoted  his  last  hours  to  penitence 

and  prayer;  being  attended  irr  his  dyinof  moments  by  the  three  Comorbans,  or 

successors  of  St.  Patrick,  St.  Columba  and  St.  Ciaran  :  one  of  his  latest  cares  being  to 

endow  a  foundation  for  the  support  of  300  orphan  children,  to  be  selected  out  of  the 

principal  cities  of  the  island;  an  act  of  beneficence  which,  as  it  appears  from  distichs 

quoted  by  Tigernach  and  the  Four  Masters,!!  some  poets  of  that  day  commemorated. ^ J 

In  taking  a  review  of  the  authentic  portion  of  Irish  history  we  have  now  traversed, 

and,  to  avoid  controversy,  confining  that  portion  within  the  interval  only  that  has  elapsed 

from  about  the  time   of  the   monarch  Niell,   (a.  d.  406,)  called,   "Niell  of  the  Nine 

Hostages,"||||  it  will  be  found  that,  though  wanting,  perhaps,  in  that  variety  of  adventure 

*  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1014  (1015.)  f  Annal.  Inisfa!!.  ad  an.  1016. 

J  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1018.     Ware,  ail  an.  iniO. 
§  VVare's  Annals,  ad  an.  UMi.     IV.  Mag.  an.  Colgan. 
(I  "  Sith  in  Erind."     Aim.-il.  Ull. 

IT  "  Tar  sliabli  Fiiait  fo  llMiai.lii."    This  iinmc  Fu;id,  occurs  frequently  in  the  annalB,  bat  it  does  not  ap- 
pear what  particular  ini)untaia  is  desii'iialed  hy  il. 
*♦   IV.  Mag.  Inisfall. 

ft  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1021.  (sra;  com.  I(e2.)    Tigeniaolr,  ad  an.  1022,  &,c. 
Jt   Cited  in  Rcr.  Bib.  Script.  Prol.  2.  liv. 
§§  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  11)22.     Rrr.  Hib.  Script. 
\>\  See  c.  7.  p.-  88  oflhii  Work. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  219 

which  enlivens  the  annals  of  less  secluded  nations,  there  yet  belong  to  our  history  some 
sources  of  interests,  which,  owing  to  this  very  seclusion,  are  peculiar  to  itself;  rendering 
it  a  record  and  picture  of  a  state  of  society  altogether,  perhaps,  unexampled,  and  such 
as  is  not  unworthy  of  engaging  the  attention,  as  well  of  the  philosopher  as  of  the  histo- 
rian and  antiquarian. 

The  first  emergence  of  this  people  to  the  notice  of  Europe,  with  so  many  of  the  marks 
of  an  ancient  state  of  civilization  impressed  strongly  upon  their  lano-uas[e,  traditional 
customs,  and  institutions,  while  they  themselves  were  but  little  elevated  above  the  level 
of  savage  life;  the  docile  intelligence  with  which  they  received  and  appreciated  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  and,  soon  after,  started  forth  as  the  apostles  and  teachers  of 
Western  Europe,  in  every  walk  of  learning,  both  sacred  and  secular,  leavinrr  the  name 
of  their  country  associated,  to  the  present  day,  with  most  of  the  institutions  "established, 
in  those  times,  for  the  purposes  of  religion  and  instruction  ; — all  this  honourable  celebrity 
of  the  Irish  abroad,  followed  by  their  long  and  manful  struggle  against  the  Danish  power 
at  home,  and  finally,  the  death-blow  dealt,  on  the  field  of  ClontaTf,  to  the  domination  of 
that  people  in  Ireland,  at  a  time  when  England  and  other  great  states  of  Europe  had 
been  forced  to  bow  beneath  their  yoke,  presents  altogether  a  career  of  such  various  and 
entirely  self-derived  energy,  as  few  countries,  within  the  same  compass  of  time,  have 
been  ever  known  to  exhibit;  and  which,  notwithstanding  the  fierce  and  lawless  excesses 
that  stain  so  many  of  its  pages,  cannot  but  entitle  the  history  which  records  so  remarkable 
a  course  of  affairs  to  a  more  than  ordinary  share  of  attention  and  interest. 

The  reader  will  recollect  that  these  observations  are  applied  solely  to  the  period  com- 
mencing at  the  reign  under  which  St.  Patrick  made  his  first  appearance  in  Ireland,  and 
ending  with  the  death  of  Malachy  II.  From  this  latter  epoch  the  aspect  of  afluirs  began 
materially  to  change,  and  the  country  sank  by  degrees  into  a  slate  of  obscuration,  both 
moral  and  political.  The  causes  of  this  national  declension,  the  greater  number  of 
which  had  been  for  some  time  in  operation,  shall  be  pointed  out  as  they  more  fully  de- 
veloped themselves  in  this  and  the  following  century  ;  but  among  the  most  operative, 
doubtless,  was  the  state  of  confusion  and  disorganization  into  which  the  whole  framework 
of  the  government  of  the  country  had  been  thrown  by  Brian's  forcible  infringement  of 
the  law  which  had  been  so  long  observed  in  the  course  of  succession  to  the  monarchy. 
In  a  land  so  parcelled  out  into  sovereignties,  and  through  which  there  circulated,  in  every 
direction,  so  many  rival  currents  of  royal  blood,  it  was  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the 
preservation  of  the  public  peace,  that  their  channels  should  be  kept  distinct  and  sacred; 
and  in  the  instance  of  the  monarchy,  so  effectual  was  prescriptive  usage  for  this  purpose, 
that,  with  only  two  exceptions  (of  which  one  was  Brian*)  all  the  monarchs  of  Ireland, 
for  more  than  five  hundred  years,  had  been  elected  from  among  the  princes  of  the  Hy- 
Niell  race.  By  the  usurpation  of  Brian,  however,  this  sacred  boundary  was  overleaped  ; 
this  last  stronghold  against  aristocratic  pretensions  was  overthrown,  and  a  new  impulse 
given  to  the  efforts  of  irregular  ambition,  throughout  the  country,  by  the  crown  of  Tara 
being  added  to  the  prizes  in  the  arena  of  political  strife. 

The  long  struggle,  also,  with  the  Danes,  besides  accustoming  the  people  to  scenes  of 
rapine  and  blood,  was  attended  with  other  evils  and  influences  still  more  permanently 
demoralizing.  The  habit  of  employing,  and  being  employed  by,  these  freebooters,  as 
hired  auxiliaries,  in  local  and  factious  feuds,  without  any  regard  to  the  national  honour 
or  interests,  could  not  but  confuse,  in  the  public  mind,  tiie  boundaries  of  right  and  wrong, 
and  at  last  lead  to  that  state  of  moral  degradation!  which  both  disposes  and  fits  men  to 
be  slaves.  Nor  did  the  ecclesiastical  part  of  the  community,  from  whose  example  and 
influence  might  be  expected  some  salutary  check  to  the  growing  degeneracy  of  their 
countrymen,  keep  the  standard  of  their  own  morals  sufficiently  hrgh  to  admit  of  their 
rebuking  the  offences  of  others  with  much  efl^ect.  An  eminent  churchman,  indeed,  of 
the  twelfth  century,  in  referring  to  the  moral  darkness  into  which  Ireland  had  then  fallen, 
notices,  particularly  among  the  causes — if  they  were  not  rather,  perhaps,  results — of  that 
declension,  the  utter  relaxation  of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  and  a  general  decay  of  reli- 
gious feeling  among  the  people.l 

*  The  oltiei-  was  Bcetan.  See  ancient  Irisli  MS.  quoted  by  Dr.  O'Connor,  Ep.  J^unc.  "  Vettis  scriba,  qui 
seculo  XI.  ^ngusii  colidei  opera  descripsit,  ex  Codice  Psalter  na  Rann,  cujus  extat  exemplar  annorum  600,  in 
Codice  Bodleiano,  Laud  F  95.  fol.  75.  inquit,  'Nullum  regem  Hiberniam  tenuisse  post  Patricium  nisi  ex 
semine  Hprimonis,  exceplis  duobus,  Boetan  et  Brian.'  "  The  MS  adds,  that  some  ancient  authorities  did  not 
admit  Boeian  among  the  monarchs,  thus  leaving  Brian  the  sole  exception  to  the  ancient  rule  of  succession. 

t  Peter  Lombard  thus  feelingly  mourns  over  this  declension  of  Ireland's  glory: — "  Sed  proh  dolor!  Hibernia 
priore  ilia  gloria  paulatim  ita  excidit,  ut  qure  tot  sanctorum  lionorifica  pridem  mater  ac  magistra,  nunc  eo 
se  dejecta  videat  quo  ilia  quondam  sancta  civitas  Domina  gentium  Jerusalem  cecidit."— £)e  regno  Hibern. 
Sanctor  Insula  Comment.  Prafat. 

t  S.  Bernard. — "  Inde  tota  ilia  per  universam  Hyherniam,  de  qua  multa  superiua  diximns,  dissolulio  eccle- 
siastics disciplinaf>,  censursR  enervatio,  religionis  evacatio,"  Sec.  &.c.—yUa  Malach. 


220  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Among  the  ecclesiastical  abuses  referred  to  by  him,  was  one  that  had  begun  to  prevail 
some  time  before  this  period,  having  been  introduced,  almost  simultaneously,  into  different 
countries  of  Europe; — and  that  was  the  practice  of  allowing  laymen  to  "hold  possession 
of  church  lands  (even  of  lands  belonging  to  episcopal  sees,)  and  to  transmit  them  to 
their  own  descendants,  or,  at  least,  to  the  sept  to  which  they  belonged.  Of  the  holders 
of  this  sort  of  property,  in  Ireland,  there  were  two  distinct  classes,  or  ranks,  of  which 
one  were  called  Corbes,  or  Comorbans,*  and  the  other  Erenachs;  and  the  only  difference 
that  has  been  yet  very  clearly  made  out  between  them,  is  that  the  Erenachs  were  a  class 
inferior  in  wealth  and  dignity,  and  far  more  numefous  than  that  of  the  Comorbans. 

In  an  essay  written  on  this  subject,  in  his  youth,  by  archbishop  Usher,  it  is  assumed 
that  the  Comorbans,  at  their  first  institution,  were  the  same  as  those  Chorepiscopi,  or 
rural  bishops,  of  whom  mention  has  already  been  made.  But  that  this  is  a  mistake  will 
appear  from  the  fact,  that  the  Chorepiscopi  were  most  of  them  invested  with  episcopal 
powers,  while  the  Comorbans  were,  in  general,  laymen,  who,  holding  a  position,  as  it 
appears,  analagous  to  that  of  the  lay-abbots,t  or  abbaComites,  in  France,  appropriated  to 
themselves  the  abbatial  lands  and  other  properties,  leaving  to  the  clergy  only  the  altars, 
tithes,  and  dnes.|  In  like  manner,  the  Irish  Erenachs,  whose  title  originally  signifies 
archdeacon,  bore  a  no  less  close  resemblance  to  those  holders  of  church  property  in  the 
time  of  Charlemagno,^  who,  though  assuming  the  title  of  archdeacon,  were,  in  reality, 
laymen,  and,  in  some  instances,  farmed  the  property.]]  The  lands  held  in  this  manner, 
in  Ireland,  were  called  Termon,  or  free  lands,  and  the  possessors  paid  out  of  them  a  cer- 
tain yearly  rent  to  the  bishop,  besides  some  other  contributions  towards  ecclesiastical  pur- 
poses. Such,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  unravel  the  perplexed  statements  on  this  subject, — 
which  has  become  but  the  more  entangled  the  more  hands  it  has  passed  through, — was 
the  nature  of  this  tenure  of  church  property,  which  did  not  in  Ireland,  probably,  come 
into  use  till  after  the  age  of  Charlemagne,  but  continued  to  be  retained  here  to  as  late  a 
period  as  the  reign  of  James  I. 

There  is  yet  one  difficulty,  or  rather  confusion,  as  regards  the  use  of  the  term  Comor- 
ban.  Though  employed  to  signify  a  lay  possessor  of  lands  and  property  which  had  been 
usurped,  at  some  time  or  other,  from  the  Church,  it  was  used  also  as  p.  distinguishing 
title  of  the  successive  occupants  of  the  great  Irish  sees;  and  the  Comorban  of  St.  Patrick, 
the  Comorban  of  St.  Fiech,  of  St.  Bridget,  &c.,Tr  was  the  mode  of  designation  generally 
employed  in  speaking  of  the  successors  of  those  eminent  saints  in  the  high  dignities  they 
had  respectively  founded.  The  use  of  the  title,  indeed,  extended  even  to  the  pope,  whom 
it  was  not  unusual  to  call  the  Comorban  of  St.  Peter;  and  the  fact  appears  to  be,  that 
this  term,  which  signifies  a  successor  in  any  ecclesiastical  dignity,  came  to  be  applied, 
not  merely  to  those  who  had  legitimately  succeeded  to  property  in  the  church,  but  also 
to  those  who,  being  laymen,  had  become  possessors  of  it  only  by  usurpation ;  much  in 
the  same  manner  as  in  Charlemigne's  time,  when  the  title  of  abbot  vvas  bestowed  alike 
on  the  religious  heads  of  monasteries,  on  lay  lords,  and  even  on  soldiers;**  and  when 
archdeaconries,  held  in  fee,  stood  side  by  side  with  those  of  episcopal  appointment. 

In  consequence  of  the  suspended  state  of  the  succession  to  the  rrionarchy,  there  ensued 
now  a  long  and  ruinous  interregnum,  during  which  the  evils  arising  from  the  want  of  a 
supreme,  directing  head,  were  aggravated  a  hundred  fold  by  the  fierce  rivalry  and  dis- 

*  For  opinipris  and  aiitliorilies  respecting  this  class  of  persons,  the  reader  is  referred  to  Archbishop  Usher's 
treatise  oh  the  subject.  (Collectan.  de  Reb.  Hih.  vol.  i.)  Ware's  Antiquities,  c.  xxxv.  Sir  John  Davies's  Letter 
to  the  Earl  of  Salisbury ;  Campbell's  Strictures  on  the  Hist,  of  Ireland,  sect.  JO  ;  and  Dr.  Lanigan's  Ecelesiast. 
Hist.  vol.  iv  c.  215,  note  C3.  The  account  given  by  most  of  these  yiriters  of  this  class  of  holders  of  church 
property,  is  far  from  being  satisfactory  Dr.  Lanigan  alone, — though,  as  usual,  diffuse  and  careless  in  the 
arrangement  of  his  learned  materials,— deals  with  the  subject  so  as  to  inspire  confidence  in  his  opinion. 

t  Giraldus  makes  use  of  this  very  term  in  speaking  of  the  lay  intruders  into  church  property,  who  were 
common  in  Wales  as  well  as  in  Ireland.  "  Notandum  autnm,  quod  liffic  ecclesia  (S.  Paterni)  sicut  et  alise 
per  Hiberniarn  et  Walliam  plures,  abliatem  laicum  \\ah(>\.."—Itincr.  Cambr.  lib.  ii.  cap.  4. 

}  It  would  appear,  from  the  letter  of  Sir  John  Davits  just  referred  to,  that  this  class  of  proprietors  had, 
in  tjis  time,  got  luio  their  possession  almost  all  the  chuich  lands  in  Ireland.  In  speaking  of  Fermanagh,  he 
says,  '■  It  did  not  appear  to  me  that  the  bishop  had  any  land  in  demesne,  but  certain  niensal  duties  of  the 
Corbes  and  i:renachs;  neither  did  we  find  that  the  parsons  and  vicars  had  any  giebe  land  at  all  in  this  coun- 
try." In  another  place  he  ad<ls,  "  Certain  it  is  that  these  men  possess  all  the  glebe  lands  which  belongeth  to 
such  as  have  the  cure  of  souls." 

■§  In  being  hereditary,  says  Spelman,  tlie  office  of  Eienach  resembled  that  of  the  Vicedomini  Ecclesianim. 
on  the  continent :—"  Sic  enim  hereditarium  in  Hibernia  fit  niunus  Herenaci,  non  minus  quam  in  partibus 
transinarinis  vicedomini." — G/ess   in  voce. 

II  "  Hiiic  archidiaconatiis,  ipsum  archidificoni  rtjiinus;  quos  feudi  jure  possessos  a  viris  seciilaribus.  etiam 
tempore  Caroli  magni,  patet  fex  ejus  capitulari  1  A.  C.  805.,  p.  15,  &c.  ubi  illud  vetitum.  Archidiaconatus 
qiioque  dati  ad  firmam." — Hoffman,  in  voce. 

IT  With  an  ignorance  ot  his  subject  not  rare  in  this  writer.  Dr.  Campbell  says  {Strictures,  sect.  10.,)— 
"  Hence  we  arc  given  to  understand  why  so  many  Comorbans  of  St.  Patrick  became  primates;"  the  fact  being, 
that  it  was  their  becoming  primates  that  made  thein  Comorbans  of  St.  Patrick 

»*  See  note  on  this  page.  In  an  old  document  preserved  by  Catel,  in  his  Memoirs  of  Languedoc  (lib,  v.,) 
It  is  said,—"  Ul  tunc  temporis  oral  inoa  militos  ttncrc  archidiaconatus." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  221 

cord  which  such  a  state  of  things  could  not  but  engender,  and  keep  in  perpetual  activity. 
Among  those  princes,  indeed,  wiio,  during  the  remainder  of  Ireland's  existence  as  a  sepa- 
rate nation,  assumed  the  title  of  monarch,  there  were  scarcely  any,  wo  shall  find,  who 
had  been  elected  according  to  the  regular  ancient  form,  or  were  acknowledged  generally 
by  the  people;  and  tiie  nature  both  of  their  authority  and  tlieir  claims  may  be  sufBciently 
judged  from  the  designation  given  to  them  by  our  native  historians,  who  call  them  Righ 
gofreasabra,  that  is,  "  Kings  with  reluctance  or  opposition." 

But  though  the  train  for  all  these  evil  consequences  had  been  now  laid,  their  fated 
explosion  did  not  take  place  til!  some  time  after;  for  it  is  not  the  least  striking  and  cha- 
racteristic of  the  circumstances  which  attended  the  demise,  as  it  may  ahnost  be  called, 
of  the  Irish  monarchy,  in  the  person  of  Malachy  II.,  that,  on  the  death  of  this  prince,  not 
even  a  pretender  to  the  right  of  succeeding  him  appeared  to  put  forth  his  claims; — aa 
though  there  existed  a  feeling,  tacitly,  throughout  tlie  country,  that  even  the  vacancy  of 
the  ancient  seat  of  the  Hy-Niells  were  preferable  to  the  fierce  and  sanguinary  strife 
which  any  attempt  to  take  possession  of  it  would  provoke.  As  a  sort  of  provisional  sub- 
stitute for  the  authority  of  the  monarch,  an  arrangement  was  made,  through  the  interpo- 
sition, most  probably,  of  the  Church,  by  which  the  administration  of  the  principality  of 
Meath,  and  of  some  of  the  adjoining  districts,  was  placed  in  the  hands  ofCuan  O'Lochan, 
chief  poet  and  antiquarian  of  Ireland,*  and  an  ecclesiastic  named  Corcoran,  who  is  styled 
Primate  of  the  Irish  Anchorites.  In  a  year  or  two  after,  the  name  of  this  Cuan  is  found 
among  the  obituary  notices;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  the  government  he  had  pre- 
sided over  did  not  survive  himself,  as  it  would  appear,  from  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
princes  of  Meath,  that  they  thencefortii  took  the  administration  of  that  principality  into 
their  own  hands. 

It  might  have  been  expected,  that  at  such  a  crisis  the  name  of  the  popular  champion, 
Brian,  his  vigorous  career  as  supreme  ruler,  and  his  brilliant  achievement,  still  so  recent, 
would  have  established  some  claim  in  favour  of  the  sons  he  had  left  behind.  But  even 
by  them  not  a  single  movement  was  now  made  to  lay  claim  to  a  throne  around  which 
their  father  had  thrown  so  lasting  a  lustre.  At  the  time  of  his  death,  there  survived  but 
two  of  his  sons,  Teige  and  Donchad,  and  their  first  joint  task  on  the  occurrence  of  that 
event  was  to  defend,  in  opposition  to  the  claims  of  the  Eugenian  tribe,  their  own  right  of 
succession  to  the  throne  of  Munster.  But  the  good  understanding  between  these  brothers 
was  of  very  short  continuance.  Preferring,  like  most  other  Irish  septs  and  families,  royal 
or  otherwise,  destructive  strife  among  themselves,  to  co-operation,  for  common  interests, 
against  others,  they  came,  at  length,  to  open  warfare,  and  a  desperate  battle  between 
them  ensued,!  in  which  the  Prince  of  Aradia,  and  other  chieftains  of  distinguished  sta- 
tion, lost  their  lives.+  Through  the  mediation,  iiowever,  of  the  clergy  of  Munster,  the 
two  brothers  were  soon  after  reconciled, ^  and  continued  coregnants  in  the  throne  of 
Munster  till  the  year  1023,  when,  on  some  new  cause  of  contention  breaking  out, 
Donchad  concerted  a  plot  against  his  brother's  life,  and,  delivermg  him  up  into  -1^90 
the  hands  of  the  people  of  Eile,  had  him  basely  murdered. || 

By  this  guilty  act,  Donchad  secured  to  himself  the  sole  undivided  sovereignty  of  Mun- 
ster; and,  as  homage  was  paid,  and  hostages  delivered  to  him  by  the  princes  and  states 
of  Connaught,  as  well  as  also  by  the  Danes  of  Dublin  and  Leinster,1[  the  range  of  his 
dominion  is  considered  by  some  of  our  antiquarians**  sufficiently  extensive  to  entitle  him 
to  a  place  in  the  list  of  Ireland's  kings;  while  others  who  require  a  more  widely  extended 
foundation  for  that  title,  exclude  Donchad's  name  altogether  from  their  select  album  of 
Irish  monarchs. 

He  was  soon  to  encounter,  however,  a  young  and  formidable  rival,  in  his  own  nephew, 
Turlough,  the  son  of  the  murdered  Teige,  whom,  immediately  after  the  violent  death  of 
that  prince,  he  had,  with  the  half  policy  by  which  the  guilty  so  frequently  undermine 
their  own  schemes,  sent  into  exile  in  the  province  of  Connaught.  Received  favourably 
by  the  chiefs  of  that  kingdom,  and  adopted  with  affectionate  zeal  by  his  kinsman,  Dermot, 
the  King  of  Leinster,  the  young  prince's  own  military  accomplishments  soon  justified 

*  O'Plaherty,  Ogygia,  c.  94.  O'Connor.  Rer.  Hib.  Script,  torn.  ii.  p.  178.  note.  For  this  provisional  govern- 
ment of  Cuan  I  can  find  no  authority  in  any  of  our  regular  annals. 

t  Vallaiicey,  from  Munster  Records,  Law  of  Tanistry. 

X  Annal.  Ult.  §  Ibid. 

II  Tigernach,  and  IV.  Mag.  art  an.  1023. 

IT  Tigernach  and  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1026.    Vallancey,  in /oc. 

**  "  Hinc  in  regum  hujus  2di  ordinis  enumeratione,  scriptorns  nostri  fluctuant  inter  aemulos  regea  provin- 
ciarura,  prout  major  erat  cujusque  potentia.  Sic  Donchadum  O'Brian,  Briani  Burromsei  filiura,  aliqui  regem 
HibernifB  et  Malachite  successoreni  appellant,  alii  Diarmitium  filium  Maelnatnboi  (Lagenia  regem)  eodem 
litulo  dccorant." 


222  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  reception  he  had  met  with,  and  rendered  him  a  powerful  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
these  chieftains,  against  a  liege  lord  whom  they  so  reluctantly  served.  At  the  head  of 
a  considerable  force,  furnished  in  aid  of  his  cause  by  those  provinces,  Turlough  invaded 
the  dominions  of  his  uncle,  and  succeeded  in  compelling  him  to  exonerate  Connaught 
from  all  claim  of  tribute.*  A  similar  concession,  in  favour  of  the  Lagenians,  was  ex- 
torted, a  year  or  two  after,  from  the  now  humbled  Donchad,  who,  driven  to  extremity  by 
such  repeated  reverses,  having  been,  in  the  year  1058,  totally  defeated  by  the  combined 
force  of  these  two  provinces,!  at  length  summoned  together  all  his  means  and  re- 
TOfM*  sources  for  one  decisive  effort.  Encountering,  at  the  foot  of  the  Ardagh  moun- 
tains,  the  united  armies  of  Connaught  and  Leinstcr,  under  the  command  of  Tur- 
lough, he  there  sustained  a  complete  and  irretrievable  overthrow;!  in  consequence  of 
which,  despairing  of  all  farther  chance  of  success,  he,  in  the  following  year,  surrendered 
the  kingdom  of  Munster  to  his  victorious  nephew,  and,  in  the  hope  of  atoning  for  his  sins 
by  penitence  and  prayer,  set  out  on  a  pilgrimagre  to  Rome.  There,  entering  into  the 
monastery  of  St.  Stcplien,  he  died  in  the  year  1064,  with  the  reputation,  as  it  appears, 
of  having  been  a  very  sincere  penitent.^ 

According  to  some  writers,  this  royal  pilgrim  took  away  with  him  to  Rome  the  crown 
of  Ireland  and  laid  it  at  the  feet  of  the  pope;  and  it  is  certain  that  instances  were  by  no 
means  uncommon  of  princes  laying,  in  those  tinjes,  their  crowns  and  kingdoms  at  the 
feet  of  the  popes,  and  receiving  them  back  as  fiefs  of  the  Holy  See.  But,  besides  that  in 
none  of  our  authentic  annals  is  any  mention  made  of  such  an  act  of  Donchad,  it  does 
not  appear  how  the  crown  of  Ireland  could  have  been  disposed  of  by  him,  having  never, 
in  fact,  been  in  his  possession  ;||  and  his  own  crown  of  Munster  he  had,  previously  to  his 
departure,  transferred  to  his  nephew's  brow.  The  tale  was  most  probably,  therefore, 
invented  in  after  times,  either  for  the  purpose  of  lending  a  colour  to  the  right  assumed 
by  pope  Adrian  of  bestowing  the  sovereignty  of  Ireland  upon  Henry  II.,  or,  at  a  still  later 
period,  for  the  very  different  purpose  of  furnishing  Irishmen  with  the  not  inconvenient 
argument,  that,  if  former  popes  possessed  the  power  of  bestowing  on  the  English  the  right 
of  sovereignty  over  Ireland,  there  ap|)eared  no  reason  whatever  why  future  popes  should 
not  give  back  the  dominion  to  its  first  rightful  owners. 

By  his  second  marriage,  Donchad  had  become  connected  with  the  family  and,  in  some 
degree,  fortunes  of  the  great  English  Earl  Godwin,  having  married  Driella,  the  daughter 
of  that  statesman,  and  sister  of  Harold,  afterwards  King  of  England.  During  the  re- 
bellion of  Godwin  and  his  sons  against  Edward  the  Confessor,  Harold,  being  compelled 
to  take  refuge  in  Ireland,  remained  in  that  country,  says  the  Saxon  Chronicle  "  all  the 
winter  on  the  King's  security  ;"ir  and  in  the  following  year,  having  been  furnished  by 
Donchad  with  a  squadron  of  nine  ships,  he  proceeded  on  a  predatory  expedition  along 
the  southern  coast  of  England. 

Whatever  may  have  been  thought  of  the  quality  of  this  king's  legislation,  the  fault  of 
being  deficient  in  quantity  could  not,  assuredly,  be  objected  to  it,  as  we  are  told  that,  in 
the  course  of  his  reign,  there  were  more  taxes  raised,  and  more  ordinances  issued,  than 
.during  the  whole  interval  that  had  elapsed  from  the  time  of  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick.** 
A  cystom  encouraged,  if  not  introduced,  by  Donchad,  was  that  of  celebrating  games, 
.or  athletic  sports,  on  the  sabbath  day; — the  caestus,  or  gloves,  used  by  the  pugilists, 
at  these  games,  being  distributed,  it  is  said,  in  the  king's  own  mansion. ft 

On  the  abdication  of  the  crown  of  Munster,  by  Donchad,  his  nephew  Turlough  became 

*  InisfaU.  ad  an.  1053,  1054.  t  Inisfall.  IV  Mag.  ad  an.  1058. 

t  Tigeinach,  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  10G3.  §  Ibid,  ad  an.  1064. 

II  Whether  the  kings  of  Ireland  wore  any  sort  of  crown  whatever,  has  been  &  matter  of  doubt  with  anti- 
quarians. In  tlie  preface  to  Keating's  liistor.v  there  is  an  account  given  of  a  golden  cap,  supposed  to  be  a 
provincial  crown,  which  was  found  in  the  year  1(592,  in  the  county  of  Tipperary.  "  This  cap,  or  crown,"  it 
is  said,  "  weighs  about  five  ounces;  the  border  and  the  head  is  raised  in  chase-work,  and  it  seems  to  bear 
some  resemblance  to  the  close  crown  of  the  eastern  empire,  which  was  composed  of  the  helmet  together  with 
the  diadem,  as  the  learned  Selden  observes  in  his  Titles  of  Honour."— i/i.«(.  of  Ireland,  Preface  by  the  Trans- 
lator.    A  representation  of  this  crown  is  given  in  Ware's  Aiitiq.  Plate  I.  No.  2. 

IT  Ad  ann.  1051. 

**  Inisfall.  (Cod  Bodleian)  ad  an.  1023  (sriE  com.  1040.) 

tt  Ibid.  According  to  the  version  of  Gratianus  Lucius,  a  very  different  meaning  is  here  to  be  attributed 
to  the  annalist,  whom  he  represents  as  asserting  that  Donchad  was  a  most  religious  observer  of  the  sabbath, 
and  forbade  that  any  one  should  carry  burdens,  or  hold  hunting-matches  or  fairs  on  that  day.  "  Dii  Domi- 
nica; religiosissimus  cultor  vetuit  onera  diebus  Doininicis  vehi,  aut  nundinas  venatioriesve  fieri."  Instead 
of  asserting,  too,  that  "  more  laws"  had  been  passed  in  that  reign  than  during  the  whole  interval  from  the 
time  nf  St.  Patrick,  tlie  annalist  is  made  to  say,  "  better  laws  "— "  Annales  iidem  (Inisfallenses)  leges  ab  eo 
latas  fuisse  narrant  quibus  pares  a  S.  Patricii  diebus,  in  Ilibernia  non  ferebantur."  On  referring  to  the 
original,  the  Irish  scholar  will,  I  rather  think,  pronounce  the  version  which  I  have  above  adopted  to  be  the 
most  correct.  O'llalloran,  who,  it  is  clear,  had  not  consulted  the  original,  follows  Lynch's  interpretation. 
"  Several  severe  laws,"  lie  says,  "  were  passed  by  Donchad  against  robbers,  murderers,  and  profaners  of  the 
sabbath." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  223 

his  successor ;  and  this  prince  is,  by  most  of  the  authorities  on  the  subject  allowed  to  take 
rank  among  Ireland's  nominal  monarclis  ;*  though  some,  who  consider  his  claims  as 
inferior  to  those  of  his  ally  and  kinsman,  Dermot,  king  of  Leinster,  scrupulously  with- 
hold from  him,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  latter,  the  full  title  of  monarch.f  So  unfixed 
and  arbitrary,  indeed,  are  the  grounds  upon  which  this  merely  titular  honour  is  awarded, 
that  frequently  the  preference  felt  for  any  particular  candidate,  by  the  writer  who  treats 
on  the  subject,  suffices  for  his  decision  of  the  question  ;  and  accordingly  while  some  per- 
ceive in  the  achievements  of  Donchad  and  Dermot  sufficient  grounds  for  their  enrolment 
among  Ireland's  monarchs,  others  exclude  these  same  princes  from  that  dignity  altogether. 
If  a  generous  sacrifice  of  his  own  interests  to  those  of  others  might  be  taken  into  account 
among  Dermot's  titles  to  supremacy,  his  claims  would  be  of  no  common  order ;  as  the 
liberal  aid  he,  from  the  first,  proffered  to  the  young  Turlough,  enabling  him  to  assert  and 
obtain  his  birthriglit,  lends  a  moral  dignity  to  his  character,  far  surpassing  any  that  mere 
rank  could  bestow,  tnd  justifying,  in  a  great  degree,  the  eulogy  bestowed  upon  him  by 
the  Welsh  chronicler,  Caradoc,  who  pronunces  him  to  have  been  "  the  best  and  worthiest 
prince  that  ever  reigned  in  Ireland.''^ 

On  the  death  of  Dermot,^  who  was  killed  in  the  battle  of  Obdha,  in  Meath,  there  ^   ^ 
remained  no  competitor  to  dispute  the  supremacy  with  Turlough,  who,  taking  the  •j^q-'2'_ 
field  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  was  acknowledged  with  homage  wherever  he  directed 
his  march.     Proceeding  to  Dublin,  he  found  the  gates  of  that  city  thrown  open  to  receive 
him  ;  and  the  Danes,  together  with  their  king  Godfred,  placing  their  hands  in  his  hands,|l  as 
a  pledge  that  their  power  was  to  be  thenceforth  employed  as  his  own,  acknowledged  him 
for^their  liege  lord  and  sovereign.     The  same  forms  of  submission  were  complied  with  by 
the  kings  of  JMeath  and  of  Ossory,  as  well  as  by  the  princes  of  the  province  of  Connaught ; 
all  delivering  to  him  hostages  and  acknowledging  his  sovereignty  over  their  respective 
states. 

In  his  incursion  into  Ulster  he  appears  to  have  been  not  equally  successful,  having 
returned  from  thence  without  hostages  or  plunder,  and  with  the  loss,  it  is  added,  of  a 
part  of  his  army.  He  succeeded  soon  after,  however,  in  detiironing  Godfred,  king  of  the 
Dublin  Danes,  and,  having  banished  him  beyond  seas,  appointed  his  own  son,  Murkertach, 
to  be  king  over  that  people.lf  From  the  frequent  intermarriage**  that  took  place  between 
these  foreigners  and  the  natives,  the  decendants  of  the  original  Northmen  had  become, 
at  this  period,  a  mixed  race ;  and  accordingly,  early  in  the  present  century,  we  find  the 
inhabitants  of  Dublin  called  by  Tigernach  Gall-Gedel,  or  Dano-Irish.ff 

The  reduction,  indeed,  of  the  Danes  of  Dublin,  the  last  remaining  hold  of  the  Northmen's 
power,  had,  to  a  great  extent,  been  effected  some  years  before  the  period  where  we  have 
now  arrived,!};  and,  in  the  person  of  Murchad,  theson  of  the  gallant  Dermot,  was  witnessed 
the  first  Irish  kingof  the  Danes.  In  the  year  1070,  this  prince  died  ;55  and,  after  an  inter- 
val of  a  few  years,  during  which  the  Northmen  appear  to  have  recovered  the  dominion 
of  that  city,  the  monarch  Turlough,  as  we  have  just  seen,  expelled  the  prince  of  their 
choice,  and  appointed  his  own  son  Murkertach  in  his  place. 

To  dwell  in  detail  on  the  remaining  events  of  this  prince's  reign,  would  be  but  to  re- 
peat, and  with  little  variation  even  of  phrase,  the  same  meager  accounts  of  pitched 
battles,  predatory  inroads,  and  exactions  of  tribute,  which  form  the  sole  material  of  history 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  these  monarchs'  reigns.  Thougii  unsuccessful,  at  first,  in 
Ulster,  he  at  length  compelled  that  province  also  to  acknowledge  vassalage,  as  well  as 
every  other  part  of  the  kingdom,  and  received  from  Eochad,  king  of  Ulster,  as  his  tribute, 
1000  head  of  cattle,  40  ounces  of  gold,  and  120  party-coloured  mantles.|||l  It  is  mentioned, 
to  the  honour  of  our  Irish  oak,  though  with  what  truth  there  are  not  any  means  of  ascer- 

*  "  Tordelachum  aiitem  Tliadsi  filium,  B.  Borumhii  nepotem,  nemo  in  regum  Hiberniffi  numero  non  coUo- 
cat." — Gratianus  Lucius. 

t  Thus  OHalloran  :— "  On  his  (Dermot's)  death,  Turlough  certainly  was  the  most  potent  prince  in  Ireland, 
and  had  the  fairest  claim  to  the  title  of  nominal  monarch."— Vol   iii.c.  3. 

I  •'  Dermitiura  Maken-Anel,  dignissimum  et  optimum  principera  qui  unquam  in  Hibernia  regnavit." 
This  chronicler  assigns  his  death  to  about  IU68 ;  but  Tigernach,  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen,  and  the  Four  Mas- 
ters, place  it  at  1072. 

§  Tigernach  and  IV.  Mag. 

I  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1073.  U  Ibid.  1075. 

**  One  of  the  most  distinguished  instances  of  this  sort  of  intermarriage  is  found  in  the  family  of  the  great 
Brian  Boru,  whose  third  wife  had,  previously  to  her  marriage  with  him,  been  the  wife  of  a  Danish  prince; 
and  was,  by  this  double  union,  mother  to  Sitric,  King  of  Dublin,  as  well  as  to  the  Irish  monarch,  Donchad. 
See  Tigernach,  ad  an.  1030,  the  year  in  which  this  princess  died. 

tt  Ad  an   1034. 

\l  This  decided  advantage  over  the  remaining  power  of  the  Dublin  Danes  may  be  dated  from  the  year  lU-'. 
when  Aniaf,  son  of  Sitric,  then  King  of  the  Danes,  was  made  prisoner  by  O'Regan,  Prince  of  Bregia,  and 
forced  to  redeem  himself  at  an  enormous  sacrifice  both  of  wealth  and  of  power.     Annal.  Ult.  ad  an.  1029. 

§§  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1070.    These  annals  call  him  prince  of  the  Gals  (or  Strangers,)  and  of  the  Lagenians. 

If  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1062. 


224  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

taining,  that  a  Bhort  time  before  Turlough's  death,  William  Rufus,  who  was  then  on  the 
throne  of  England,  sent  to  request  that  he  would  furnish  him  with  timber  from  the  Irish 
forests  for  the  roof  of  the  palace  he  was  then  erecting  at  Westminster.* 

After  a  severe  and  lingering  illness,  brought  on  by  a  fright,  attended  with  circum- 
stances so  marvellous,  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to  detail  them  with  due  historic  gravity ,f 
Turlough,  whose  sway  was  acknowledged  through  the  greater  part  of  Ireland,  died  at 
Kincora,  the  royal  palace  of  the  O'Brians,  in  the  month  of  July,  1086,  in  the  77lh  year  of 
his  age,  and  the22d  of  his  reign,  Oflhis  prince,  as  well  asof  most  of  the  other  pretenders  to 
the  monarchy,  our  means  of  knowledge  are  far  too  scanty  and  uncertain  to  admit  of  our 
forming,  even  conjeclurally,  any  estimate  of  his  character.  Those  lights  and  openings 
by  which  the  historian  gains  an  insight  into  royal  councils,  are  of  course  not  to  be 
looked  for  in  such  times ;  but  even  of  ordinary  public  events,  there  occurs,  with  the  ex- 
ception always  of  battles  and  deaths,  so  rare  a  sprinkling  throughout  our  annals,  that  the 
reign  of  Turlough,  for  instance,  which  extended  through  a  period  of  two  and  twenty 
years,  supplies  not  a  fact  from  which  the  character  of  the  man  himself  can  be  judged,  or  a 
single  glimpse  into  the  interior  of  his  domestic  life  obtained. 

In  this  dearth  of  all  native  testimony  on  such  points,  there  is  extant  a  foreign  tribute 
to  his  character,  in  no  ordinary  degree  flattering,  being  a  letter  addressed  to  him  person- 
ally by  the  learned  Lanfranc,|  then  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  wherein  some  charges 
brought  by  that  prelate  against  the  church  of  Ireland,  accusing  it  of  laxity  of  discipline, 
and  uncanonical  practices,  are  prefaced  by  expressions  of  the  warmest  eulogy  upon  the 
monarch  Turlouoh  himself  "  Tliat  God  was  mercifully  disposed  towards  the  people  of 
Ireland,"  says  the  archbishop,  "  when  he  gave  to  your  excellency  royal  power  over  that 
land,  every  intelligent  observer  must  perceive.  For,  so  much  hath  my  brother  and 
fellow-bishop  Patrick  reported  to  me,  concerning  your  pious  humility  towards  the  good, 
your  severe  justice  on  the  wicked,  and  the  discreet  equity  of  your  dealings  with  all  man- 
kind, that,  though  it  has  never  been  my  good  fortune  to  see  you,  I  yet  love  you  as  if  I 
had." 

This  letter  of  Lanfranc  is  addressed  "  To  the  magnificent  king  of  Hibernia,  Tirdel- 
vac  ;"  and  though,  at  home,  Turlough's  claim  to  tlie  title  of  monarch  was  in  some 
quarters  opposed,  the  fact  of  its  recognition  in  other  countries  may  be  concluded,  not 
only  from  this  letter  of  the  English  primate,  but  also  from  another  addressed  to  him,  a 
few  years  after,  by  Gregory  VII.,^  in  which  he  is  styled,  "The  illustrious  king  of 
Ireland."  There  is  yet  a  farther  tribute  to  his  rank  and  fame  to  be  found  in  the  depu- 
tation sent  to  him  from  the  nobles  of  Man  and  the  other  Isles,  requesting  that  he  would 
send  them  some  member  of  his  family  to  be  their  ruler  until  the  young  heir  of  the  crown 
of  Man  should  come  of  age.  Turlough  comnlied,  it  is  added,  with  their  request,  and 
sent  a  prince  of  the  blood-royal  of  Ireland,  to  be  their  regent.||  As  a  slight,  but  addi- 
tional proof  of  his  rank  in  Ireland  having  been  known  and  recognised  in  other  countries, 
we  find  mention  of  the  arrival  of  five  Jews,  from  some  part  of  the  continent,  bearing 

*  Hanmer: — "  The  fair  green,  or  Commune  (says  Hanmer.)  now  called  Ostmontowne  Greene,  was  all  wood> 
and  hee  that  diggeth  at  this  day  to  any  depth,  shall  finde  the  ground  full  of  great  rootes.  From  thence,  anno 
1098,  King  William  Rufus,  by  license  of  Murchard,  had  that  frame  which  made  up  the  roofe  of  Westminster 
Hall,  where  no  English  fpidt^r  webbeth  or  breedeth  to  this  day." — Chronicle  of  Irelavd. 

t  It  appears  that,  some  years  before  (1073.)  when  Connor  O'Melachlan,  King  of  Meath,  had  been  murdered, 
the  monarch,  Turlough,  who  had  borne  this  prince  a  most  deadly  aversion,  carried  off  forcibly  the  head  of 
his  corpse  from  the  abbey  of  Clonmacnois  on  a  Good  Friday,  and  had  it  buried  near  his  own  palace  of  Kin- 
kora.  On  the  following  Sunday,  however,  "  through  a  miracle,  as  we  are  told,  of  God  and  St.  Ciaran,"  the 
head  was  found  again  in  its  tomb  at  Clonmacnois,  with  two  collars  of  gold  around  the  neck.  But  the  chief 
cause  of  the  monarch's  alarm  was,  that,  on  his  taking  up  the  skull  in  liis  hand  to  examine  it,  there  jumped 
a  small  mouse  suddenly  out  of  it  into  his  bosom.  Of  the  fright  this  incident  gave  hmi,  he  never  after,  say 
the  Four  Masters,  recovered. 

I  Vet.  Epist.  Hibcrnic.  Sylloge.  Ep.  28.  What  Lanfranc  complains  of  in  this  letter  is,  I.  That  in  Turlough's 
kingdom  men  quit,  without  any  canonical  cause,  their  rightful  wives,  and  take  others,  without  any  regard 
to  the  prohibited  degrees  of  consanguinity  ;  marrying  sometimes  even  women  that  had  been  in  like  manner 
deserted  by  their  husbands.  2.  That  bishops  were  consecrated  by  one  bishop.  3.  That  infants  were  baptised 
without  consecrated  chrism.  4.  That  holy  orders  were  given  by  bishops  for  money.  Of  these  charges,  the 
first  and  fourth  are  the  only  ones  of  real  importance;  the  two  others  relating  but  to  points  of  discipline,  and 
admitting  easily  of  explanation  and  defence,  as  the  reader  will  find  on  referring  to  Lanigan,  Ecclcs.  Hist.  c. 
xxiv.  §  12. 

§  Sylloge,  Epist.  20.  Thus  headed: — "Gregorius  Episcopus,  servus  servorum  D.?i ;  Terdelvacho  inclyto  Regi 
Hibernia!,  Archiepiscopis,  episcopis,"  &c.  "This  letter  is  much  in  the  style  (says  Dr.  Lanigan)  of  several 
others  which  Gregory  wrote  to  various  kings,  princes,  &c.,  for  the  purpose  of  claiming  not  only  a  spiritual, 
but  likewise  a  temporal  and  political  superiority  over  all  the  kingdoms  and  principalities  of  Europe."— Lani- 
gan, Eccles.  Hist.  c.  xxiv.  §  14.  The  pope  more  than  insinuates,  in  this  letter,  his  double  claim  over  Ireland; 
and  concludes  by  saying,—  '  Si  qua  vero  negotia  penes  vos  emerserint,  quie  nostro  digna  videantur  auxilio, 
incunctanter  ad  nos  dirigere  studete:  et  quod  juste  postulaveritis,  deo  auxiliante,  impetrabis." 

II  Chronic.  Manni.-p,  ad  an.  1075.  This  application  is  stated  by  the  chronicler  to  have  been  addressed  to 
Murkertach,  the  successor  of  Turlough  ;  but  the  date  alone  proves  the  event  to  have  occurred  during  the  reign 
oflhis  latter  prince. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  225 

valuable  presents  for  Turlougli,  as  the  reigning  king  of  the  country.  From  some  repug- 
nance, however,  on  the  part  of  the  monarch,  to  an  offering  of  gifts  from  such  hands,  these 
Jews,  with  their  presents,  were,  by  his  order,  dismissed  from  the  kingdom.* 

The. hospitality,  however,  of  the  nation  to  strangers  was,  more  than  once,  experienced 
in  the  course  of  his  reign,  by  some  fugitive  Welsh  princes  who  sought  for  refuge  on  these 
shores.  One  of  these,  Gryffyth  ap  Conan,  was,  by  the  aid  of  the  princes  of  Ulster, 
restored  to  his  dominions  ;  and  there  seems  to  break  upon  us,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  gloom 
and  barbarism,  a  refreshing  gleam  of  civilized  life,  when  informed  that  Gryffyth,  on  his 
return  to  Wales,  was  accompanied,  by  a  number  of  Irish  bards  and  harpers,  whom  he  had 
selected  for  the  purpose  of  improving  the  taste  of  his  countrymen  in  music.f 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


Munster  divided  between  the  three  sons  of  Turlough. — Contest  between  Murkertacli  and 
Dermod  for  that  throne. — Dermod  assisted  by  O'Lochlin,  prince  of  Alichia. — O'Lochlin 
competitor  with  Murkertach  for  the  sovereignty. — Interposition  of  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities.— Grant  of  the  city  of  Cashel  to  the  church. — Invasion  of  Ulster. — Destruction  of 
the  palace  of  the  princes  of  Alichia. — Ireland  threatened  with  invasion  by  Godred  Crovan. 
— Descent  of  Magnus  on  her  shores. — Marriage  of  his  son  with  Murkertach's  daughter. — 
Defeat  and  deatli  of  Magnus. — Arnulf  de  Montgomery  assisted  by  Murkertach  in  his  rebel- 
lion against  Henry  I. — Marries  a  daughter  of  Murkertach, — Attack  and  defeat  of  O'Lochlin' 
— Death  of  Murkertach. — Affairs  of  the  church. — Bishops  of  the  Danish  sees  in  Ireland 
consecrated  by  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury. — Correspondence  of  the  Irish  kings  with  the 
two  prelates,  Lanfranc  and  Anselm. — St.  Bernard's  gloomy  picture  of  the  state  of  Ireland. 
— Synod  held  at  Fiodh-iEngusa. — Synod  of  Rath-Breasail  for  the  regulation  of  the  Dioceses. 

On  the  death  of  Turlough,  the  kingdom  of  Munster  was  divided  equally  between  his 
three  sons,  Teige,  Murkertach,  and  Dermot.     But,  in  the  course  of  the  same  year,  the 
eldest,  Teige,  having  died  "  in  the  bed,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  of  his  father,^  atKincora," 
Murkertach  banished  his  brother  Dermot  into  Connaught,  and  took  sole  possession 
of  the  throne.^     Between  these  two  brothers  some  years  of  fierce  and  obstinate  -j^o^* 
contention  ensued;  the  younger,  Dermot,  being  aided  in  the  struggle  by  the  kings  •'■^°"' 
of  the  other  three  provinces,  whom  Murkertach's  pretensions  to  the  supreme  sovereignty 
had  provoked  thus  to  coalesce  against  him.     Among  these  opponents  of  the  new  king  of 
Munster,  by  far  the  most  formidable  in  strength  of  title  as  well  as  of  sword,  was  Domnal 
M'Lochlin,  prince  of  Alichia,  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  royal  Hy-Niell  line,  and 
therefore  entitled,  by  a  right  transmitted  through  a  long  race  of  monarchs.     In  opposition 
to  this  plea  of  prescription,  Murkertach  stood  forward  on  the  grounds  of  the  new  consti- 
tution or  order  of  things,  by  which  a  right  so  long,  and,  as  he  maintained,  unjustly  with- 
held, had  been  thrown  open  to  the  provincial  princes. 

Whatever  was  the  weight  in  reality  attached,  by  either  of  these  contending  parties 
to  the  important  principles  involved  in  their  respective  claims,  the  field  of  battle  was,  as 
usual,  the  tribunal  to  which  both  resorted  eagerly  for  the  decision  of  them.     Under 
the  pretence  of  assisting  Dermot  to  recover  his  hereditary  rights,  M'Lochlin,  chief  ^A^A 
of  the  Hy-Niells,  took  the  field,  in  the  year  1088,  and,  joined  by  the  troops  of  the 
king  of  Connaught,   whom  he  had  compelled  to  render  him  homage,  invaded  Munster 
with  their  united  force.     The  burning  of  Limerick,  the  spoliation  and  waste  of  the  fertile 
plain  of  Munster,  "  as  far,"  it  is  stated,  "as  Imleach-Ibar,  the  castle  of  Ached  and  Loch 

*  Inisfall.  ad  an.  1078. 

t  "  Even  so  late  as  the  eleventh  century  the  practice  continued  among  the  Welsh  bards,  of  receiving  in- 
struction in  the  bardic  prolession  from  Ireland.  In  1078,  Gryffyth  ap  Conan  brought  over  with  him  from 
Ireland  many  Irish  bards  for  the  information  and  improvement  of  the  Welsh."— IVarton's  History  of  English 
Poetry. 

i  Inisfall.  (Cod.  Bodleian.)  ad  an.  1069  (a-rs  com.  1086  )  5  Ibid. 

28 


226  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Gar,"*  and  finally  the  utter  destruction  of  Kincora,t  the  palace  of  the  Momonian  kings, 
were  among  the  first  and  chief  results  of  this  invasion.  Nor  was  Murkertach  slow  in 
retaliating  the  aggression;  but,  sailing  with  a  numerous  fleet  of  boats  up  the  Shannon, 
he  proceeded,  in  wanton  imitation  of  the  heathen  warfare  of  the  Danes,  to  despoil  all  the 
churches  upon  the  isles  and  along  the  shores  of  the  lakes.f  Then,  carrying  his  arms 
also  into  Leinster,  and  making  himself  master  of  that  province  and  of  Dublin,  he,  for  the 
second  time,  supplanted  Godfred  in  the  government  of  the  city,  and,  compelling  him  to 
fly  from  the  kingdom,  took  upon  himself  the  joint  sovereignty  of  Leinster  and  Dublin. 

As  it  soon  became  manifest  that,  between  two  such  active  competitors,  so  nearly 
balanced  in  territorial  power,  military  talents,  and  resources,  there  was  but  little  chance 
of  a  speedy  termination  of  the  contest,  measures  were  taken  for  an  amicable 
W)()  3i*'"^"g«^r"e"t  of  their  differences,  and  a  convention  was  held  by  them  on  the  banks 
■  of  Lough  Neagh,^  near  a  spot  venerable  as  the  site  of  an  ancient  Druidic  monu- 
ment, where  the  two  princes,  pledging  themselves  by  most  solemn  oaths  "  upon  the 
relics  of  the  saints  of  Erin,"  and  "  by  the  crosier  of  St.  Patrick,"  agreed  to  divide  the 
kingdom  of  Ireland  between  them ; — the  southern  half,  or  Leath  Mogh,  to  remain  under 
the  dominion  of  Murkertach,  and  the  northern,  or  Leath  Cuinn,  to  be  subject  to  the 
power  of  O'Lochlin.  Besides  the  two  contracting  parties  themselves,  there  were  also 
present  at  this  meeting  Maoleachlan,  prince  of  Meath,  and  Roderic  O'Connor,  king  of 
Connaught ;  and  it  is  stated,  as  bearing  on  the  question  of  supremacy,  then  at  issue,  that 
to  O'Lochlin  all  the  other  princes  present,  including  Murkertach  himself,  delivered  host- 
ages in  token  of  fealty  and  submission. 1|  Whatever  conclusions,  however,  may  have  been 
drawn  from  this  liomage,  as  recognising  in  the  blood  of  the  Tyrone  Hy-Niells  a  para- 
mount claim  to  the  sovereignty,  will  be  found  to  be  neutralized  by  a  similar  concession, 
on  the  part  of  O'Lochlin,  in  the  course  of  the  very  same  year,  when  the  two  rivals,  not- 
withstanding their  late  solemn  pledges  of  peace,  having  come  again  into  collision,  the 
fiat  of  fortune  was  pronounced  in  favour  of  Murkertach,  and  the  head  of  the  Hy-Niells 
was  forced,  in  his  turn,  to  proffer  fealty  and  deliver  hostages.lT 

Not  to  pursue  any  farther  the  details,  as  monotonous  as  they  are  revolting,  of  the  long 
and  fierce  struggle  between  these  ambitious  rivals,  suffice  it  to  say  that  the  contest  was 
continued  by  them,  with  equal  fury  and  the  like  ebb  and  flow  of  success,  through  the 
next  eight  and  twenty  years;  arid  that  while  they,  in  their  more  exalted  regions  of 
power,  were  thus  dealing  havoc  around  them,  all  the  minor  dynasts  of  the  land  each  in 
his  own  little  orbit  of  misrule,  was  pursuing  a  similar  career  of  discord  and  devastation, 
making  the  whole  course  of  afl^aira  throughout  the  country  one  constant  succession  of 
blood  and  rapine,  such  as,  even  in  the  dry,  uncoloured  records  of  the  annalist,  it  is  suffi- 
ciently heart-sickening  to  contemplate ; — if,  indeed,  the  recital  be  not  rendered  more 
shocking  by  that  tone  of  cool  and  official  statement,  in  which  such  horrors  are,  as  mere 
matters  of  course,  commemorated  and  chronicled. 

in  the  midst  of  this  constant  storm  of  warfare,  the  Church,  though  herself  but  too  much 

infected  with  the  same  combative  spirit,  presented  also,  from  time  to  time,  the  only  check, 

or  breakwater,  by  which  the  onset  of  regal  violence  could  be  moderated  or  turned  aside. 

One  of  tlie  occasions  of  this  sort  of  interference  occurred  in  the  year  1099,  when 

inqq'  Murkertach,  having  with  a  large  and  threatening  force  marched  into  Ulster,  was 

met,  near  the  mountain  Fuad,  by  the  Hy-Niell,  at  the  head  of  his  Ultonians,  and 

the  two  armies,  front  to  front,  were  waiting  for  the  signal  to  engage,  when  the  primate 

of  Armagh,  interposing  between  them,  succeeded  by  his  remonstrances  in  preventing  an 

appeal  to  arms.**  In  several  other  instances  where  these  two  kings  were,  in  like  manner, 

on  the  point  of  commencing  a  combat,  the  meditation  of  the  vicar  of  St.  Patrick  produced 

the  same  calming  effects;  and  the  truces  concluded  on  such  occasions  were  in  general 

intended  to  continue  in  force  for  a  year. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  temporal  power  attained  by  the  Church,  in  the 

*  TV.  Mag.  ad  ^n  10?8. 

t  The  name  of  tliis  celebrated  palace,  or  fortress,  is  spelled  indifferently  Kincor,),  Ceancora,  or  Cancora, 
and  its  site  is  thus  described  by  Seward,  Topograph  Hibern.  "  Cancora,  a  rath  or  castle,  near  Killaloe,  iu 
county  Clare,  province  of  Munster.  The  only  remains  now  visible  of  this  ancient  royal  palace  are  the  ram- 
parts and  fosse  of  the  rath." 

t  Mag.  ad  an.  1089. 

§  Inisfall.  (Cod.  Bodleian.)  ad  an   1074  (sera;  com.  1090.) 

II  IV.  Mag.  lOno.  "  En  itaqiie  (says  Dr.  O'Connor)  doniiniiim  O'Niallorum  Septentrionalum,  i.  e.  Tironen- 
siuni,  de  tota  Hibernia  jure  heredilario  a  principibus  Hibernis  recognitum  seculo  ximo,"  &c.  In  the  very 
next  page  to  this  boast  of  li^e  supremacy  of  the  Ily-Niells  is  recorded  She  submission  of  the  Hy-Niells  to  the 
blood  of  jFirian  in  their  turn. 

IT  IV  Mag.  1090. 

**  IV.  Mag.  ad  aii.  1099. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  227 

middle  ages,  conduced,  by  the  check  which  it  opposed  to  the  encroachments  of  kings,  to 
advance  considerably  the  cause  of  civil  and  political  liberty.*  But  in  Ireland,  where, 
owing  to  the  disorder  that  had  so  long  prevailed  as  well  as  to  the  decline  of  discipline 
and  dignity  in  the  Church  itself,  the  power  of  the  spiritual  arm  was  far  less  strong  than 
in  most  other  countries  of  Europe,  this  useful  barrier  against  the  self-willed  violence  of 
kings  and  dynasts  was  in  a  great  measure  wanting.  Frequently,  indeed,  even  tbose 
public  and  solemn  oaths  by  which,  under  the  very  eyes  of  their  spiritual  directors,  these 
warriors  pledged  themselves  to  preserve  peace  towards  each  other,  were,  on  the  first 
opportunity  of  conflict,  forgotten  and  violated. 

It  will  be  found  that  most  of  the  great  impulses  given  to  the  course  of  human  affairs, 
whether  for  good  or  for  evil,  have  been  the  direct  consequences  of  reaction  ;  and  the  usur- 
pation, in  those  times,  of  temporal  dominion  by  ecclesiastics,  was  but  a  counter-abuse  to 
that  of  the  numerous  lay  princes  and  nobles  who  had  been  so  long  intruding  themselves 
into  the  possessions  and  privileges  of  the  Church.  To  such  an  extent  did  this  latter  abuse 
prevail  in  Ireland  that  the  bishopric  of  Armagh,  the  great  primatial  see  of  the  kingdom, 
was  for  no  less  than  two  hundred  years  in  the  possession  of  one  powerful  family  ;  during 
a  great  part  of  which  period,  the  succession  passed  through  the  hands  of  lay  usurpers, 
who,  retaining  regular  bishops  to  act  for  them,  as  suffragans,  continued  to  enjoy  the 
church  livings  themselves.  Thus,  while  the  clergy  of  other  countries  were  ambitiously 
extending  the  range  of  their  jurisdiction,  and  aiming  at  honours  and  possessions  beyond 
their  due  sphere,  those  of  Ireland,  on  the  contrary,  lowered  from  their  true  station,  found 
themselves  despoiled  of  emoluments  and  dignities  legitimately  their  own  5  nor  was  it  till 
so  late  as  the  twelfth  century  that,  chiefly,  as  it  appears,  through  the  indignant  expostu- 
lation of  a  foreign  ecclesiastic,!  attention  was  drawn  to  this  gross  abuse,  and  the  succes- 
sion to  the  see  of  St.  Patrick  was  brought  back  into  a  pure  and  legitimate  channeL 

That  notwithstanding  all  this,  there,  must  still  have  been  preserved  among  the  people 
of  this  country — a  people  once  so  conspicuous  througliout  Europe  for  their  piety — -a 
strong  and  pervading  religious  feeling,  however  imbued  with  the  general  darkness  of  the 
times,  and  allowed  to  run  wild  for  want  of  culture  and  discipline,  is  sufficientiy  apparent 
on  the  very  face  of  onr  native  annals,  even  in  this  dim  and  agitated  period.  The  number 
of  pious  and,  according  to  the  standard  of  their  age,  learned  ecclesiastics  who  are  re- 
corded in  the  annals  of  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  centuries  as  passing  their  whole 
lives  in  works  of  devotion  and  charity,  among  the  ruins  of  once  flourishing  monasteries, 
could  not  but  cherish,  in  the  popular  mind,  a  fond  remembrance  of  the  early  saints  of  the 
land,  and  keep  alive,  like  the  small  spark  beneath  the  embers,  some  remains  of  the  faith 
of  better  days. 

It  is  also  to  be  considered  that,  though  but  too  many  of  the  native  princes  were  seen 
to  tread  in  the  steps  of  their  heathen  invaders,  and,  with  far  worse  than  heathen  rage,  to 
apply  the  torch  to  the  temples  of  their  own  worship,  there  were  among  the  monarchs  a 
few  who,  towards  the  close  of  their  tempestuous  careers,  sought,  in  the  humble  garb  of 
penitents,  the  sheltering  bosom  of  the  Church.  Among  the  warmest  promoters  of  ecclesi- 
astical interests  was  reckoned  the  monarch  JNIurkertach,  who,  in  the  year  1001,  having 
convoked  a  great  assembly  of  the  people  and  clergy,  made  over  by  solemn  donation  to  the 
Church,  that  seat  of  the  Momonian  kings,  the  city  of  Cashel,  dedicating  it  to  God  and 
St.  Patrick.t 

Soon  after  this  munificent  act  of  piety, — "such  an  offering,"  say  the  Four  Masters, 
"as  never  king  made  before,"— ^we  find  him,  with  the  inconsistency  but  too  often  abserv- 
able  in  the  acts  of  such  pious  heroes,  taking  revenge,  in  cold  blood,  upon  his  great  rival, 
O'  Lochlin,  for  the  destruction  of  Kincora  by  the  latter  near  twenty  years  before.  In- 
vading Ulster  with  a  large  force,  and  leading  his  troops  into  the  peninsula  of  Inisowen, 
where  stood  the  palace  of  the  royal  Hy-Niells,  called  Aileach,  or  the  Eagle's  Nest,§  he, 
in  bitter  remembrance  of  the  fate  of  Kincora,  razed  that  structure  to  the  ground,  and  de- 
vastated also  the  greater  number  of  the  churches  in  its  neighbourhood.  It  is  added  that  he 

*  See,  for  some  admirable  remarks  to  this  effect,  an  able  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  No.  52.  "  On 
the  Constitution  of  Parliament,"  written,  it  is  generally  supposed  by  Mr.  Allen. 

t  St.  Bernard. 

t  Inisfall.  ad  ann.  JOOl. 

§  This  celebrated  fortress,  of  which  remains  are  still  existin?,  was  situated  in  the  county  of  Donegal  on 
the  summit  of  a  small  mountain  which  rises  from  the  southern  shore  of  Lough  Swilly.  A  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  this  remarkable  historical  monument,  which  still  bears  the  name  of  the  Grianan  of  Aileach,  will  be 
found  in  the  Ordndnce  Survey  of  the  County  of  Londondetry.  The  result  of  the  inquiries  of  the  ingenious 
author  of  the  account  referred  to  is  as  follows: — "Be  this  as  it  may,  the  notices  of  Aileach  preserved  in  the 
authentic  annals,  and  historical  poems,  as  well  as  the  Lives  of  Saints  and  genealogical  tracts,  show  that  it 
was  the  seat  of  the  kings  of  the  northern  portion  of  Ireland,  as  Tara  was  of  the  southern,  from  a  period 
considerably  antecedent  to  the  introduction  of  Christianity  down  to  the  close  of  the  12th  century." 


228  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

gave  orders  to  his  soldiers  not  to  leave  in  the  palace  of  Aileach  a  single  missile  stone, 
but  to  carry  them  all  away  to  Limerick ;  in  reference  to  which  circumstance  a  distich 
of  those  times  is  cited,  saying,  "  Let  not  the  Congregations  of  Saints  hear  what  has 
reached  the  ears  of  the  Congregations  of  Warriors, — that  all  the  stones  of  Alichia  were 
heaped  on  the  packhorses  of  the  angry  king." 

During  the  period  comprised  in  the  reigns  of  Murkertach  and  his  predecessor,  Tur- 
lough,  Ireland  was  more  than  once  threatened  with  invasion  from  the  shores  of  Norway 
and  the  Isles,  and  under  leaders  whose  fame  for  prowess  had  inspired  a  general  terror  of 
their  arms.  One  of  these  chiefs,  named  Godred  Crovan,  said  to  have  been  the  son  of 
Harold  the  Black,  of  Iceland,*  succeeded  in  possessing  himself  of  Dublin  and  a  great 
part  of  Leinster;  having  also  previously  reduced  so  low  the  naval  power  of  the  British 
Scots,  that  no  shipbuilder  among  them  durst  use  more  than  three  bolts  in  the  construction 
of  any  vessel.f  It  seems  probable,  however,  that  this  Northman's  possession  of  his  con- 
quests in  Ireland  was  but  temporary,  and  that  the  notion  of  his  having  reigned  for  six- 
teen years  in  Dublin,  arose  from  a  confusion  between  him  and  a  Danish  ruler  of  Dublin, 
named  Godfred,  who  died  in  the  year  1075. 

The  other  assailant,  by  whom  for  a  time  this  country's  independence  seemed  to  be 
threatened,  was  the  powerful  Norwegian  king,  Magnus,  who  was  also  ruler  over  the 
Hebrides  and  the  Isle  of  Man ;  and  as  may  be  collected  from  Scandinavian  as  well  as 
from  Irish  authorities,  entertained  seriously  the  project  of  adding  Ireland  also  to  the  num- 
ber of  his  conquests.^  Tlie  marriage  of  his  son,  Sigurd,  whom  he  had  then  newly 
appointed  king  over  the  Isles,  with  the  daughter  of  the  Irish  monarch,  Murkertach, 
formed,  as  it  appears,  a  part  of  the  policy  by  which  he  hoped  to  effect  his  object;  and  this 
event,  according  to  the  northern  chroniclers,  took  place  some  time  in  the  years  1098  and 
1099,  while  the  Norwegian  king  was  wintering  in  the  Western  Isles.  According  to 
our  own  annals,  however,  it  was  not  till  a.  d.  1102,  that  this  prince  commenced  his 
operations  by  a  hostile  descent  upon  Dublin,  where  he  was  met,^  on  his  landing,  by  a  large 
army  of  the  natives;  but  no  action  thereupon  ensuing,  a  pacific  arrangement  was  forth- 
with entered  into,  in  consequence  of  which  Murkertach  bestowed  his  daughter's  hand  on 
the  son  of  Magnus,  presenting  him,  at  the  same  time,  with  many  rare  and  costly  gifts.  In 
the  following  year,  the  Irish  monarch  having  violated,  as  we  are  told,  his  engagements,!! 
Magnus,  with  a  fleet  of  fifteen  ships,  invaded  this  country;  but  being,  with  a  part  of  his 
force,  inveigled  into  an  ambuscade^by  the  natives,  he  was  attacked  by  them  in  great  num- 
bers, his  retreat  to  his  ships  cut  off,  and  himself  killed  in  the  action.  This  invader  was 
buried,  says  the  chronicler  of  Man,  in  the  church  of  St.  Patrick,  at  Down. 

The  desire  manifested  by  the  king  of  Norway  for  an  alliance  by  marriage  with  the 
family  of  Murkertach,  is  not  the  only  proof  we  possess  of  the  consideration  in  which  this 
monarch  was  held  by  contemporary  princes.  Not  to  dwell  on  the  alleged  application 
to  him  from  the  nobles  of  Man,  requesting  him  to  send  them  some  member  of  his  family 
to  be  their  ruler, — an  occurrence  which  in  reality,  as  we  have  shown,  took  place  in  the 
reign  of  his  predecessor,  Turlough, — it  is  certain  that,  at  the  time  of  the  rebellion  against 
Henry  the  I.  by  Robert  de  Belesme,  earl  of  Shrewsbury,  that  nobleman's  brother,  Arnulf 
de  Montgomery,  who  was  then  in  Wales  collecting  forces,  despatched  an  envoy  to  king 
Murkertach,  to  solicit  the  hand  of  his  daughter  in  marriage.H  By  such  a  request  was 
generally  understood,  in  those  times,  a  desire  for  military  as  well  as  matrimonial  alliance  ; 
and  Arnulf  himself  is  said  by  tlie  Welsjj  chroniclers  to  have  passed  over  to  Ireland,  for 
the  purpose  of  receiving  both  the  hand  of  the  lady,  and  the  aids  and  supplies  for  the 

*  Chronic.  Man.  ad  ann.  1047.  Langnbek  proposes  to  read  here  "  Harold  the  Black  of  Ireland,"  conceiving 
Godfred  to  have  heen  an  Irish  Dane  descended  from  that  Aniaf  who  was  defeated  hy  Athelstane,  at  the  hattle 
of  Brunanburgh.— See  his  Schema  .agnationis  to  this  effect.  As  a  farther  confirmation  of  this  supposition,  he 
finds  in  the  name  (.'rovan  a  similitude  to  many  of  our  Irish  names.  "  Ad  hax  cognomen  Crovan  idiotismum 
Hihernia;  prodere  videtur;  ibi  enim  homines  cognominatos  Concllan,  Callcan,  Brogan,  &c.  invenimus." 

t  By  Selden,  in  his  Mare  Clausum,  this  law,  respecting  the  construction  of  the  vessels,  is  explained,  aa 
merely  signifying  that  Crovan,  by  his  dominion  over  those  seas,  had  confined  within  certain  limits  the  naval 
power  of  the  Scots.  A  similar  explanation  of  the  passage  has  been  given  by  the  learned  Murray  of  Gotten- 
gen. — JVo«.  Comment.  OoUivg.,  torn.  iii.  p  2. 

I  "  Ann.  .-lb  Incarnat.  Dom.  1008.    Magnus  Olavi  Noricorum  reeis  Alius  contra  Irenses  insurrexit  et  clae- 

eem  LX  naviuni,  supra  illos  navigaturus,  prieparavit Hie  filiam  regis  Iilandro  uxoreni  duxerat.    Sed 

quia  rex  Irensis  paciiones  quas  fecerat  non  tenuerat,  Magnus  rex  stomachatus  filiam  ejus  remiserat.  Bellum 
igitur  inter  cos  ortiim  est."— Ordcric.  Vital.  The  chronicler  here,  as  Langebek  remarks,  has  mistakenly 
made  Magnus  himself  the  husband  of  the  Iiish  princess  instead  of  his  son  Sigurd.  The  Welsh  chronicler, 
Caradoc,  is  more  accurate.  "  Magnus,"  he  says,  "  returning  to  the  Isle  of  Man,  which  he  had  got  by  con- 
«fiiest,  built  there  three  castles,  and  then  sent  to  Ireland  to  have  the  daughter  of  Murckart  to  his  son,  which 
being  obtained,  ho  created  him  King  of  Man."— ./?</  ann.  1100. 

§  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.nO^>. 

II  Chroii.  Man. 

IT  "Arnulph,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  sent  Gerald,  his  steward,  to  Muickhart,  King  of  Ireland,  desiring  his 
daughter  iii  marriage,  which  was  easily  granted."— Cocat/oc,  ad  ann.  1100. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  229 

rebellion,  furnished  by  her  father.  Such  aid,  afforded  by  Murkertach  to  the  rebel  sub- 
jects of  Henry  I.,  would  seem  inconsistent  with  the  feelinijs  of  devotedness  towards  that 
monarch,  which  William  of  Malmesbury  attributes  to  the  Irish  king.*  This  historian 
owns,  it  is  true,  that  Murkertach  assumed,  for  a  short  time,  a  tone  of  defiance  against 
the  English;  but  adds  that,  when  threatened  with  restraints  upon  his  commerce  and 
navigation,  he  returned  to  his  former  state  of  composure:  "For  what,"  says  the  monk 
of  Malmesbury,  "could  Ireland  do,  if  the  merchandise  of  England  were  not  carried  to 
her  shores'!" — a  proof  that  the  intercourse  between  the  two  countries,  before  the  time 
of  the  English  invasion,  was  far  more  frequent  and  habitual  than  is  in  general  supposed. 

Among  the  circumstances  adduced  to  prove  the  friendly  terms  on  wiiich  he  stood  with 
neighbouring  princes  is  especially  recorded  the  gift  of  a  camel "  of  wonderful  magnitude," 
which  he  received  from  the  King  of  Albany.t 

A  few  years  after,  in  a  desperate  encounter  with  his  rival,  Mac-Lochlin,  on  the 
plains  of  Cobha,  in  Tyrone,  Murkertach  sustained  a  severe  defeat,  from  which  he  i*,*,^' 
seems  never  after  to  have  entirely  recovered  ;t — his  own  imprudence,'in  detaching 
a  portion  of  his  army  to  lay  waste  and  reduce  the  territory  then  called  Dalaradia,  having 
so  far  diminished  and  divided  his  force  as  to  enable  the  enemy  to  reap  an  easy  triumph. 
The  victorious  return  of  the  northern  Hy-Neills  to  their  royal  fortress,  carrying  away 
with  them  the  royal  pavilion  and  standards,  the  stores  of  pearls  and  other  precious  trea- 
sures, of  which  they  had  despoiled  the  Momonians,  is  dwelt  on  with  more  than  usual 
detail  by  the  annalists  of  Ulster,  and  the  Four  Masters;  wliile  in  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen, 
the  accustomed  partiality  to  the  cause  of  Munster  is  allowed  to  prevail,  and  tiie  rich 
display  of  spoils  by  her  conquerors  is  passed  over  in  sullen  silence. 

For  several  years  after  this  great  victory,  no  event  of  any  importance  is  recorded  of 
Murkertach  or  his  rival.  From  time  to  time  we  find  the  interposition  of  tiie  spiritual 
authority  called  in  to  prevent  them  from  breaking  out  into  actual  hostilities  ;5  and,  on 
more  than  one  occasion,  the  pious  and  able  Archbishop  Celsus  succeeded  in  averting  a 
conflict  between  them  when  brought  face  to  face,  at  the  head  of  their  respective  armies, 
in  the  field. 

In  the  year  1114,  Murkertach  was  seized  with  an  attack  of  illness  so  violent  as  to 
incapacitate  him,  for  the  time,  from  managing,  in  person,  the  affairs  of  his  kingdom  ;||  and 
a  chance  of  succession  was  thus  opened  to  his  ambitious  brother,  Dermot,  of  which  that 
prince  eagerly  took  advantage,  and  had  himself  proclaimed  king  of  Munster.  In  the 
following  year,  however,  an  amicable  understanding  appears  to  have  been  entered  into 
by  the  two  brothers;  and  the  monarch,  finding  his  malady  continue,  and  being  desirous 
of  passing  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  seclusion  and  devotion,  resigned  tlie  royal  autho- 
rity into  Dermot's  hands,  and  took  holy  orders  in  the  monastery  of  Lismore.  Tliere, 
after  two  or  three  years  of  humbling  penitence,  he  died  a.  d.  1119,  and  was  interred  in 
the  church  of  Killaloe,  to  which  he  had  been  always  a  munificent  benefactor.  His  war- 
like competitor  in  the  government  of  the  kingdom,  Domnal  Mac  Lochlin,  survived  him 
but  two  years,  devoting  also  his  last  days  to  devotion  and  penitence  in  the  monastery  of 
Derry. 

The  affairs  and  transactions  of  the  Church  during  the  long  period  comprised  in  this 
double  reign,  though  as  usual  mixed  up,  as  they  actually  occurred,  with  most  of  the 
secular  interests  and  passions  of  the  time,  I  have  thought  it  convenient,  for  the  sake  of 
clearness,  to  reserve  for  separate  consideration.  It  has  been  seen  that  though,  at  this 
period,  the  IN'orthmen  inhabiting  tiie  three  cities  of  Dublin,  VVaterford,  and  Limerick, 
looked  to  Canterbury  as  tiieir  primatial  see,  and  derived  from  thence  the  consecration  of 
their  bishops,  the  ancient  Church  of  the  kingdom  acknowledged  no  such  jurisdiction  ;  and 
that  though,  in  some  few  instances.  Irishmen  were  consecrated  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  they  were,  in  all  such  cases,  natives  who  had  been  appointed  bishops  by  the 
Danes,  and  whose  dioceses  were  situated  in  Danish  cities. IT 

*  "  Eum  (Murkertach)  et  successnres  ejus  quos  fania  non  extulit,  ita  devotos  hnbuit  noster  Henricus,  ut 
nihil  nisi  quod  cum  palparet  sciibcrent,  nihil  nisi  quod  juberent,  a£;erent.  Quamvis  feratur  Murcharduni, 
nescio  qua  de  causa,  paucis  diebus  inflatius  in  Anglos  egisse;  sed  mox  pro  interdicto  navigio  et  mercimonio 
navigantiuin,  tumorem  pectoris  sedasse —Quantum  enim  valeret  Ilibernia,  si  non  adnavigaret  inerces  ex 
Anglia?— Gu^.  Malmcsb.  de  Reg.  Aiigl.,  lib.  v. 

t  "  Amicitiam  quoque  cum  Albaniae  rege  coluit  a  quo  earaelum  '  mirse  magnitudinis'  dono  recepit."— 
Oratian.  Lucius. 

X  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1103. 

§  Once  in  1109  (IV.  Mag.,)  and  twice  in  the  course  of  1113.  lb. 

II  "  Tliat  illness  of  the  king,"  says  the  annalist  (Inisfall.,)  "was  the  cause  of  many  and  great  calamities, 
of  battles  and  deeds  of  guilt,  of  devastations  and  massacres,  of  violations  of  churches  and  of  the  sanctuaries 
of  the  saints  of  Erin  ;  and  all  these  evils  continued  as  long  as  that  malady  of  the  King  of  Erin  lasted." 

IT  la  remarking  on  an  assertion  of  Campion,  that  persons  appointed  to  sees  in  Ireland  were  always  directed 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  be  consecrated  by  him.  Usher  shows  that  such  was  not  the  case  with  the 
bisliops  of  all  Ireland;  this  practice  being  peculiar,  lie  says,  "  to  tlie  Ostman  strangers  that  possessed  the 


230  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

That  the  distinguished  prelates,  Lanfranc  and  Anselm,  who  held  in  succession  the  see 
of  Canterbury  during  this  period,  took  a  strong  interest  in  the  ecclesiastical  affairs  of 
Ireland,  appears  from  their  correspondence,  still  extant,  with  some  bishops  of  their  own 
ordination  in  this  country^  as  well  as  with  two  of  its  most  able  and  enterprising  sove- 
reio-ns,  Turlough  and  Murkertach.*  In  a  letter  from  Lanfranc  to  the  former  of  these 
princes,  of  which  some  notice  has  already  been  taken,  complaints  are  made  of  the  preva- 
lence, in  Ireland,  of  certain  abuses  and  uncanonical  practices,  some  of  them  relating 
merely  to  points  of  discipline,  but  others  more  serious  in  their  consequences,  as  affecting 
the  purity  and  strictness  of  the  matrimonial  tie.  For  the  purpose  of  correcting  these  abuses, 
the  primate  recommended  to  Turlough,  that  an  assembly  "  of  bishops  and  religious  men 
should  be  convoked,  at  which  the  king  and  his  nobles  would  attend)  and  assist  in  exter- 
minating from  the  country  these  and  all  other  bad  practices  which  were  condemned  by 
the  sacred  laws  of  the  Church. "f 

It  has  been  well  remarked  that  the  tone  of  this  letter  is  wholly  inconsistent  with  the 
notion  assumed  by  some  writers,  of  a  jurisdiction  vested  in  the  see  of  Canterbury  over 
the  concerns  of  the  Irish  church  ;|  as  here,  on  points  relating  not  merely  to  discipline, 
but  affecting  Christian  morals,  and  in  which,  therefore,  the  primate  was  more  than  ordi- 
narily interested,  he  uses  no  language  that  in  any  degree  savours  of  authority,  nor  issues 
any  orders  to  the  Irish  bishops  and  clergy  (as  would  have  been  his  duty,  had  he  conceived 
that  he  possessed  the  power)  to  assemble  and  act  upon  an  occasion  which  appeared  to 
him  of  such  great  and  pressing  importance. 

In  the  course  of  a  short  time,  tlie  two  other  Danish  cities,  Waterford  and  Limerick, 
became  also  episcopal  sees:  and  the  first  bishop  of  the  former  city,  whose  name  was 
Malchus,5  was  chosen  (as  appears  from  the  Letter  of  the  electors  to  Anselm)  by  the  fol- 
lowing personages, — the  King  Murkertach,  the  Bishop  of  Cashel,  Bishop  Domnald,  and 
the  Prince  Dermod,  or  "  duke,"  as  he  is  styled,  brother  of  the  king.  Notwithstanding 
that  Murkertach,  as  ruler  of  the  south  of  Ireland,  included  Waterford  among  his  subject 
territories,  the  wish  of  the  Danish  inhabitants  of  this  city  to  be  connected,  in  spirituals, 
with  the  Normans  of  England,  was,  in  the  case  of  Dublin,  complied  with ;  the  king 
himself,  as  has  just  been  stated,  joining  the  clergy  and  inhabitants  in  the  letter  addressed 
on  this  occasion  to  Anselm,  requesting  him  to  consecrate  their  new  bishop. 

To  this  practice,  followed  by  the  Danish  towns,  of  requiring  ordination  from  Canter- 
bury, the  city  of  Limerick  presents  an  exception,  in  the  instance  of  its  first  bishop,  Gil- 
libert; — this  zealous  prelate,  who  appears  to  have  been  an  Irishman, ||  having  been  already 
a  bishop  when  placed  over  Limerick.  From  letters,  still  extant,  which  passed  between 
him  and  Anselm,  we  learn  that  they  had  been  acquainted  with  each  other  at  Rouen  ;ir 
and  Giilibert,  in  writing  to  the  archbishop,  says,  "  I  send  you  as  a  little  token,  both  of 
my  poverty  and  affection,  twenty-five  small  pearls,**  the  best,  though  worthless,  that  I 

three  cities  of  Dublin,  Waterford,  and  Limerick.  For  these  being  a  colony  (continues  Usher)  of  the  Norwe- 
gians and  Livonians,  and  so  countrymen  to  the  Normans,  when  they  had  seen  England  subdued  by  the  Con- 
queror, and  Normans  advanced  to  the  chief  archbishopric  tliere,  would  needs  now  assume  to  themselves  the 
name  of  Normans  also,  and  cause  their  bishops  to  receive  their  consecrations  from  no  other  metropolitan  but 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury;  and  forasmuch  as  they  were  confined  within  the  walls  of  their  own  cities,  the 
bishops  which  they  had  made  liad  no  other  diocese  to  exercise  their  jurisdiction  in,  but  only  the  bare  circuit 
of  those  cities." — Discourse  on  the  Religion,  &c.  &c.  What  is  said  here  of  Normans  being  advanced  to  the 
chief  archbishoprics  is  not  altogether  true, — both  Lanfranc  and  Anselm  having  been  natives  of  Italy. 

*  In  Murkertach's  answer  to  Anselm  {Sylloff.,  epist.  37,)  he  returns  his  best  thanks  to  that  prelate  for  re- 
membering in  his  prayers  a  sinner  like  himself,  and  likewise  for  the  friendly  aid  and  intervention,  which 
(as  far  as  was  consistent  with  his  high  dignity)  he  had  afforded  to  Murkertach's  son  in-law,  Arnulf  de  Mont- 
gomery.— "Ciuam  niagnas  vobis  grates  (Doniine)  referre  debeo;  quod,  sicut  mihi  relatum  est,  memoriam  mei 
peccatoris  in  continuis  vestris  peragis  orationibus;  sed  et  genero  meo  Ernulfo  auxilio  et  interventione  (quan- 
tum fuerat  dignitati  vestra;  fas)  succurristi." 

t  "  Episcoposet  religiosos  quosque  viros  in  tinum  convenire  jubete,  sacro  eorum  conventui  pricsentiam 
vestram  cum  vestris  optimdlibus  exhibete,  has  pravas  consuetudine  omnesque  alias  qusfe  a  sacris  legibus  ini- 
probantur,  a  regno  veslro  exterminare  studete." — f^et.  Epist.  Hib.  Sylloge,  Epist.  27. 

X  Camden  is  one  of  the  writers  by  whom  this  mistaken  notion  is  sanctioned  : — "  Before  this  period,"  he 
says  (meaning  before  the  year  1142,)  "  the  bishops  of  Ireland  were  always  consecrated  by  the  archbishops  of 
Canterbury,  by  reason  of  their  primacy  in  that  kingdom."  He  then  enumerates  instances  of  such  consecra- 
tion, which,  however,  are  all  confined  to  the  Danish  cities. 

§  On  the  return  of  Malchus  from  England,  after  his  consecration,  he  and  the  Danes  of  Waterford  built  the 
Cathedral  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  now  called  Christ  Church. — "  See  Smith's  Hist,  of  Waterford,  chap.  4. 

II  Lanigan,  chap.  2.5.  §  9.  A  tract  written  by  Giilibert,  called  "  De  Statu  Ecclesiffi,"  and  giving  an  account 
of  a  painted  image  of  the  Church  which  he  had  made,  will  be  found  in  Usher's  Sylloge,  ep.  30.  Among  the 
various  utensils  lor  the  service  of  the  church,  wliich,  according  to  the  rules  laid  down  in  this  treatise,  were 
to  be  consecrated  by  liie  bishop,  is  mentioned  the  Judicial  Iron,  an  instrument  of  purgation,  or  trial,  the  use 
of  which  was  common  among  tiic  Sa.xons  and  Danes,  and  most  probably,  from  this  mention  of  it  by  Giilibert, 
prevailed  also  in  Ireland.  11).  ep.  31. 
•  IT  "  Ciuoniam  autem  olim  nos  apud  Rothomagum  invicem  cognovinius." — Sj/Wo^'.  ep.  32. 

**  "  Munusculum  paupertalis  mese  et  devotionis  transmitto,  xxv.  margaritujas  inter  optimas  et  viliores;  et 
rogo  ne  sitis  immeinor  mei  in  orationibus  vestris." — Of  the  pearls  found  in  the  lake  of  Killarney,  a  writer  in 
the  Philosophical  Transact,  (vol.  xvjii.)  says :— "  I  myself  saw  one  pearl  bought  for  50s.  that  waa  valued  at  40£. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  231 

could  procure,  and  I  entreat  of  you  not  to  be  unmindful  of  me  in  your  prayers,"  The 
archbishop,  in  his  answer  to  this  letter,  without  pointing  out  the  particular  abuses  of 
which  he  complains,  intimates  generally  a  no  less  unfavourable  opinion  of  the  Irish  church 
than  had  been  expressed  by  his  predecessor,  Lanfranc ;  and  presses  earnestly  on  his  bro- 
ther prelate,  the  duty  of  correcting,  as  far  as  lay  in  his  power,  so  grievous  a  state  of 
things,  by  implanting  morals  and  good  doctrines  among  the  people  over  whom  he  spiri- 
tually presides. 

But  by  far  the  most  gloomy  picture  drawn  of  the  state  of  religion  and  morals  in  Ire- 
land at  this  time,  is  that  which  remains  to  us  from  the  pen  of  the  celebrated  St.  Ber- 
nard,— an  effusion,  which,  together  with  the  fervid  and  impetuous  zeal  that  marked  his 
whole  life  and  writings,  betrays  also  no  small  portion  of  the  spirit  of  exaggeration  and 
over-statement  which  naturally  belongs  to  such  a  temperament.*  The  marriage  of  the 
clergy,  and  the  intrusion  of  laymen  into  ecclesiastical  property, — the  two  great  scandals 
that  then  drew  down  the  fulminations  of  popes  and  councils — were  the  chief  irregulari- 
ties that  provoked  the  anger  of  St.  Bernard  against  Ireland;  and  in  the  known  and  fla- 
grant fact  of  so  many  married  laymen  having  usurped  the  rank  and  prerogatives  of  the 
archbishop  of  Armagh,  the  saint  found,  it  must  be  owned,  a  subject  highly  deserving  of 
his  most  stern  and  denunciatory  censure. 

Of  the  fidelity,  however,  of  his  general  picture  of  the  state  of  Ireland,  there  appear 
good  reasons  for  feeling  distrustful.  Having  never  himself  been  in  the  country,  and 
deriving  his  sole  information  from  natives,  on  the  spot — a  source  of  intelligence,  too  apt, 
in  all  times,  to  be  imbittered  by  local  and  factious  prejudices — he  was  led  to  generalize 
upon  particular  cases,  not  always  in  themselves  authentic,  and  thus  to  present,  on  the 
whole,  a  false,  or  at  least  exaggerated,  representation.  Learning,  for  instance,  that  in 
the  diocese  of  Connor — a  place  to  which,  from  the  nature  of  the  task  he  was  employed 
upon,f  his  inquiries  were  chiefly  directed — there  prevailed  a  frightful  degree  of  immo- 
rality and  barbarism,  this  vehement  censor  extends  the  charge  at  once  to  the  whole  king- 
dom; and,  from  ignorance  of  the  peculiar  forms  observed  in  the  marriages  of  the  Irish, 
imputes  to  them,  among  other  irregularities,  that  "  they  did  not  enter  into  lawful  wed- 
lock." This  charge,  followed  up  by  what  Giraldus  alleged  at  a  later  period,  namely, 
that  the  natives  "did  not  yet  contract  marriage,"  has  furnished  grounds  for  accusing  the 
Irish  of  those  times  of  having  lived  in  a  state  of  almost  universal  concubinage;  whereas, 
in  both  instances,  the  meaning  of  a  charge  so  ambiguously  worded  was  not  that  the  Irish 
dispensed  with  the  ceremony  of  marriage  altogether,  but  that  they  did  not  contract  it  in 
that  particular  form  which  the  English  and  some  other  nations  considered  alone  to  be 
lawful. f 

There  was,  doubtless,  then,  as  there  has  been  unfortunately  at  most  periods  of  our  his- 
tory, quite  enough  in  the  real  condition  of  the  country  to  mourn  over  and  condemn, 
without  calling  in  also  the  hand  of  calumny  to  add  new  shadows  to  the  picture. 

Of  the  ecclesiastical  transactions  of  the  reign  of  Murkertach,  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able— his  dedication  of  the  royal  city  of  Cashel  to  the  uses  of  the  Church — has  already 
been  mentioned.  In  the  year  1111  a  great  synod,  of  which  neither  the  objects  or  acts 
are  clearly  specified,  was  held  at  Fiodh-yEngusa,  or  iEngus's  Grove,  a  place  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  famed  hill  of  Usneach,  where,  of  old,  the  Druids  held  their  rites.  At 
this  convention,  besides  Murkertach  and  the  nobles  of  his  kingdom,  there  attended  also 
Moelmurry,  Archbishop  of  Cashel — this  see  having  been  lately  elevated  to  archiepiscopal 
rank — 50  other  bishops,  300  priests,  and  3,000  persons  of  the  clerical  order.  Shortly 
after  this  national  meeting,  there  was  held  another  great  synod  at  Rath-Breasail,5  pre- 
sided over  by  Gillibert,  Bishop  of  Limerick,  who  was  then  apostolic  legate  in  Ireland, 
and  the  first,  it  appears,  appointed  to  that  high  office.     By  this  synod  a  regular  division 

A  miller  took  out  a  pearl  which  he  sold  for  10/.  to  one  who  sold  it  to  the  late  Lady  Glenanly  for  301.  with 
whom  I  saw  it  in  a  necklace.    She  refused  80/.  for  it  from  the  late  Duchess  of  Ormond." 

*  As  is  said  by  a  French  author,  who  truly  edited  the  writings  of  one  of  his  victims,  Abelard,  "  he  spared 
nobody," — nee  enim  uUi  pepercit.— See  Bayle,  art.  St.  Bernard. 

t  He  was  then  writing  his  Life  of  St.  Malachy.  The  following  is  a  specimen  of  his  account  of  the  state 
of  Connor:— "  Tunc  intellexit  homo  Dei  non  ad  homines  se  sed  ad  bestias  destinatum.  Nusquam  adhuc  tales 
expertus  fuerat  in  quantacunque  l)arbarie;  nusquam  repererat  sic  protervos  ad  mores,  sic  ferales  ad  ritus, 
sic  ad  fidem  inipios,  ad  leges  barbaros,"  &.c.  After  quoting  the  whole  of  this  description,  Camden  adds, — 
"  Thus  St.  Bernard  ;— and,  as  I  am  informed,  the  present  bishop,  even  at  this  day,  is  hardly  able  to  give  a 
better  character  of  his  flock." 

X  See  an  explanation  by  Dr.  Lanigan  (Hist.  c.  xxvi.  note  52,)  of  the  two  different  sorts  of  sponsalia,  or 
espousals,  distinguished  by  the  old  canon  law;  one  called  de  prcesenti,  and  the  other  de  futuro.  The  latter 
form  of  contract,  called  in  English  betrothment,  is  what  was  chiefly  practised  by  the  Irish;  and  that  their 
marriages  were  by  high  authority  considered  legitimate,  appears  from  the  language  used  on  the  subject  by 
Lanfranc  and  Anselm,  the  former  of  whom  speaks  of  the  lawfully  wedded  wives  of  the  Irish :  "  legitime  sibi 
copulatara  uxorem  ;"— "  legitime  sibi  copulatas."— See  their  letters,  above  referred  to,  in  Archbishop  Usher's 
Sylloge. 

§  Supposed  to  be  the  same  as  lly-Brcssuil,  now  Clanbrassil,  in  the  county  of  Armagh. 


232  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

of  the  dioceses  of  Ireland  was  made,  and  their  respective  boundaries  fixed;*  while  by 
another  important  regulation,  it  was  declared  that  the  church  revenues  and  lands  allotted 
to  the  several  bishops  for  their  maintenance,  were  exempted  from  tribute,  chief  rents, 
and  other  public  contributions. 

Among  the  abuses  complained  of  by  St.  Bernard  in  Ireland,  was  the  excessive  number 
of  bishops,— an  evil  partly  caused,  as  already  has  been  explained,  by  the  practice  adopted, 
from  the  example  of  the  primitive  church,  of  appointing  chorepiscopi,  or  rural  bishops; 
and  this  multiplication  of  the  episcopal  jurisdiction  it  was  one  of  the  objects  of  the  synod 
of  Clanbrassil  to  correct.  So  far  was  their  purpose,  however,  from  being  attained,  that 
at  the  time  of  the  great  council  of  Kelis,  about  thirty  years  after,  the  bishoprics  alone, 
exclusive  of  the  archiepiscopal  sees,  amounted  in  number  to  thirty-four. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


Learned  Irishmen  of  the  eleventh  century. — Tigernach,  the  chronicler. — Great  value  of  his 
Annals. — Dates  of  Eclipses  preserved  by  him. — Proofs  of  the  antiquity  of  Irish  records. — 
Marianus  Scotus. — Account  of  liis  works. — St.  Colman,  a  patron  saint  of  Austria. — Helias, 
of  the  Monastery  of  Monaghan,  introduced  first  the  Roman  chant  at  Cologne. — Monastery 
erected  for  the  Irish  at  Erford. — Another  at  Fulda. — Poems  by  Mac  Liag,  the  secretary  of 
Brian  Boru. — Flann  and  Gilla-Coeman,  metrical  chronographers. — Learning  of  Gilla-Coe- 
man, — Visit  of  Sulgenus,  Bishop  of  St.  David's,  to  the  schools  of  Ireland, — English  students 
at  Armagh, 

Before  we  advance  any  farther  into  the  twelfth  century,  I  shall  briefly  advert  to  the 
few  distinguished  names  in  literature  and  science,  that  lie  thinly  but  shiningly  scattered 
throughout  the  period  we  have  just  traversed;  this  being  a  portion  of  my  historic  task, 
which,  as  offering  a  change  and  relief  from  its  ordinary  details,  I  would  not  willingly 
omit.  Of  that  class  of  humble  but  useful  writers,  the  annalists,  who  merely  narrate,  says 
Cicero,  without  adorning  the  course  of  public  affairs,  Ireland  produced  in  this  century, 
two  of  the  most  eminent,  perhaps,  in  all  Europe,  Marianus  Scotus  and  Tigernach.  The 
latter  of  these  writers,  whose  valuable  annals  have  been  so  frequently  referred  to  in  these 
pages,  is  said  to  have  been  of  the  sept  called  the  Muireadhaigh,  or  Murrays,  in  Connaught, 
and  was  abbot  of  Clonmacnois.  His  Annals,  which  were  brought  down  by  him  to  the 
year  of  his  death,  1088,  are  scarcely  more  valuable  for  the  materials  of  history  which 
their  own  pages  furnish,  than  for  the  proofs  they  afford  of  still  earlier  records  existing 
when  they  were  written  ;t — records  which,  as  appear  from  the  dates  of  eclipses  preserved 
by  this  chronicler,  and  which  could  not  otherwise  than  by  written  memorials  have  reached 
him  so  accurately,!  must  have  extended,  at  least,  as  far  back  as  the  period  when  Chris- 
tianity became  the  religion  of  the  country. 

Another  service  conferred  on  the  cause  of  Irish  antiquities  by  this  work,  independently 
of  its  own  intrinsic  utility,  arises  from  the  number  of  metrical  fragments  we  find  scat- 

J  Exclusive  of  Dublin,  which  was  left  subject  to  Canterbury,  there  were  to  be,  according  to  this  division, 
twenty-four  dioceses:  twelve  in  Leath  Cuinn,  or  the  northern  portion  of  Ireland,  subject  lo  the  Archbishop 
of  Armagh,  and  twelve  in  the  southern  portion,  or  Leath-Mogh,  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Cashel.  "  On  looking  over  the  boundaries,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  marked  for  these  dioceses,  a  very  great  part 
of  which  can  scarcely  be  pointed  out  at  present,  on  account  of  the  changes  of  names,  it  is  clear  that  the  synod 
intended,  besides  reducing  the  number  of  sees,  to  render  all  the  dioceses  of  Ireland  nearly  of  equal  extent; 
but  it  did  not  succeed  to  any  considerable  degree  in  reducing  the  number:  whereas,  we  find  at  the  time  of 
the  Council  of  Kells,  in  1152,  many  more  sees  than  those  here  laid  down  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  some  of 
the  said  twenty-four  sees  not  even  spoken  of;  as  if,  notwithstauding  the  decree  of  Rath-Breasail,  they  had 
either  not  been  established,  or  had,  in  a  very  short  time,  ceased  to  exist." — Chap.  25.  §  14. 

t  "  We  have,  accordingly,  fragments  preserved  by  Tigernach  of  Irish  writers,  who  flourished  so  early  as 
before  the  Gih,  7tli,  and  8th  centuries,  whose  names,  whose  periods,  whose  very  words  are  preserved,  and  the 
antiquity  of  whose  idiom  confirms,  to  a  certainty,  the  ancient  date  which  Tigernach  himself  assigns  to 
them."— Dr.  O'Connor,  Kp.  JVunc.  Rcr.  IHb.  Scrip,  c.wi. 

i  "Quod  si  inquiras  undo  baruin  defectionuni  notitiam  hauserit  Tigernachus,  ant  qua  ratione  eas  ad 
Regum  Ilibernorum  annos  potuerit  tarn  accurate  accommodare?  Id  procul  dubio  eflecisse  respondeo,  non 
calculis  astrononiicis,  sed  veterum  ope  Scriptorum  Hiberniensium,  qui  ea  qua^  vel  ipsi  viderunt,  vel  qua-  in 
IWonasterioruni  Bibliolliecis  reposita  erant,  ad  po.steroruni  menioriani  servavcre." — lb.  p.  xcviii. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  233 

tered  throughout  its  pages,  cited  from  writings  still  more  ancient,  which  were  then  evi- 
dently existing,  though  at  present  no  other  vestige  of  them  remains.  That  Tigernach 
had  access  to  some  library  or  libraries  furnished  with  books  of  every  description,*  ia 
manifest  from  his  numerous  references;  and  the  correctness  of  his  citations  from  foreign 
authors,  with  whose  works  we  are  acquainted,  may  be  taken  as  a  surety  for  the  genuine- 
ness of  his  extracts  from  the  writings  of  our  own  native  authors,  now  lost : — thus  afford- 
ing an  answer  to  those  skeptical  objectors  who,  because  there  are  extant  no  Irish  manu- 
scriptsf  of  an  earlier  date  than  about  the  eleventh  or  tenth  century,  contend  that  our 
pretensions  to  a  vernacular  literature,  in  the  two  or  three  centuries  preceding  that  period, 
must  be  mere  imposture  or  self-delusion. 

Marianus  Scolus,  the  contemporary  of  Tigernach,  and,  as  some  suppose,  a  monk  in 
the  very  monastery  over  which  he  presided,]:  stands,  as  a  chronographer,  among  the 
highest  of  his  times.  He  wrote  also  Notes  on  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  a  copy  of  which, 
transcribed  by  himself,  is  still  extant  in  the  imperial  library  of  Vienna.  Leaving  Ireland 
about  the  year  1056,  this  learned  man  joined  at  first  a  religious  community  of  his  own 
countrymen,  at  Cologne,  and  from  thence  repaired  to  Fulda,  where  he  remained  a  recluse 
for  the  space  of  ten  years.  Being  removed  from  thence,  by  order  of  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  to  Mentz,  he  was  there  again,  as  he  himself  informs  us,  shut  up,  and  re- 
mained a  recluse  till  the  year  of  his  death,  1086.  In  one  of  the  chief  merits  of  a  chro- 
nicler, that  of  skilfully  turning  to  account  the  labours  of  his  predecessors,  Marianus 
appears  to  have  been  pre-eminent;  and  a  learned  antiquary,  in  speaking  of  the  use  thus 
made  by  him  of  Asser's  interesting  Life  of  King  Alfrecl,  says  that,  "enamoured  with  the 
flowers  of  that  work,  he  transplanted  them  to  shine  like  stars  in  his  own  pages."5 

It  appears  that,  by  Marianus,  as  well  as  by  his  countryman,  Tigernach, -who  had  never 
been  out  of  Ireland,  the  error  of  the  Dionysian  Cycle  was  clearly  perceived;  and  to  the 
former  is  even  attributed  the  credit  of  having  endeavoured,  however  unsuccessfully,  to 
correct  it.|| 

Besides  Marianus,ir  there  appeared,  in  this  century,  several  other  distinguished  Irish- 
men on  the  continent;  among  the  foremost  of  whom  may  be  mentioned  St.  Colman, 
whom  Austria  placed  on  the  list  of  her  patrons,  and  whose  praise  was  celebrated  in  an 
ode  by  Stabius,  the  historiographer  of  the  em-peror  Maximilian.**     Having  been  unjustly 

*  "  Bibliothecan  penes  se  habuisse  patet,  omni  libronim  genere  refertam,  unde  plures  adducil  auctores, 
tarn  exteros  quam  Hibernos,  quorum  qws  supersuiu  opera,  ab  eo  accurate,  etiam  quoad  verba  producta, 
plane  indicant  eum  reliquos  jam  deflendos,  pari  fidelitate,  etiam  quoad  verba  produxisse." — lb.  p.  cxviii. 

We  find  in  the  obituary  of  Armagli  not  many  years  after  Tigernach  flourished,  a  notice  of  the  death  of  the 
chief  antiquary  and  librarian  of  that  school. — "  Primh  (,'riochare  a  leabhar  Coimhed." 

t  For  remarks  on  the  causes  which  led  to  the  loss  of  the  earlier  manuscripts,  see  chap.  14,  of  this  Work. 

j  This  supposition,  for  which  there  appears  to  be  no  foundation,  arose  from  the  mention  which  he  makes 
of  a  certain  Tigernach,  as  being  the  superior  of  the  establishment  he  belonged  to  before  he  left  Ireland. — 
"  Hoc  autem  mihi  retulit  Tigernach  Senior  meus." 

§  Leland,  Comment,  dc  Scriplor.  Britan.  The  following  is  the  florid  language  of  the  great  antiquary  : 
"  Q.uarum  et  Marianus  Scotus  veaustate  totus  captus,  flores  ex  eisdem  avidus,  veluti  stellulas,  quibus  suara 
inpolaret  historiam  selegit."    Chap.  cxix. 

II  Sigebert  {Chronic.)  According  to  the  editor,  however,  of  Marianus  (Basil.  1559,  of  which  edition  there  is 
a  splendid  copy  in  the  British  Museum,)  this  chronicler  succeeded  in  correcting  the  errors  of  this  cycle; 
"  Praestitit  niehercle  Marianus  hie  noster  quod  eorum  qui  Temporum  rationes  descripserunt  nemo  hactenus 
tentavit.  Errores  enim  in  Cycli  Decemnovalis  rationinatione  a  Dionysio  introductos,  animadversione  stu- 
diosa  correxil."  This  enthusiastic  editor  is  perhaps  hardly  to  be  trusted,  as,  besides  adorning  the  recluse  of 
the  cell  with  every  possible  talent  and  accomplishment,  he  tells  us  that  he  travelled  almost  over  the  whole 
globe.  But  Henry  rie  Knyghlon  also  assians  to  Marianus  the  credit  of  having  been  the  first  who  corrected 
the  error  of  the  Dionysian  period-  This  chronicle-,  whose  testimony  to  the  merit  of  Marianus  has  escaped, 
as  far  as  I  can  see,  the  notice  of  Dr.  O'Connor  thus  explains  the  mode  in  which  our  countryman  corrected 
the  Cycle.  "  Itaque  ab  initio  seculi  annos  singulos  recensens  xxii  annos  qui  cyclis  prisdictis  deorant  super- 
addidit." 

IT  In  the  instance  of  Marianus,  as  in  many  others  which  I  have  had  occasion  to  notice,  an  eff'ort  has  been 
made  to  transfer  to  Scotland  a  reputation  which  belongs  legitimately  to  Ireland.  On  these  points,  the  learned 
of  the  continent  show  far  more  accuracy,  not  to  say  honesty,  than  some  of  our  authorities  nearer  home. 
Among  the  many  proofs  collected  by  Usher  in  confirmation  of  Ireland's  right  to  Marianus,  the  following 
may  be  worth  mentioning.  In  the  great  controversy  arising  out  of  the  claim  of  Edward  I.  to  a  feudal  supe- 
riority over  Scotland,  Marianus  Scoius  was  one  of  the  autlMrities  brought  forward  by  the  English  king;  and 
again,  when  the  same  claim  was  revived  under  Henry  IV.  this  chronicler  was  appealed  to,  as  a  Scottish 
authority,  in  favour  of  his  pretensions.     But  the  advocate  who  arjiued  for  the  rights  of  Robert,  in  allowing 

full  credit  to  Marianus,  contended,  and  successfully,  that  he  was  a  Scot  of  Hibernia,  not  of  Scotland. Eccles. 

Primord  p.  735. 

It  is  curious  that  Marianus  himself  was,  as  far  as  can  be  discovered,  the  first  writer  by-whom  the  name 
of  Scotia ,  appropriated  previously  to  Ireland  alone,  was  given  to  the  present  Scotland. — "See  a  Letter  of 
Lynch  (the  author  of  Cambrensis  Eversu.':)  appended  to  O'Flaherty's  Ogygia  Vindicated. 

**  Surius,  Vies  des  Saints.  In  the  commencement  of  the  historiographer's  ode  there  is  an  allusion  to  litis 
Irish  saint's  royal  descent,  and  his  visit  to  the  Holy  Land: — 

"  Austria  sanctus  canitur  patronus, 
Fulgidum  sidus  radians  ab  arcto; 
ScoticB  gentis  Colomannus  acer, 
Regia  Proleii, 

29 


234  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

seized  and  executed  as  a  spy,  some  circumstances  of  a  miraculous  nature  are  said  to  have 
occurred  at  this  saint's  death,  in  consequence  of  which  he  received  the  honours  of  mar- 
tyrdom ;  and  a  Benedictine  monastery  was  established,  in  memory  of  his  name,  at  Melck, 
which  still  exists,  it  appears,  in  great  splendour.  Another  Irish  saint,  named  Helias,  or 
Elias,  who  had  come  from  the  monastery  of  Monaghan,  paid  a  visit,  in  the  course  of  his 
travels,  to  Rome,  and  is  recorded  as  the  first  who  brought  from  thence  the  Roman  chant, 
or  church  music,  to  Cologne.* 

So  great  was  the  resort  in  those  times  of  Irishmen  to  Germany,  that  in  1036  a  monas- 
tery was  erected  for  them,  at  Erford,  by  the  Bishop  Walter  de  Glysberg.  There  were 
likewise  a  number  of  Irish  monks  at  Fulda,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  whom,  St. 
Amnichad,  died  a  recluse  in  that  monastery  some  years  before  Marianus  entered  it;  and 
so  strong  an  impression  had  he  left  of  the  sanctity  of  his  character,  that,  as  we  learn  on 
the  authority  of  the  chronographer  just  mentioned,!  it  was  believed  that  lights  were  oc- 
casionally seen,  and  psalmody  heard,  over  his  tomb;  and  Marianus,  as  he  himself  tells 
us,  celebrated  mass  over  that  tomb  every  day  for  ten  years. 

Judging  of  the  internal  condition  of  Ireland  at  this  period,  even  as  represented  in  the 
friendly  pages  of  her  own  annals,  without  taking  into  account  the  unsightly  picture 
drawn  by  a  foreign  hand,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  such  of  her  pious  and  learned 
sons  as  could  make  tiieir  way  to  shores  more  favourable  to  their  pursuits  should  gladly 
avail  themselves  of  the  power.  Not  that,  even  in  this  dark  age,  the  celebrated  schools 
of  the  country  had  ceased  to  be  cherished  or  frequented,  nor  is  there  any  want  of,  at  least, 
names  of  reputed  eminence  to  grace  the  obituaries  of  the  different  monasteries; — scarcely 
a  year  elapsing  without  honourable  mention  in  these  records  of  some  persons  thought 
worthy  of  commemoration,  either  as  poets,  theologians,  antiquaries,  or  scribes.J 

Early  in  this  century  died  Mac  Liag,  to  whom  several  poems,  still  extant,  are  attri- 
buted. Chief  Ollamh,  or  Doctor,  of  Ireland,  and  secretary  to  Brian  Boru,  whom  he  is 
said  to  have  survived  but  a  year,  this  poet's  muse  was  principally  employed,  as  far  as 
may  be  judged  from  the  pieces  remaining  under  his  name,5'in  commemorating  the  war- 
like achievements  of  his  royal  master,  and  lamenting  over  his  loss. 

Some  curious  historical  poems  by  Flann  and  Gilla-Coeman,  two  metrical  chronogra- 
phers  of  this  century,  have  furnished  a  subject  for  much  learned  comment  to  the  pen  of 
the  reverend  editor  of  the  Irish  Chronicles;  who,  in  proof  of  the  accuracy  of  Gilla-Coe- 
man's  chronological  computations,  has  shown  that  all  the  dates  assigned  by  him  to  the 
great  events  of  Scripture-history  coincide,  to  a  wonderful  degree,  with  those  laid  down 
by  no  less  authorities  than  Scaliger,  Petavius,  and  Sir  Isaac  Newton. ||  It  should  have 
been  added  by  the  learned  doctor,  that  when  coming  to  apply  this  chronological  skill  to 
the  ancient  history  of  his  own  country,  Coeman  was  found  to  be  by  no  means  so  trust- 
worthy, and  for  a  very  sufficient  reason  :  having  in  his  former  task  been  guided  by  an 
acquaintance  with  foreign  historians;  whereas,  in  calculating  the  successions  of  the 
kings  of  his  own  country,  he  was  led  away  partly  by  the  national  vanity  on  this  point, 
and  partly  by  the  grave  fictions  of  the  bardic  historians  who  had  preceded  him.  The 
author  of  the  Ogygia,  who  adopted  Coeman  as  his  chief  guide,  in  computing  the  periods 
of  the  early  Irish  kings,  has  been  thereby  led  into  such  wild  and  absurd  flights  of  chro- 
nology, IT  as  even  the  most  sanguine  of  his  brother  antiquarians  have  refused  to  sanction. 

"  Ille  dum  sanctam  Snlymorum  urbem 
Transiit,  dulcem  pairiaiii  relinquens, 
Regies  fastus,  trabcani,  coronam, 

Sceptraque  teinpsit." 

•  Lanigan,  llist.  Eccles.  c.  xxiv.  §  2. 

t  Florence  of  Worcester,  ad  ann.  1043.  As  Asser  and  Marianus  had  both  copied  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  so 
Florence  of  Worcester,  coining  still  later,  transcribed  and  inteipojated  Marianus.— See  Preface  to  Ingram's 
Saxon  Chronicle. 

I  "As  to  the  ancient  Scrlhes  of  the  Irish,  I  cannot  understand  them  in  any  other  sense  than  as  Readers  of 
Divinity."— Ware,  ^liitirj  chap.  xxv.  §  3.  It  should  rather  be  said,  perhaps,  that  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
scribes  of  the  Hebrews  were  both  writers  and  doctors  of  the  law,  so  the  scribes  of  the  Irish  were  at  once 
writers  and  doctors  of  divinity. 

§  Trans.  Iberno  Cell.  Society,  xciv.  In  their  record  of  the  decease  of  this  poet,  the  Four  Masters  have  intro- 
duced two  distichs,  or  ranvs,  of  his  composition,  which  give  by  no  means  a  favourable  notion  of  his  poetic 
powers.  It  would  appear,  indeed,  from  the  fragnjents  of  this  nature  scattered  throughout  the  Annals,  that 
the  rhyming  of  one  hemistich  to  the  other,  and  the  adaptation  of  the  rythm  and  flow  of  the  words  to  song, 
were  all  that  the  writers  of  these  ranns  attended  to;  as,  with  but  few  exceptions,  their  meaning  is  of  the 
most  negative  description. 

II  "  Q,uam  accuratw  sint  Toemani  rationes  paJ^bit  ex  subjuncta  tabula,  in  qua  cum  rationibus  Scaligeri, 
Fergusoni,  Usserii,  Petavii,  et  Newtoni,  conferuntur."— See  the  Rev.  Doctor's  notes  on  Coeman's  poem.  Pro- 
le.gom.  XXXV. 

ir  By  this  enthusiastic  calculator  the  date  of  the  arrival  of  the  Milesian  colony  in  Ireland  is  placed  as  far 
back  in  antiquity  as  the  tiiiio  when  King  Solomon  reigned  in  Jerusalem.  This  was  too  much  even  for  Mr. 
O'Connor  of  Belanagare;— at  least  in  his  later  and  more  modilied  views  of  Irish  antiquity.  See  his  very 
candid  retractations  on  the  subject,  Collect.  Ilibern.  vol.  iii. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  235 

Though  somewhat  anticipating',  in  point  of  time,  it  may  save  the  trouble,  perhaps,  of 
future  repetition  and  reference,  to  state,  while  touching  on  the  subject,  that  the  chrono- 
logical list  of  the  Irish  kings,  which  had  by  Coenian  been  brought  down  to  the  time  of 
St.  Patrick,  was  by  another  metrical  chronographer,  Gilla  Moduda,  who  flourished  about 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  continued  to  the  death  of  Malachy  II.,  in  a  poem  con- 
sisting of  a  number  of  ranns,  or  strophes,  much  in  the  manner  of  the  metrical  list  of  the 
Dalriadic  kings,  composed  in  Scotland  in  the  reign  of  JVIalcolm  III. 

Among  the  native  authors  of  this  period,  whose  works  were  produced  at  home,  may 
be  included  Dubdalethe,  a  nominal  archbishop  of  Armagh, — being  one  of  those  laymen 
whose  usurpation  of  this  see  was  denounced  so  vehemently  by  St.  Bernard.  The  saint 
acknowledged,  however,  in  the  midst  of  his  ire,  that  these  intruders  were  men  of  literary 
acquirements;*  and  Dubdalethe,  one  of  the  number,  gave  proofs  of  his  claim  to  this  cha- 
racter by  writing  some  Annals  of  the  affairs  of  Ireland  (to  which  reference  is  more  than 
once  made  in  the  chronicles  that  have  reached  us,t)  as  well  as  an  account  of  the  arch- 
bishops of  Armagh,  down  to  his  own  time. 

While  thus  not  a  few  of  the  natives  themselves  continued  to  cultivate,  even  in  those 
stormy  times,  most  of  the  studies  for  which  their  country  was  once  so  famous,  neither 
does  it  appear  that  the  attractions  and  advantages,  by  which  foreign  students  were  for- 
merly drawn  to  their  schools,  had  altogether  at  this  dark  period];  ceased.  An  instance 
to  the  contrary,  indeed,  is  afforded  in  the  case  of  Sulgenus,  afterwards  Bishop  of  St. 
David's  who,  "  moved  by  the  love,"  as  we  are  told,  "  of  study,  set  out,  in  imitation  of  his 
ancestors,  to  visit  the  land  of  the  Irish,  so  wonderfully  celebrated  for  learning."  Having 
been  driven  back  by  a  storm  to  his  own  country,  it  was  not  till  after  a  long  lapse  of  time 
that  he  again  ventured  on  the  voyage,  when,  reaching  the  country  of  the  Scots  in  safety, 
he  remained  there  tranquilly  for  more  than  ten  years,  studying  constantly  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  and  storing  his  mind  with  the  spiritual  wealth  which  they  contained.  Such 
is  the  account  given,  in  a  poem  written  by  his  own  son, J  of  the  studious  labours  of  Bishop 
Sulgenus  in  the  schools  of  Ireland  at  this  period ;  and  Usher  cites  the  poem  as  a  proof 
that  the  study  of  letters  had  at  this  time  revived  in  the  country,  and  that  Ireland,  even 
in  the  eleventh  century,  was  still  "a  storehouse  of  the  most  learned  and  holy  men."|| 

In  recording  one  of  the  great  conflagrations  that  occurred  in  this  century  at  Armagh, 
the  Four  Masters  state  that  the  part  of  the  city  called  the  Trian  Saxon,'^  that  is,  the 
division  inhabited  by  the  Saxons,  had  suffered  considerably  by  the  fire.  That  this  region 
of  the  city  may  have  been  originally  so  called,  from  its  having  been  the  principal  quar- 

*  "  Viri  uxorati  et  absque  ordinibus,  literati  tamen."—Vit.  Malach  chap.  vii. 

t  Annal.  Ult.  ad  ann.  962  and  1021;  also,  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  ad  ann.  978,  there  will  be 
found  some  verses  of  this  prelate  cited.  See  Ware  (Bisliops,)  Lunigan,  chap.  xxiv.  §  4.,  and  Jier.  Hib.  Scrip. 
Ep.  J^unc.  ciii. 

X  According  to  some  authorities,  the  schools  of  Ireland,  had,  in  a  great  degree,  revived  at  this  period. 
"  Les  ecoles,"  says  Geoghogan,  "  etoient  di^ja  hien  retablies  dans  I'intervalle  de  la  journ6e  de  Clontarf,  jiis- 
qu'a  I'arriv^e  des  Anglois,  principalemenl  celles  d'Ardmach." — Tome  i.  part.  2.  chap.  7.  Archbishop  Usher, 
by  tracing  through  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  a  succession  of  professors  of  divinity  at  Armagh,  has  shown 
that  even  through  the  gloom  and  storms  of  the  Danish  persecution  some  vestiges  of  that  noble  school  may  be 
discerned: — "  duae  idcirco  commemoravimiis,  ut  ArdmachancE  academia?,  inter  medias  Norwagiensis  tempes- 
tatis  procellas,  emergentis.  iliqua  deprehendi  possint  vestigia." — Eccles.  Primord  p.  861.  Dr.  Campbell 
{Strictures,  dj-c.)  has  thus  misrepresented  the  import  of  this  passage  : — "  which  I  have  enumerated,  in  order 
to  trace  the  thriving  state  of  the  university  of  Armagh  during  the  severest  tempests  of  the  Norman  devasta- 
tion." 

§  Sylloge  Prafat. 

"  Exemplo  patrura  commotus  amore  legend!, 
Ivit  ad  Hibernos  Sophia,  mirabile,  claros. 
Sed,  cum  jam  cimba  voluisset  adire  revectus 
Famosam  gentem  scripturis  atque  magistris, 
Appulit  ad  patriam,  ventorum  flatibus  actus 
Nomine  quam  noto  perhibent  Albania  longe  ; 
Ac  remoratus  ibi  certe  turn  quinque  per  annos 
Indefessus  agit  votum,  &.c. 
His  ita  digestis  Scotorum  visitat  arva: 
Ac  max  scripturas  multo  meditamine  sacras 
Legis  divinae  scrutatur,  saep6  retractaiis  : 
Ast  ibi  per  denos  tricens  jam  placidus  annos 
Congregat  imniensam  pretioso  pondere  massam,"  ice. 

I)  "  Revixisse  tamen  bonarum  literarum  studia,  et  seculo  adhuc  undecimo  habitam  fuisse  Hiberniam  (ut  in 
Vita  Florentii  loquitur  Franciscus  Guillimannus)  virorum  sanctissimorum  doctissimorumque  ojfficinam."  Ano- 
ther conclusion  which  Usher  draws  from  this  poem  is,  that  the  name  of  Scots  was  still  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury applied,  kolt  s^u;^''*''  '°  ^^^  ^■''s''- 

IT  Seth  do  trian  Sax.  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1092.  "  The  present  '  English  Street,'  "  says  Stuart,  "  seems  clearly 
to  have  derived  its  name  from  the  old  denomination  '  Trian  Sessenagh,'  or  the  Saxon  portion  of  the  city."— 
Kist.  Memoirs  of  the  City  of  Armagh. 


236  HISTORY  OF  IRELA.ND. 

ters  of  the  English  students  at  Armagh,  appears  highly  probable.  But  to  conclude, 
merely  from  its  being  named  on  this  occasion,  that  there  were  at  that  time  any  such 
students  in  the  city,  is  one  of  those  gratuitous  assumptions  which  show  more  the  wish  to 
prove  a  desired  point  than  the  power. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 


Interregnum  of  fifteen  years. — Contention  among  the  Irish  Princes  for  the  Monarchy. — Tor- 
delvach  O'Connor,  the  successful  candidate. — Account  of  the  reigns  of  the  O'Brian 
Princes. — Decline  of  Tordelvach's  good  fortune. — Is  opposed  by  O'Lochlin,  King  of  Ti- 
rone. — Interference  of  the  Clergy  in  the  quarrels  of  the  Princes. — Its  salutary  effects,— 
Death  of  Tordelvach. — Synod  of  Kells. — Pailiums  distributed  by  the  Pope's  legate,  Papa- 
ro. — Labours  and  death  of  the  great  Saint  Malachy. — First  introduction  of  Tithes  into  Ire- 
land.— Misrepresentations  respecting  the  Irish  church,  corrected. — Murtogh  O'Loghiin 
acknowledged  King  of  Ireland. — Is  killed  in  battle. — Various  Synods  held  during  his 
reign. — Roderic  O'Connor,  King  of  Connaught,  succeeds  to  the  Monarchy. — Great  Conven- 
tion at  Athboy. — Abduction  of  the  wife  of  O'Ruarc  by  Dermot,  King  of  Leinster, — Sup- 
posed, but  erroneously,  to  have  been  the  immediate  cause  of  the  Invasion  of  Ireland  by  the 
English. — Enmity  between  O'Ruarc  and  Dermot. — The  latter,  expelled  from  his  dominions, 
embarks  for  England. — Designs  of  Henry  II.  upon  Ireland. — Obtains  a  grant  of  that  Island 
from  Pope  Adrian  IV. 

After  the  death  of  Donald  O'Lochlin,  who,  for  the  two  years  during  which  he  sur- 
vived his  co-regnant,  Murkertach,  reigned  by  right,  and  without  competitor,  over  the 
whole  kingdom,  there  ensued  an  interregnum  of  fifteen  years,  throughout  the  whole  of 
which  all  the  various  elements  of  strife  and  confusion,  that  had  ever  mixed  themselves 
with  the  course  of  Irish  polity,  continued  to  rage  in  full  ferment  and  force.  The  most 
enterprising  among  the  candidates  for  the  monarchy,  and  he  who,  at  last,  carried  off  that 
high  prize,  was  Tordelvac  O'Connor,  Kmg  of  Connaught,  who  had  already  distinguished 
himself  during  the  latter  years  of  the  reigns  of  Murkertach  and  O'Lochlin,  by  ti-equent 
and  fierce  incursions  into  the  other  provinces;*  and,  in  one  of  these  sanguinary  inroads, 
was  left  for  dead  upon  the  field.  The  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  of  his  success  was  the 
ever  active  power  of  Munsler ;  that  province  having,  under  four  successive  princes  of 
the  O'Brian  race,  opposed  perseveringly,  and  with  all  the  confidence  which  its  past  his- 
tory could  not  but  inspire,  a  formidable  barrier  in  the  way  of  his  projects  of  aggrandize- 
ment. More  than  once  had  he  been  driven  to  e.\'tremities  in  the  struggle:  but  at  length 
policy  effected  what  his  arms  could  not  accomplish.  By  sowing  dissensions  among  the 
Momonians  themselves, — that  ever  sure  mode  ofdistractmg  the  strength  of  the  Irish, 
and  rendering  them  easy  victims  whether  of  the  stranger  or  of  each  other, — the  ruler  of 
Connaught  at  length  succeeded  in  turning  the  scale  of  the  contest  triumphantly  in  his 
own  favour.  Availing  himself  of  the  hereditary  jealousy  of  the  Eugenians,  respecting 
their  right  of  alternate  succession  to  the  throne,t  he  found  means  to  separate  this  gallant 
tribe  from  the  Dalcassians,  and  even  introduced  for  a  time  dissension  among  the  brave 
Dalgais  themselves. 

In  Connor  O'Brian,  however,  who  had  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  Munster,  in  the 
year  1120,  the  ambitious  Tordelvac  found  an  adversary  in  no  ordinary  degree 
,,'o.2  formidable.  Twice,  in  the  course  of  two  successive  years,  did  this  bold  prince 
,,.3.,'  carry  the  war  into  the  very  heart  of  Tordelvac's  dominions,  and  defeat  him  sig- 
nally on  his  own  ground:  and  again,  a  third  time,  having  first  routed  the  com- 
bined armies  of  the  King  of  Leinster  and  the  Danes  of  Dublin,  he  marched  at  the  head 
of  his  victorious  troops  into  Connaught,  determined  to  bring  the  great  struggle  for  su- 
premacy to  an  issue.  But  the  interposition  of  the  Church  averted  the  threatened  conflict; 
and  a  negotiation  having  been  entered  into,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Archbishop  of 

*  IV.  Mag.  from  mi  to  1118.     Annal.  Ult.  1114,  1115. 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  (Cod.  Bodleian.)    Vallancey,  from  Munster  . Annals. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  237 

Tuam,  terms  of  peace  were  agreed  to  by  the  rival  princes.*  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  stipulations  of  this  compact,  it  evidently  led  to,  or  at  least  was  followed  by,  a  great 
preponderance  of  power  on  the  side  of  Tordelvac,  as  the  date  of  his  accession,  by  force 
of  arms  and  the  strength  of  his  faction,  to  the  monarchy,  is  marked  at  a.  d.  1136,  two 
years  after  this  event. 

The  remaining  years  of  the  reign  of  O'Brian  passed  unmarked  by  any  new  enterprise 
or  achievement;  the  decided  ascendant  acquired  by  his  competitor  having  thrown  his 
latter  days  into  the  shade.  He  was  confessedly,  however,  a  prince  of  great  activity  and 
resources,  and  exhibited,  together  with  the  rude  violence  which  pervaded  the  policy, 
warfare,  and  manners  of  the  Irish  chieftains  of  this  period,  some  marks  of  a  munificent 
and  even  (notwithstanding  some  occasional  acts  of  sacrilege)  religious  spirit.  Thus  the 
same  prince  who,  in  his  several  inroads  into  Ulster  and  Meath,  laid  waste  without  scruple 
the  free  lands  of  churches,  and  carried  off  from  cathedrals  their  plate  and  treasures,  yet 
liberally  founded,  and  continued  through  life  to  supply  with  funds,  the  abbey  of  St.  Peter, 
at  Ratisbon;f  and,  if  the  records  of  this  abbey  may  be  trusted,  sent,  through  the  counts 
and  noble  knights  who  were  about  to  seek  the  Holy  Land,  large  presents  in  aid  of  the 
cause  to  Lothaire  the  Roman  emperor.f  Finishing  his  days  like  most  of  the  other  Irish 
princes  of  this  time,  he  died  in  penitence  at  Kiilaloe,  and  was  solemnly  interred  in  the 
cathedral  church,  in  the  grand  vault  of  the  O'Brian  kings. 

Under  Turlough  O'Brian,  the  successor  of  this  brave  prince,  the  struggle  of  Munster 
against  the  now  paramount  power  of  Torclelvach  was  obstinately,  and  for  some  time  with 
success,  maintained.  But  dissensions  again  broke  out  between  the  two  kindred  septs; 
and  the  desertion  of  the  Eugenians,  under  two  of  their  princes,  to  the  ranks  of  the  mo- 
narch, gave  the  first  signal  of  the  defeat  and  dismemberment  which  awaited  that  restless 
province.  The  crisis  was  hastened,  too,  by  a  sudden  incursion  on  the  part  of  the  mo- 
narch's son  Roderic, — a  youth  of  ill-fated  celebrity  in  the  melancholy  history  of  his 
country, — who,  entering  at  the  head  of  a  chosen  party  into  Thomond,  attacked  by  sur- 
prise the  seat  of  the  O'Brians,  the  celebrated  palace  of  Kinkora,  and  burned  that  royal 
structure  to  the  ground.  This  act,  as  encouraging  to  the  spirits  of  one  party  as  it  was 
insulting  and  irritating  to  the  other,  was  instantly  followed  by  a  muster,  on  both  sides, 
of  all  the  forces  they  could  collect,  and  the  great  and  memorable  battle  of  Moinmor 
ensued, 5  in  which  the  army  of  Munster  was  totally  defeated,  and  the  King  of  -I'-ici' 
Thomond,  together  with  the  flower  of  the  Dalcassian  nobility,  left  dead  upon  the 
field. II  Seven  thousand,  according  to  our  annals,  was  the  number  of  Momonians  slain  on 
that  day; — a  great  portion  of  the  loss  being  attributed  to  the  habitual  reluctance  of  the 
brave  Dalgais  either  to  ask  for  quarter  from  an  enemy,  or  to  withdraw  themselves  from 
the  field.  Having  acquired  by  this  signal  victory  entire  dominion  over  Munster,  the 
monarch  divided  that  province  into  two  principalitics,ir  and  rewarded  the  treachery  of  the 
two  Momonian  princes  who  had  joined  him  by  appointing  them  its  rulers.** 

From   this  period  the  fortunes  of  Tordelvacli,  which  had  now  reached  their  loftiest 
point,  began  gradually  to  decline; — a  new  rival  in  the  power  and  honours  of  the 
supremacy  having  appeared  in  the  person  of  Murtogh  O'Lochlin  (or,  as  sometimes  iicq 
styled,  O'Neill,)  King  of  Tyrone,  and  chief  ruler  of  all  Ulster,  who,  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  royal  Hy-Niells  of  Tyrone,  combined  in  himself  at  once  the  purest  claims 
of  legitimacy,  together  with  the  growing  strength  of  the  sword.     Taking  up  the  cause  of 
the   kingdom  of  Munster,  O'Lochlin  received   her  exiled   sovereign  at  his  court,  and, 
having  mduced  the  princes  of  Ulster  to  form  a  league  in  his  behalf,  took  the  field  with 
the  troops  of  Tyrone,  Tyrconnel,  and  other  principalities  of  the  north;  and,  after  a 

♦  IV.  Mae.  ad  an.  1133. 

t  In  the  Ratisbon  Chronicle  is  given  an  account  of  a  mission  consisting  of  two  persons,  natives  of  Ireland, 
sent  from  Kaiisbon  to  solicit  the  aid  of  the  Irish  princes  towards  a  fund  for  the  building  of  an  abbey  in  that 
city.  The  kind  reception  these  missionaries  met  with  from  the  King  of  Munster  and  other  princes,  and  tho 
munificent  aid  afforded  towards  the  object  of  iheir  visit,  are  recorded  with  all  due  gratitude: — "Eos  huma- 
nitur  excepit,  aique  post  aliquot  dies  in  Germaniain  honorifice  remisit  onustos  ingenti  vi  auri.  argenti  at 
preliosorum  aliorum  donorum.  Alii  principes  Hibernise  ainplissima  in  Germaniam  revertentibus  munera 
varii  generis  contulerunt."  To  Connor  O'Brian,  indeed,  is  attributed  by  these  records  the  credit  of  having 
founded  the  abbey.  "  Jam  enim  vita  functus  fundator  consecrali  Petri  el  monasterii  S.  Jacobi  Scolorum  rex 
Conchur  O'Brian." — Ibid. 

The  author  of  Cambrensis  Eversus,  to  whom  thpse  extracts  from  the  Ratishon  Chronicle  were  communi- 
cated by  Stephen  Vitus  (Stephen  White,)  mentions,  on  the  authority  of  this  learned  man,  that,  in  the  original 
records,  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  erase  with  a  penknife  the  words  "  ex  Scotiae  seu  Hiberniie  insula:" 
for  the  pnrpose,  says  Lynch,  of  inducing  a  belief  that  the  Scots  mentioned  in  this  record  were  Scots  of  North 
Britain,  not  of  Ireland  : — "  Niniirum  ut  hoc  fuco  lectoiem  ad  credenduin  aUduceret  de  Scotia  Britannise  ser- 
moiiem  in  eo  monumenlo,  non  de  Hibernia  institui." 

X  "  Per  magnce  nobilitatis  ac  potential  Comites  cruce  eignalos  et  Hierosolymam  petituros,  ad  Lotharium 
regem  Romanorum  ingentia  munera  misit." — Ibid. 

§  IV,  Mag.  ad  an.  1151.  I!  Ibid.  1131.  IT  Ibid.  1153.  **  Ibid.  1154. 


238  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

victory  over  Tordelvach,  who  had  opposed  his  passage  through  Meath,  replaced  the  King 
of  Munster,  Turlough  O'Brien,  upon  his  throne.* 

The  conflict  with  the  monarch,  commenced  thus  daringly  by  O'Lochlin,  continued  to 
be  prosecuted  with  equal  vigour  on  both  sides,  as  well  by  water  as  by  land.  In  his 
anxiety  to  be  able  to  cope  with  his  active  opponent,  O'Lochlin  had  despatched  agents  to 
the  coasts  of  Albany,  to  the  Hebrides,  and  the  Isle  of  Man,  to  hire  and  purchase  ships,f 
to  fit  him  out  an  armament;  while,  on  the  other  side,  the  monarch  Tordelvach,  with  a 
fleet  accustomed  to  the  Connaught  seas,  collected  from  Umalia,  Conmacnemara,  and 
Tyrawley,  had  already  attacked  and  despoiled  the  peninsula  of  Inisowen,  and  laid  waste 
the  coasts  of  Tyrconnel.  At  length,  on  the  meeting  of  the  two  armaments,  a  desperate 
action  between  them  ensued;  and,  as  the  Four  Masters,  with  evident  complacency, 
report,  the  transmarine  fleet|  was  with  great  slaughter  defeated  and  dispersed. 

Of  the  period  we  are  now  employed  upon,  one  of  the  most  prominent  characteristics  is 
undoubtedly  the  increased  strength  and  activity  of  the  ecclesiastical  power  :  and,  how- 
ever, in  general,  the  interference  of  churchmen  in  the  merely  temporal  affairs  of  life  is 
to  be  deprecated,  the  services  rendered  by  them,  in  a  state  of  society  such  as  now  existed 
in  Ireland,  was  in  the  highest  degree  salutary,  and  far  outweighed,  in  a  moral  point  of 
view,  any  mischiefs  or  inconveniences  which  their  interfering  spirit,  as  an  engine  of 
temporal  authority,  migiit  under  other  circumstances  have  a  tendency  to  produce.  Sub- 
jected to  an  aristocracy  of  the  very  worst  kind,  for  such  was  the  government  by  a  swarm 
of  petty  kings,  the  sole  chance  of  protection  for  the  wretched  people,  against  the  self-will 
of  such  masters,  lay  in  the  power  possessed  by  the  church  of  striking  terror  into  these 
small  tyrants,  and  compelling  them,  through  fear  of  what  might  be  their  own  fate  in  a 
future  state  of  existence,  to  extend  some  portion  of  justice  and  mercy  towards  those  sub- 
jected to  their  absolute  will  in  the  present. 

There  occur  in  the  records  of  Tordelvach's  reign  some  curious  instances  of  interposi- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  clergy,  for  the  purpose  of  reconciling  personal  feuds,  which,  if 
merely  as  pictures  of  the  manners  of  the  time,  it  may  not  be  irrelevant.  Before  the 
accession  of  this  prince  to  the  monarchy,  there  had  broken  out  some  quarrels  between 
him  and  O'Melachlin,  King  of  Meath,  which  the  Archbishop  Gelasius,  and  others  of  the 
prelates,  undertook  to  settle.  Having  fixed  on  the  terms  of  the  reconciliation,  they 
brought  the  two  princes  together  before  the  altar  of  St.  Kieran,  and  there  pledged  them, 
upon  the  relics  of  the  saints, — among  which  were  the  Staff  of  Jesus,  the  Bell  of  St. 
Fechin,  and  the  White  Cow  of  St.  Kevin, J — to  abide  faithfully  by  the  agreement.  A 
short  time  after,  notwithstanding  this  public  and  solemn  proceeding,  Tordelvach  O'Con- 
nor having,  by  stratagem,  made  his  way  suddenly  into  Meath,  took  O'Melachlin  prisoner, 
as  though  he  had  been  guilty  of  some  violation  of  the  treaty,  and  confined  him  in  the 
Castle  of  Dunmore.  Surprised  at  this  act  of  aggression,  the  prelates,  who  had  mediated 
between  the  parties,  hastened  to  inquire  into  the  cause  of  so  violent  a  step;  when  it 
appeared  that  no  charge  whatever  was  alleged  by  Tordelvach  against  his  prisoner,  but 
that  still  he  refused  to  restore  him  to  liberty,  except  on  the  condition  of  his  giving  up  his 
Princedom  of  Meath,  to  be  enjoyed  for  a  time  by  young  Connor  O'Connor,  King  Tordel- 
vach's son.  This  audacious  stipulation,  though  resisted  and  reprobated  by  the  prelates, 
was  agreed  to  on  the  part  of  the  captive  king;  while  on  young  Connor's  head  devolved 
the  retribution  for  so  gross  an  act  of  injustice,  as  he  was  soon  after  assassinated  by  an 
indignant  chieftain  of  Fertulla,  in  the  west  of  Meath,  who  could  not  brook  the  shame  of 
submitting  to  any  but  his  own  rightful  master. 

In  the  very  same  year  occurred  another  instance  of  the  mediation  of  the  ecclesiastics, 
showing  at  once  how  strong  was  their  desire  to  soften  the  fierce  spirit  of  the  age,  and 
how  rude  and  intractable  were  the  materials  with  which  they  had  to  deal.  For  some 
offence,  which  is  not  specified,  Tordelvach  had  ordered  his  son  Roderic  to  be  confined  in 
chains;  and,  notwithstanding  that  the  princes  and  clergy  of  Connaught  interfered  earn- 
estly in  his  behalf,  and  that  the  chiefs  of  the  latter  body,  assembling  at  the  Rath  of  St. 
Brendan,  held  a  solemn  and  mournful  fast  on  the  occasion,  the  stern  father  would  not 
relent,  and  the  young  prince  was  left  to  linger  in  his  chains.  In  the  following  year, 
however,  at  a  synod  in  which  were  present  the  Archbishops  of  Armagh  and  Cashel,  and 

*  Vallancey,  from  Munster  Annals.  According  lo  the  Four  Masters,  ad  an.  1153,  it  was  only  half  of  his 
kingdom,  "  kith  righe,"  that  Tdrlogh  regained. 

t  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1154.— We  may  smile  at  these  rude  naval  exploits;  but  the  genius  of  Homer  has  given 
immortality  to  an  armament  in  no  respect,  perhaps,  superior.  "  The  fleet  which  assembled  at  Aulis  (ssya 
Wood)  consisted  of  open,  half-decked  boats,  a  Bort  of  galleys  with  one  mast,  fit  for  rowing  or  sailing."— 
Inquiry,  SfC. 

I  "  Allniuirach."— It  is  stated  (IV.  Mag.)  that  M'Scelling,  the  commanderinchief  of  O'Lochlin's  fleet, 
was  punished  for  his  failure  by  having  all  his  teeth  drawn  oiit.—Ro  benadh  afhiacla  a  mac  Scellivg. 

§  Bo  ban  CaomghiH.—lV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1143. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  239 

the  monarch  Tordelvach  himself,  the  clergy,  on  a  renewal  of  their  solicitations,  procured 
the  release  of  Roderic  from  his  fetters.* 

One  of  the  last  acts  of  the  life  of  Tordelvach  the  Great,  as  he  is  flatteringly  styled  by 
his  historians,  was  to  receive  hostages  from  the  King  of  North  Munster,  in  acknow- 
ledgment of  his  sovereignty;  a  few  months  after  which  act  of  power  he  died,f  having 
left  all  his  precious  effects,  consisting  of  jewellery  and  vessels  of  gold  and  silver,  his 
horses  and  flocks,  his  bow,  quiver,  every  thing,  except  his  sword,  shield,  and  drinking- 
cup,  to  be  distributed  among  the  different  churches,  together  with  sixty-five  ounces  of 
gold  and  sixty  marks  of  silver.  It  was  also  ordered,  in  his  will,  that  his  body  should  be 
deposited  near  the  altar  of  St.  Kieran,  in  the  great  church  of  Clonmacnoise. 

In  the  year  1152,  was  held  the  great  Synod,  or  National  Council,  of  Kells,  at  which 
Cardinal  Paparo,  as  the  legate  of  Pope  Eugene  III.,  presided,  and  distributed  the 
palliums  brought  by  him  from  Rome  to  the  tour  several  Archbishops,  according  to  ^^^ 
their  order  of  precedency,  of  Armagh,  Cashel,  Dublin,  and  Tuam.     To  procure 
this  distinction  for  the  metropolitan  heads  of  the  Irish  church  had  long  been  a  favourite 
object  with  that  holy  and  eminent  Irishman,  St.  Malachy,  who,  in  his  great  anxiety  to 
accomplish  this  object,  had,  himself,  about  the  year  1139,  being  then  Bishop  of  Down, J 
repaired  to  Rome,  and  obtained  from  Pope  Innocent  II.,  by  whom  he  was  most  dis- 
tinguishingly  received, ^  a  conditional  promise  to  that  cfl^ect. 

It  was  in  the  course  of  this  journey  that  the  saint,  resting  on  his  way,  both  in  going 
and  returning,  at  the  celebrated  Abbey  of  Clairvaux,  formed  that  friendship  with  the 
famous  St.  Bernard,  the  cordiality  of  which  reflected  honour  on  both,  and  of  which  there 
remains  so  interesting  a  monument,  in  the  life  of  our  eminent  bishop,  written  by  St. 
Bernard.  Approving  of  the  system  followed  at  Clairvaux,  Malachy  had  left  there  some 
of  his  companions  to  be  instructed  in  the  regulations  and  practices  of  the  establishment,]! 
and  it  was  by  these  Irishmen,  on  their  return  to  their  own  country,  accompanied  by  some 
monks  of  Clairvaux,  that  the  Cistercian  House  of  Mellifont,  in  the  now  county  of  Louth, 
the  first  of  that  order  known  in  Ireland,  was  founded.  On  the  accession  of  Eugene  III. 
to  the  holy  see,  Malachy,  who  had  never  lost  sight  of  his  favourite  object  of  the  palliums, 
conceiving  that  the  new  pope,  who  had  been  a  monk  of  Clairvaux,  and  a  disciple  of  St. 
Bernard,  would  be  inclined  to  favour  his  wishes,  set  out  for  France,  with  the  hope  of 
finding  him  at  Clairvaux,  to  which  scene  of  his  humble  days  the  pontiff  had  at  this  time 
paid  a  visit.  But  being  delayed  in  sailing  from  England,  owing  to  an  order  of  King 
Stephen,  who,  in  consequence  of  a  dispute  with  the  pope,  would  not  suffer  any  bishop  to 
pass  over,  Malachy  arrived  at  Clairvaux  too  late  for  his  object;  and  being,  soon  after, 
seized  with  a  severe  and  fatal  illness,  breathed  his  last  in  that  abbey,  exhibiting  a  calm 
and  spiritual  cheerfulness  in  his  dying  moments,  of  which  his  friend  St.  Bernard  has  lefl 
a  minute  and  touching  description. IT 

Besides  the  distribution  of  the  palliums,  the  chief  affairs  that  appear  to  have  occupied 

*  This  record  of  Roderic's  captivity  had  escaped,  it  appears,  the  accurate  research  of  Dr.  Lnnigan.  "  I  do 
not  well  understand  (he  says)  what  the  Inisfallen  annals  have  about  Roderic  O'Connor's  captivity;  but  Har- 
ris (Bishops,  at  Tuam,  Muredach,  O'Dubhal)  says,  from  certain  anonymous  annals„that  he  had  been  taken 
prisoner  by  Tiernan  O'Ruarck."  Harris,  though  right  as  to  the  fact  of  the  captivity  and  the  date,  is  wrong, 
as  we  see,  in  his  statement  of  the  circumstances.  Mr.  Whitty  {Hist,  of  Ireland,  chap,  iii )  has  but  amplified 
Harris's  error. 

t  The  date  of  the  death  of  this  monarch  is  stated  variously  by  different  writers.  "  Le  pere  Bruodine," 
says  Mac  Geoghegan,  "  place  la  mort  de  Terdelach  en  1144,  Keating  en  1150,  Gratianus  Lucius  et  O'Flaherty 
en  1156,  et  VVareus  en  1157." 

X  Ledwich  represents  him,  erroneously,  as  being  still  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  at  the  time  when  be  applied 
for  the  palls. 

§  "  The  pope  took  off  his  mitre,  and  put  it  on  the  head  of  Malachy,  as  a  token  of  the  reverence  he  bore 
him.  He  also  made  him  a  present  of  the  stole  and  maniple,  which  he  was  wont  to  use  in  the  celebration  of 
divine  offices,  and  dismissed  hira  with  the  kiss  of  peace,  and  the  apostolical  benediction." — Harris  on  Ware's 
Bishops. 

II  From  one  of  the  letters  of  St.  Bernard  to  Malachy,  preserved  in  Usher's  SijUoge.  it  appears  that  the  Irish 
bishop  had,  in  sending  over  some  others  of  his  countrymen  to  Clairvaux,  entreated  that  two  of  those  whom 
he  had  left  behind  might  be  allowed  to  leturn  to  Ireland.  To  this  request  St.  Bernard,  in  his  answer,  objects, 
not  thinking  it  advisable  to  separate  them  so  soon  from  their  companions.  "  When  sufficiently  instructed," 
he  adds,  "in  the  school  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  they  shall  return  to  their  father,  and  sing  the  canticles  of  the  Lord, 
no  longer  in  a  foreign  land  but  in  their  own." — "  Ut  cantent  canticum  Domini,  non  jam  in  terra  aliena,  sed 
in  sua." 

IT  '•  He  was  undoubtedly,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  the  greatest,  the  holiest,  and  the  most  disinterested,  of  the 
bishops  of  his  times.  St.  Bernard,  a  truly  competent  judge,  could  scarcely  find  words  to  express  his  admira- 
tion of  him."— Chap.  27.  §  12. 

The  name  of  this  eminent  Irish  ecclesiastic,  St.  Malachy,  is  indebted,  chiefly  for  the  fame  it  still  maintains 
on  the  continent  to  a  work  very  generally  attributed  to  him,  but  of  wiiich  he  was  certainly  not  the  author, 
containing  a  collection  of  mystic  prophecies  respecting  the  popes.  One  of  the  last  alleged  instances  of  the 
accomplishment  of  any  of  these  prophecies  took  place  on  no  less  recent  an  occasion  than  the  journey  of  PiuS 
VI.  to  Germany,  in  1782.  The  connexion  of  Malachy's  name  with  this  book  has  given  rise  to  a  number  of 
writings  relating  to  hira;  and,  among  others,  there  is  one  by  Jean  Germano,  mixing  up  the  true  man  with 
the  counterfeit,  entitled,  Vita,  Oesti  e  Predizioni  del  Padre  San.  Malachia. 


240  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  attention  of  the  Synod  of  Kells  were  some  enactments  against  simony  and  usury,  as 
well  as  against  the  prevalence  of  marriage  and  concubinage  among  the  clergy.*  There 
was  also  promulgated,  among  the  acts  at  this  council,  an  order  from  the  cardinal,  in  virtue 
of  his  apostolic  authority,  for  the  payment  of  tithes,t — the  first  introduction,  as  it  appears, 
of  that  perennial  source  of  discord  into  this  country. f 

Among  the  numerous  devices  resorted  to  by  a  certain  religious  party  in  Ireland,  one 
of  the  most  favourite  has  been  to  misrepresent  the  history  of  the  Irish  church;  and  as  if 
in  contrast  to  the  docile  submission  which  the  church  of  England,  froin  the  first,  paid  to 
Rome,  to  hold  forth  the  ecclesiastical  system  established  in  Ireland,  as  having  been,  till 
within  a  short  period  of  the  English  invasion,  entirely  independent  of  the  See  of  Rome. 
The  attempt  of  the  learned  and,  undoubtedly,  conscientious  Usher,  to  prove  that  the 
opinions  held  by  the  early  Irish  church,  on  most  of  the  leading  points  of  religious  doctrine 
and  discipline,  differed  essf^ntially  from  those  maintained  at  that  period  by  all  the  other 
Christian  churches  of  the  West,^  formed  a  part,  and,  from  his  name  and  character,  by  far 
the  most  imposing  part,  of  this  bold  controversial  enterprise. 

As  a  school  and  depository  for  these  supposed  ami-Roman  doctrines,  Dr.  Ledwich,  at  a 
later  period,  devised  his  scheme  of  an  establishment  of  Culdees  at  lona;  and,  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  connexion  with  Rome  altogether,  endeavoured,  as  far  as  his  meagre  grounds 
would  permit  him,  to  inculcate  the  notion  that  the  Christianity  of  the  Irish  was  of  Asiatic 
origin, — making  efforts  almost  as  fantastic  to  orientalize  their  church,  as  Vallancey  was, 
about  the  same  time,  employing  to  make  Asiatics  of  themselvos.|l  A  part  of  the  system 
thus  fictitiously  supported  was  to  represent  the  clergy  at  that  time  as  divided  into  two 
distinct  parties,  the  Roman  and  the  Anti-Rornan;  and  so  little  scrupulous  was  Ledwich 
in  his  mode  of  farthering  this  object,  that,  in  speaking  of  the  tract,  "  De  Statu  Ecclesise," 
written  by  Gillibert,  Bisiiop  of  Limerick,1[  he  describes  it  as  addressed  "to  the  dissident 
bishops  and  presbyters  of  Ireland,"  whereas  the  tract  in  question  is  expressly  addressed 
to  "  the  bishops  and  presbyters  of  all  Ireland." 

To  those  who  have  examined,  with  any  degree  of  fairness,  our  ecclesiastical  annals,  it 
is  needless  to  say  that  for  the  notions  thus  hazarded  there  exist  not  any  valid  grounds. 
As  an  instance  of  early  reference  to  Rome,  it  has  been  shown,  in  a  former  part  of  this 
work,  that  on  a  question  of  discipline  arising,  so  far  back  as  about  the  beginning  of  the 
seventh  century,  which  divided  the  opinions  of  the  Irish  church,  reference  was  made, 
according  to  a  canon  so  prescribing,  to  the  authority  of  Rome,  as  "the  Head  of  Cities," 
and  a  decision,  in  accordance  with  that  authority,  adopted.  It  is  true,  from  the  secluded 
position  of  Ireland,  and  still  more  from  the  ruin  brought  upon  all  her  religious  establish- 
ments during  the  long  period  of  the  Danish  wars,  the  intercourse  with  Rome  must  have 
been  not  unfrequently  interrupted,  and  the  powers  delegated  to  the  prelate  of  Armagh, 
as  legatus  natiis,  or,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  legate  of  the  holy  see,  may,  in  such  intervals, 
have  served  as  a  substitute  for  the  direct  exercise  of  the  papal  authority.  But  that  the 
Irish  church  has  ever,  at  any  period,  been  independent  of  the  spiritual  power  of  Rome, 
is  a  supposition  which  the  whole  course  of  our  ecclesiastical  history  contradicts.  On  the 
contrary,  it  has  been  frequently  a  theme  of  high  eulogium  upon  this  country,  as  well 
among  foreign  as  domestic  writers,  that  hers  is  the  only  national  church  in  the  world 
which  has  kept  itself  pure  from  the  taint  of  heresy  and  schism.** 

*  It  was  surely  unworthy  of  Dr.  Lanigan,  besides  being  shortsighted,  as  a  matter  of  policy,  to  suppress  all 
mention,  as  he  has  done  in  his  account  of  this  council,  of  the  above  enactment  against  the  marriage  and 
concubinage  of  the  clergy.  He  has  himself  in  another  part  of  his  work  (chap.  32.  s.  8..)  referred  to  some 
canons  of  the  Irish  church,  relating  to  the  marriage  of  monks  and  clerks,  which,  combined  with  other  proofs, 
leaves  not  a  doubt  thai  on  this  point  of  discipline  some  of  the  Irish  clergy  followed  the  example  set  them  at 
that  time  by  their  reverend  brethren  on  the  continent. 

t  Annals  of  Cluain  aidneach.  quoted  by  Keating.  "  On  this  point,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  he  was  very  badly 
obeyed ;  for  it  is  certain  that  tithes  were,  if  at  all,  very  little  exacted  in  Ireland  till  after  the  establishment 
of  the  English  power."    Chap.  27.  §  xv. 

}  Before  this  time  there  occurs  no  mention,  I  believe,  in  our  annals,  of  any  other  sources  of  ecclesiastical 
revenue  than  those  Termon.  or  free  lands,  set  apart  for  the  support  of  the  several  churches,  the  tribute  paid 
to  the  see  of  Armach  under  the  name  of  Rair  Palraicc.  or  the  Law  of  St.  Patrick,  and  a  similar  tribute  to 
Derry  called  Rair  Coluiiali  Cille.  The  word  Termon  is  evidently  derived  from  the  Latin  Terminus,  which  was 
likewise  used  to  signify  church  lands  in  the  middle  ages.  Thus,  in  a  decree  of  Lotharius  111.,  *  d.  1132, cited 
by  Diicange.  "  Ectiesiam  parochialem  S.  Servatii  solam  in  Trajectensi  urbe  habere  decimas  et  terminum" 

It  is  amusing  to  observe,  that  the  only  result  of  Ireland's  connexion  with  Rome  which  our  reverend  anti- 
quary, Ledwich,  can  bring  himsilf  to  approve,  is  the  introduction  from  thence  of  tithes;  "  than  which,"  he 
adds,  "  human  wisdom  never  yet  discovered  a  more  equitable  and  less  burdensome  provision  for  the  clergy."— 
Antiq.  On  the  State  of  the  Irish  Church.  Sec 

6  Sue,  for  remarks  on  Usher's  Treatise,  chap,  ii.,  p.  2.37. 

\\  Ledwich  was  not  original  in  this  fancy ;  as,  long  before  his  time,  Thomas  Rivius  is  known  to  have  con- 
tended that  "  ante  Heiirici  II.  in  Hiberniain  adventum  Romano  more  in  Hibernia  non  vivebatur  sed  Greco." 

IT  See,  for  this  Treatise,  Usher's  Sylloge. 

**  Thus  Thomas  Bosius,  "  Nulla  gens  e  Borealibus  tamdiu  mansit  in  unanimi  religionis  huius  consensu 
ut  Scotia  ....  agitur  itaque  annus  1350  ex  quo  Scoti  Christi  cultura  sunt  amplexati  et  in  eo  constautes  fuere, 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  241 

On  the  death  of  the  monarch,  Tordelvacli,  his  son,  Roderic  O'Connor,  succeeded  him 
in  the  throne  of  Connaught,  while  the  supreme  authority  passed,  without  any 
contest,  into  the  liands  of  Murtogh  O'Lochlin,*  King  of  Ulster,  and  was  by  liim  -i  ■■'-,.' 
wielded  with  a  far  more  decisive  and  absolute  grasp  than  by  any  of  the  titular      '"*  ' 
monarchs  who  had  preceded  him.     Though,  with  the  exception  of  some  sligiit  show  of 
rebellion  in  Ulster,  which  was  without  difficulty  put  down,  no  resistance  was  opposed  to 
the  new  monarch's  accession,  he  wisely  anticipated  any  that  might  arise  by  displaying 
the  means  he  possessed  of  encountering  it;  and  marching  his  army  through  the  greater 
part  of  Ulster,  and  likewise  of  Leinster,  received  the  submission  of  the  different  chiefs. 
By  Roderic  O'Connor  pretensions  were,  for  some  time,  put  forth  to,  at  least,  a  share  in 
the  sovereign  power;  and,  as  a  leading  step  towards  this  object,  he  demanded  hostages 
from  the  Kings  of  Leinster  and  Munster.     But  we  see  here  an  instance  of  the  constant 
state  of  uncertainty  in  which  all  the  political  relations  of  the  country  were  kept  by  such 
endless  changing  and  parcelling  out  of  the  supreme  power;  for  it  is  stated  that  the  King 
of  South  Munster,  when  called  upon  for  hostages  by  Roderic,  declared  that  he 
would  only  consent  to  give  him  these  sureties  in  case  O'Lochlin  should  not  prove  -licr-.' 
strong  enough  to  defend  him  if  he  refused   them.f     In  the  same  year,  as  the         '' 
annalists  tell  us,  a  fleet  was  collected   by  the  King'of  Connaught,  on  the  Shannon, 
"such  as,  for  the  number  and  size  of  the  ships,  had  never  till  that  day  been  seen." 

After  some  trials,  however,  of  his  strength  against  the  monarch,  attended  with  the 
usual  lavish  waste  of  life,  Roderic  consented  to  deliver  up  hostages,  and  a  peace  was 
concluded  between  them,  in  the  year  1161,  when  O'Lochlin  conceded  to  his  liegeman, 
in  form,  the  whole  of  that  fifth  part  of  the  kingdom,  named  Connaught ;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  on  a  similar  act  of  submission  from  Dermot,  King  of  Leinster,  the  possession  of  this 
fifth  part  of  the  ancient  pentarchy  was,  in  like  manner,  awarded  to  that  prince.  Then 
was  it,  say  the  Four  JVIasters,  that  Murtogh  O'Lochlin  was  King  of  Erin,  without  opposi- 
tion or  reluctance.]: 

In  his  transactions  with  the  chieftains  of  his  own  province,  the  monarch  was  far  less 
successful ;  and  a  violent  contention  between  him  and  Eochad,  the  King  of  Ulidia, 
though  carried  with  a  high  hand   by  O'Lochlin,  at  the  commencement,  proved  i  i"cc* 
ultimately  his  ruin.     The  Ulidian   prince  having,  in   revenge  for  some  alleged 
injuries,  overrun  and  laid  waste  the  royal  territory  of  Dalriada,  the  monarch,  incensed 
at  these  proceedings,  marched  a  great  army  into  Ulidia,  destroying  every  thing  by  fire 
and  sword,  except  the  churches;  and  having  declared  Eochad  to  be  dispossessed  of  his 
kingdom,  carried  off  the  chief  nobles  of  Ulidia  to  Armagh. §     Through  the  mediation, 
shortly  after,  of  the  primate  and  the  Prince  of  Orgial,  Eochad  was  pardoned  and  restored 
to  his  kingdom;  and  the  Ulidian  nobles,  on  surrendering  their  children  to  O'Lochlin,  as 
hostages,  were  permitted  to  return  home. 

To  the  terms  of  reconciliation  agreed  upon  between  the  two  kings  they  had  both 
solemnly  pledged  themselves,  before  the  altar  of  Armagh,  "on  the  holy  staff  of  St. 
Patrick,  and  the  relics  of  all  the  saints."  Notwithstanding  which,  in  the  following 
year,  whether  from  any  capricious  return  of  old  hostility,  or  suspected  grounds  for  new, 
the  monarch  caused  Eochad  to  be  suddenly  seized,  and  had  his  eyes  put  out;  while,  at 
the  same  time,  he  gave  orders  that  three  of  the  leading  cliiefs  of  Dalriada,  confidential 
and  devoted  friends  of  the  king,  should  be  put  to  death. ||  Familiarized  as  was  the  public 
mind  to  acts  of  outrage  and  cruelty,  the  total  want  of  assignable  grounds  for  this  burst  of 
barbarism  caused  its  atrocity  to  be  more  than  usually  felt.  By  the  prince  of  Orgial,  in 
particular,  who  had  been  one  of  tiie  guarantees  of  the  treaty,  so  savage  a  violation  of  its 
engagements  was,  with  the  keenest  ire,  resented  and  revenged.  Raising  an  army  in 
his  own  principality,  and  being  joined  by  the  forces  of  Hy-Bruin  and  Conmacne,  he  at- 
tacked the  monarch,  with  superior  numbers,  at  Lilterluin,1T  a  wild  tract  in  the  neigh- 


at  hoc  nulli  ali®  genti  e  Borealibus  evenit."— £)e  siffnis  Eccles.  c.  1.  Peter  Lombard,  in  like  manner,  citing 
Jonas  (in  Vit.  Sanct.  Columb  ,)  says  "  De  liac  gente  duo  ita  reliquit  annotata:  unum  quod  '  absque  reliquarum 
gentium  legibus  vivat,'  alterura  quod  '  niliilomiuus  in  Christiaiii  vigoris  dogmata  florens,  omnium  vicinarum 
gentium  (idem  prspolleat.'" 

*  I  have  followed  hynch  {Camhrcnsis  Eversus,)  in  exempting  this  monarch  from  the  list  of  kings  who 
reigned  with  resistance  or  reluctance.  "  Ut  saltern  ille  ex  Hibernis  regibus  Malachiam  Secundum  secutis  rex 
Hiberniae  citra  renitentiam  appellari  possit."  The  Four  Masters,  however,  withhold  this  distinction  from 
him  till  the  year  lOGl,  calling  him,  in  the  interim.  King  of  Erin  "  co  fresabhra."  See  their  annals,  ad  an. 
1157.  Neither  Keating  nor  Ware  include  him  in  their  list  of  the  kings  of  Ireland;  while  Colgan  not  only 
admits  him  to  that  rank,  but  passes  ihe  following  high  eulogium  upon  him  :— "  Rex  Hiberniae  et  Hibernorum 
e.xcellentissimus  form<E  praestantia,  generis  nobilitate,  animi  indole  et  in  rebus  agendis  prosperitate." 

t  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1137. 

i  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1161.    "  Ri  Er.  dan  cen  fresabhra  Muircert.  ua  Lachlamn  don  cur  sin." 

§  IV.  Mag.  ad.  an.  1165.  \i  Ibid.  1156.  V  Now  called  the  Fews. 

30 


242  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

bourhood  of  Lough  Neagh,  wliere,  after  having  seen  the  flower  of  his  nobility  fall  around 
him,  O'Lochlin  was  himself  slain. 

In  the  course  of  Ihe  reign  of  this  active  monarch,  who  stands  distinguished  as  a  muni- 
ficent friend  of  the  Church,  there  was  held  some  synods  at  different  places,  of 
■fi'f^R  which  the   transactions  and   decisions   belong  fully  as  much  to  temporal  as  to 
■  ecclesiastical  history.     Thus,  at  a  great  synod,*  at  ^Mellifont,  in  the  year  1157, 
convoked  for  tiio  purpose  of  consecrating  the  church  of  that  place,  there  were  present, 
besides  the  primate,  Gelasiusf  and  a  numerous  body  of  the  clergy,  the  monarch  himself, 
and  a  number  of  provincial  kings.     After  the  consecration  of  the  church,  tiie  whole 
assembly,    lay  and   clerical,  proceeded    to  inquire   into   some   charge   brought   against 
Melaghlin,  King  of  Meath ;  and,  on  his  being  found  guilty  of  the  alleged  offence,  he 
was  first  excommunicated   by  the  clergy,  and  then  deprived  of  his  principality  by  the 
monarch  and  the  other  princes. 

On  this  occasion,  the  king  gave,  as  a  pious  offering  for  his  soul,  to  God  and  the  monks 
of  Mellifont,  140  oxen  or  cows,  60  ounces  of  gold,  and  a  town-land,  near  Drogheda,  called 
Finnavair  of  the  Daughters.  Sixty  ounces  of  gold  were  also  presented  by  Carrol,  Prince 
of  Oriel,  and  as  many  more  by  Dervorgilla,  the  celebrated  wife  of  t!ie  Prince  of  Breffny, — 
the  fair  Helen,  to  whose  beauty  and  frailty  romantic  history  has  attributed  the  invasion 
of  Ireland  by  the  English.  This  lady  presented,  likewise,  on  that  occasion,  a  golden 
chalice  for  the  altar  of  the  Virgin,  together  with  sacred  vestments  and  ornaments  for 
each  of  the  nine  other  altars  that  stood  in  the  church. 

In  the  year  1158,  was  held  another  synod,  at  a  place  in  Meath,  called  Brigh-Thaig,  at 
which,  after  various  enactments  relating  to  discipline  and  morals,  it  was  resolved  that 
Derry  should  be  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  regular  episcopal  see;  and,  a  few  years  after,  the 
synod  of  Clane  conferred  upon  Armagh,  more  fully  than  it  had  ever  before  been  enjoyed 
by  that  school,  the  rank  and  privilege  of  a  university,  by  ordering  that  in  future  no  person 
should  be  admitted  a  Professor  of  Theology  in  any  church  in  Ireland,  unless  he  had  pre- 
viously pursued  his  studies  for  some  time  at  Armagh. | 

On  the  death  of  Murtogh  O'Lochlin,  the  supremacy  reverted  to  the  house  of  O'Connor; 

and  Roderic,  the  son  of  the  monarch  Tordelvach,  was  in  a  short  time  recognised 

•j-j^^'  throughout  the  country  as  king  of  all  Ireland.     One  of  his  firr-t  measures  on  his 

*  accession  had  been  to  march  with  a  sufficient  force  to  Dublin,  and  secure   the 

allegiance  of  the  Dano-Irish  of  that  city;  over  which  he  then  reigned,  say  the  annalists, 

in  more  worthy  state  than  ever  king  of  the  Irisii  had   reigned   there  before. ^     From 

thence,  being  joined  by  a  considerable  number  of  the  inhabitants,  he  directed  his  royal 

progress  northward,  and  received  in  turn  the  submission  of  all  the  leading  chieftains  of 

Leath-Cuinn. 

Being  now  recognised  through  all  the  provinces  as  monarch,  Roderic  assembled  a 
great  convention  of  the  princes  and  clergy  at  Athboy,  among  the  number  of  whom 
j,'^.J  were  the  primate  Gelasius  and  the  illustrious  St.  Lawrence  O'Toole.     This  good 
and  great  man,  who  was  destined  to  act,  as  we  shall  find,  a  distinguished  part  in 
the  coming  crisis  of  iiis  country's  fate,  po.sses.sed  qualities,  both  of  mind  and  heart,  which 
would  have  rendered  him  an  ornament  to  any  community,  however  advanced  in  civiliza- 
tion and  public  virtue.     Besides  these  heads  of  the  clergy,  there  were  also  at  this  meet- 
ing the  Kings  of  Ulidia  and    Meath,  Ticrnan   O'Ruarc,  Prince  of  Breffny,  Donchad 
O'Carrol,  Prince  of  Oriel,  together  with  a  number  of  other  princes  and  nobles,  attended 
by  their  respective  forces  of  horse  and  foot,  to  the  amount,  as  stated,  of  more  than 
30,000  men. II 

By  some  modern  historians,  this  great  convention  at  Athboy  is  represented  as  a  grand 
and  national  revival  of  the  ancient  Feis,  or  Triennial  Meeting  of  the  States  ;1f  and  it  has 
been  remarked, — with  but  too  much  justice,  on  such  a  supposition, — how  melancholy 
was  the  pride  exhibited  by  this  now  doomed  people,  in  thus  calling  up  around  them  the 
forms  and  recollections  of  ancient  grandeur,  at  the  very  moment  when  even  their  ex- 
istence, as  an  independent  nation,  was  about  to  be  extinguished  for  ever.    But  there  is 


*  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1157.  Said  by  the  Four  Masters  to  have  been  hold  at 
losed,  III  the  monastery  of  Mellifont,  which  is  near  that  town.— See  VA^arf 

t  Tlie  Irish  name  of  this  distinguished  prelate  (for  an  account  of  whon 
ilac  Liee- 


^ ,  _^^ Drogheda,  but  meaning,  as  is  sup- 
posed, in  the  monastery  of  Mellifont,  which  is  near  that  town.— See  VA^are  [Bis/iops]  at  Oelasius. 

t  Tlie  Irish  name  of  this  distinguished  prelate  (for  an   account  of  whom  see  Ware,  in  loc.  citat.)  was  Gilla 
Mac  '  '"" 


IT  Warner,  Wliiity,  &c. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  243 

no  aulliority  in  our  native  records  for  such  a  notion;  nor  witii  tlie  exception  of  the  un- 
usually large  display  of  troops  on  the  occasion,  does  this  meeting  appear  to  have,  in  any 
way,  differed  from  those  other  conventions,  or  synods,  which  were  held,  as  we  have  seen, 
so  frequently  at  this  period.  In  the  same  manner  as  at  all  those  other  meetings,  various 
laws  and  regulations,  relating  to  the  temporal  as  well  as  the  ecclesiastical  affairs  of  the 
country,  were  enacted  or  renewed;  and,  so  far  from  the  assembly  having  any  claim  to 
the  character  of  a  Convention  of  all  the  States,  it  was  evidently  summoned  only  for  the 
consideration  of  the  affairs  of  the  northern  half  of  the  island  ;  and  the  only  personage 
from  the  south,  mentioned  as  having  been  present  at  it,  was  Donchad  O'Fealan,  Prince 
of  the  Desies. 

As  we  have  now  reached  the  last  of  Ireland's  monarchs,  and  are  about  to  enter  into 
the  details  of  that  brief  struggle  which,  after  so  many  ages  of  stormy,  but  still  inde- 
pendent, existence,  ended  in  bringing  this  ancient  kingdom  under  subjection  to  the 
English  crown,  the  reader  will  be  enabled  to  understand  more  clearly  the  narrative  of 
the  transactions  connected  with  this  memorable  event  by  being  made  acquainted  with 
the  previous  lives  and  characters  of  a  few  of  the  personages  who  figured  most  promi- 
nently on  the  scene. 

The  monarch  Roderic,  who  was,  at  this  time,  in  his  fiftieth  year,  had  not  hitherto 
very  much  distinguished  himself  above  the  rest  of  his  fellow-chieftains,  in  those  qualities 
common,  it  must  be  owned,  to  them  all,  of  personal  courage  and  activity;  while  in  some 
of  those  barbarian  features  of  character,  those  sallies  of  fierce,  unmitigated  cruelty,  which 
were,  in  like  manner,  but  too  common  among  his  brother  potentates,  he  appears  to  have 
been  rivalled  but  by  few.  We  have  seen  that  by  his  father,  the  monarch  Tordelvach, 
he  was  kept  confined  for  a  whole  year  in  chains;  and  that  he  was  of  a  nature  requiring 
some  such  coercion,  would  appear  from  his  conduct  on  taking  possession  of  the  throne  of 
Connaught,  when,  with  a  barbarity,  the  only  palliation  of  which  is  the  frequency  of  the 
crime  in  those  days,  he  had  the  eyes  of  two  of  his  brothers  put  out,*  in  order  to  incapa- 
citate them  from  being  his  rivals  in  the  race  of  ambition  and  power.  Combining  with 
this  ferocity  a  total  want  of  the  chivalrous  spirit  which  alone  adds  grace  to  mere  valour, 
it  is  told  of  him,  that,  having  got  in  his  power  a  chieftain  of  the  clan  of  Suibhne,t  he  had 
him  loaded  with  fetters,  and,  in  that  helpless  state,  slew  him  with  his  own  hand.  It  is 
added,  as  an  aggravation  of  the  atrocity,  that  this  chieftain  was  then  under  the  imme- 
diate protection  of  the  Vicar  of  St.  Cieran.J 

While  such  was  the  character  of  the  monarch  upon  whom  now  devolved  the  responsi- 
bility of  watching  manfully  over  the  independence  of  his  country,  in  this  its  last  struggle 
and  agony,  the  qualities  of  the  prince  whose  ambition  and  treachery  were  the  immediate 
cause  of  bringing  the  invader  to  these  shores,  were,  if  possible,  of  a  still  more  odious  and 
revolting  nature.  Dermot  Mac-Murchad,  King  of  Leinster,  the  memorable  author  of 
this  treason,  had  long  been  distinguished  for  his  fierce  activity  and  courage  in  those 
scenes  of  turbulence  which  the  state  of  the  country  had  then  rendered  familiar.  He 
had,  even  so  early  as  the  year  1140,  exxited  a  general  feeling  of  horror  throughout  the 
kingdom,  by  treacherously  seizing,  at  once,  seventeen  of  the  principal  nobles  of  Leinster, 
and  having  some  of  the  number  put  to  death,  while  of  the  remainder  he  ordered  the  eyes 
to  be  plucked  out.  Between  this  prince  and  Tiernan  O'Ruarc, — the  Lord  of  Breffny,  a 
territory  in  the  eastern  part  of  Connaught, — a  hostile  feeling  had  early  arisen,  to  which 
the  constant  collision  of  their  respective  clans  and  interests  gave  every  day  increased 
bitterness;  and,  at  length,  an  event,  in  which  Dervorgilla,  the  fair  wife  of  O'Ruarc,  was 
guiltily  involved,  raised  this  animosity  to  a  degree  of  rancour  which  was  only  with  their 
respective  lives  extinguished. 

An  attachment  previously  to  her  marriage  with  O'Ruarc,  is  said  to  have  existed  be- 
tween Dervorgilla  and  the  King  of  Leinster;  a  supposition  which,  if  it  be  founded, 
acquits  the  lady,  at  least,  of  that  perverseness  of  nature,  which  would  seem  to  be  implied 
by  her  choosing  as  paramour,  her  husband's  deadliest  foe.  But,  however  this  may  have 
been, — and  there  exists  but  little,  if  any,  authority  for  much  of  the  romance  of  their 
amour — the  elopement  of  the  heroine  from  an  island  in  Meath,  to  which  she  had  been 
sent  during  O'Ruarc's  absence  on  one  of  his  military  expeditions,  was  the  plan  agreed 
upon  by  the  two  lovers,  and  which,  with  the  discreditable  aid  of  the  lady's  brother, 
Melachlin,  they  were  enabled  to  accomplish.  The  wronged  husband  appealed  for  re- 
dress to  the  monarch  Tordelvach,  who,  taking  up  his  cause  with  laudable  earnestness, 
marched  an  army  the  following  year  into  Leinster,  and  having  rescued  Dervorgilla  from 

*  "  Regnum  auspicatus  a  fratrum  exccecatione,  inalo  augurio."— /Jer.  Hib.  Script,  torn.  3.  bcclxxxix. 
t  Sweeny.  t  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1161. 


244  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  adulterer,  together  with  the  dowry  and  valuable  ornaments  which  she  had  carried 
away,  replaced  her  in  the  care  of  her  relatives  in  Mcalh. 

This  event,  the  abduction  of  the  wife  of  O'Ruarc  by  the  King  of  Leinster,  which  took 
place  so  early  as  the  year  1153,  has,  by  the  majority  of  our  historians,  been  advanced  in 
date,  by  no  less  tiian  thirteen  years,  for  the  purpose  of  connecting  it  with  Dermod's  ex- 
pulsion from  his  kingdom,  a.  d.  1166,  and  his  consequent  flight,  as  we  shall  see,  into 
England,  to  solicit  aid  from  Henry  II.  The  ready  adoption  of  so  gross  an  anachronism, 
by  not  a  few  even  of  our  own  native  historians,  may  be  cited  as  an  instance  of  that  strong 
tendency  to  prefer  showy  and  agreeable  fiction  to  truth,  which  has  enabled  Romance,  in 
almost  all  countries,  to  encroach  upon,  and  even  sometimes  supersede,  History. 

As  long  as  the  monarch  Tordelvach  lived,  O'Ruarc  was  sure  of  a  powerful  friend  and 
champion,  and  one  of  the  last  acts  of  this  sovereign's  life  was  to  f()rm  a  league  of  peace 
and  amity  with  the  Prince  of  Breffny.*  But,  as  soon  as  O'Lochlin  succeeded  to  the 
supremacy,  the  fortune  of  Dermot  rose  into  the  ascendant, — that  prince  having  espoused 
warmly  his  cause;  and  the  very  first  step  of  the  new  monarch,  on  his  accession,  was  to 
march  an  army  into  Leinster,  in  order  to  secure  to  his  unworthy  favourite  the  full 
possession  of  that  province.  During  the  whole  of  this  reign,  the  restless,  but  now  crest- 
fallen. Lord  of  Breffiiy  had  to  bear  every  variety  of  wrong  and  insult  that  a  triumphant 
rival  could  invent  or  compass  to  torment  him. 

But  O'Ruarc's  turn  of  triumph  and  retribution  was  now  at  hand.     Roderic  O'Connor, 

the  son  of  his  late  powerful  protector,  still  extended  to  him  the  hand  of  alliance 

,,'^p'  and  friendship;!  and  the  accession  of  this  prince  to  the  throne  of  Ireland,  in  the 

year  1166,  gave  signal  at  once  for  the  triumph  of  O'Ruarc  and  the  downfall  of  his 

rival  Dermot.     Not  all  the  territorial  and  personal  influence  which  this  latter  chief  had 

at  difl^erent  periods  attained,  now  availed  him  aught  against  the  general  odium  which  a 

long  course  of  crime  had  heaped    upon    his  head.     A   munificent  founder  of  religious 

houses,  he  had  established  in  Dublin,  in  the  county  of  Kilkenny,  at  Ballinglass,  and  at 

his  own  residence.  Ferns,];  many  large  and  most  richly  endowed  monasteries  and  abbeys, 

the  greater  number  of  which  continued  to  flourish  for  many  centuries,  while  of  some  the 

names  and  sites  may  even  to  this  day  be  traced. 

But  his  cruelty  and  insolence  were  remembered  far  more  freshly  than  his  munificence; 
and  the  many  whom  he  had  trodden  down  in  his  prosperity,  now  took  advantage  of  the 
turn  of  his  fortune  to  be  revenged.  The  forces  of  Breflriy,  of  JNIeath,  of  his  own  king- 
dom of  Leinster,  where  he  had  long  rendered  himself  odious  by  his  cruelties,  of  the 
Dano-Irish  of  Dublin,  whom  ho  had  kept  down  by  the  force  of  his  arms, — all  these  were 
now  eagerly  mustered,  under  the  command  of  his  inveterate  enemy,  Tiernan  O'Ruarc, 
and  proceeded  to  invade  his  territory.  Being  thus  assailed  from  all  quarters,  and  de- 
sorted  even  by  his  own  vassals,  Dermot  retired  at  first  to  Ferns;  but,  seeing  no 
1168  '^*^P^  of  being  able  to  stand  against  his  pursuers,  he  adopted  the  resolution  of  seek- 
*  ing  for  foreign  aid,  and,  having  first  set  fire  to  the  town  of  Ferns,  took  flight  pri- 
vately and  embarked  for  England;  while,  in  the  mean  time,  his  kingdom  was  declared 
to  have  been  forfeited,  and  another  prince  of  his  family  was  nominated  to  be  its  ruler. 

In  having  recourse  for  assistance  to  England,  it  does  not  appear  that  Dermot  was 
influenced  by  any  previous  concert  with  Henry  II.,  that  prince  being  absent,  at  this 
time,  in  Normandy,  and  too  deeply  engaged  in  his  humiliating  and  harassing  struggle 
with  Becket  to  afford  much  thought  to  any  less  urgent  concerns.  It  is  well  known, 
however,  that  this  ambitious  monarch  had  many  years  before  projected  the  acquisition  of 
Ireland,  and  had  even  provided  himself  with  that  sort  of  sanctified  title  to  it,  which,  in  those 
days,  the  spiritual  lords  of  the  earth  were  but  too  ready  to  furnish  to  the  temporal, — thus 
lowering  religion  into  the  mere  handmaid  of  earthly  ambition  and  power.  This  plan 
had  been  conceived  by  him  so  far  back  as  the  year  1155;  but  having  neither  a  legal 
right  to  the  possession  of  Ireland,  nor  any  ground  of  quarrel  to  justify  an  invasion  of  it, 
he  saw  that  by  no  other  means  could  he  plausibly  attain  his  object  than  by  masking  the 

*  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  115G. 

t  For  proofs  of  tlie  friendship  subsisting  between  Roderic  O'Connor  and  O'Ruarc,  sec  the  Four  Masters,  at 
the  years  1159  and  1160 

t  The  names  and  sites  of  the  religious  establishments  attributed  to  him  may  be  found  in  the  List  of  the 
Abbeys  and  Monasteries  of  Ireland  given  in  Harris's  Ware,  chap  xxxviii.  Among  the  religious  houses 
founded  by  him  was  an  abbey,  near  Dublin,  called  the  Nunnery  of  St.  Mary  de  Hogges,  meaning  thereby,  it 
is  supposed,  St.  Mary  of  the  Virgins,— the  word  ogh  in  Irish  signifying  a  virgin.  This  establishment  was  for 
■nuns  following  the  rule  of  St.  Augustin,  according  to  the  order  of  Aroasia,— See  Archdall  Moiiast.  Hibern. 
Dermot  was  also  ihe  founder  of  the  priory  of  All  Saints,  which  stood  on  Hoggin  Green,  now  called  College 
Green,  and  on  that  part  of  it  where  Trinity  College  stands,— iani^an,  chap,  xxviii.  s.  10. 

"The  Ostinen  of  Dublin  were  overrun  and  spoiled  by  Dermot  Mac  Murrogh,  King  of  Leinster,  who  bore  a 
greater  sway  over  them  than  any  other  king  had  done  for  a  long  time."— Harris's  Annals  of  Dublin,  ad  aiin. 
1162. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  *245 

real  tnolive  of  his  enterprise  under  a  pretended  zeal  for  the  interests  of  morality  and 
religion.  With  this  view  he  despatciied  an  envoy  to  Rome,  where  lately  an  Englishman, 
named  Breakspe;ir,  had,  under  the  title  of  Adrian  IV.,  hcen  raised  to  the  pontifical  throne. 
The  king  had  previously  conciliated  the  favour  of  the  new  pope  hy  sending  to  congratu- 
late him  on  his  accession;  and  the  request  of  which  his  envoy,  John  of  Salisbury,  was 
now  the  bearer,  was  such  as  could  not  fail  to  meet  with  a  gracious  reception,  as,  in 
applying  to  the  pope  for  leave  to  take  possession  of  Ireland,  Henry  acknowledged  in  him 
an  extent  of  temporal  power  such  as  no  pope  had  ever  before  thought  of  assuming;  and 
the  address  with  which  Adrian,  in  his  politic  answer  to  the  king,  repeated  and  extended 
this  admission,  claiming,  on  the  strength  of  it,  a  right  and  jurisdiction,  not  only  over 
Ireland,  but  over  all  other  Christian  islands,*  crowned  most  worthily  this  strange  and 
audacious  transaction;  wiiich  presents,  in  all  respects,  a  perfect  instance  of  that  sort  of 
hypocritical  prelude  to  wrong,  that  holy  league  for  purposes  of  rapine,  between  the  papal 
and  regal  powers,  in  which  most  of  the  usurpations,  frauds,  and  violences  of  those  dark 
and  demoralized  times  originated. 

The  permission  accorded  to  Henry  by  the  pope  to  invade  and  subdue  the  Irish  for  the 
purpose  of  reforming  them,  was  accompanied  by  a  stipulation  for  the  payment  to  St. 
Peter  of  a  penny  annually  from  every  house  in  Ireland,  this  being  the  price  for  which 
the  independence  of  the  Irish  people  was  thus  coolly  bartered  away.  Together  with  the 
Bull,f  containing  the  grant  and  stipulation,  was  sent  also  to  Henry  a  gold  ring,  adorned 
with  a  valuable  emerald,  as  a  token  of  his  investiture  with  the  right  to  rule  over  Ireland; 
and  this  ring,  as  we  are  informed  by  the  bearer  of  it,  John  of  Salisbury,  was,  by  Adrian's 
orders,  deposited  in  the  public  archives. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  Henry,  in  speculating  on  the  conquest  of  Ireland,  intended 
that  kingdom  for  the  youngest  of  his  brothers.  Prince  William,  for  whom  no  provision 
had  been  made  by  their  late  father  Geotfry.  Whatever  might  really  have  been  his 
design,  at  the  time  when  he  sought  the  papal  sanction  for  his  views,  other  schemes  and 
interests,  more  pressing,  diverted  his  attention  from  this  object;  and  among  the  most 
urgent  was  the  not  very  creditable  operation  of  possessing  himself  forcibly  of  some  terri- 
tories in  Anjou,  which  his  brother  Geoffry,  had  inherited  under  the  will  of  the  late  king; 
a  will  which  Henry  himself  had  sworn  to  see  faithfully  fulfilled, — though  in  utter  igno- 
rance, as  appears,  of  the  dispositions  which  it  contained  respecting  his  brother.  In 
addition  to  tiiese  various  demands  on  his  attention,  the  opinion  of  his  mother,  the  Empress 
Matilda,  was  decidedly  opposed,  it  is  said,  to  his  Irish  enterprise;  and  the  Bull  was, 
accordingly,  left  to  repose  undisturbed  for  some  years  in  the  archives  of  Winchester. 

Owing  to  the  secrecy,  doubtless,  with  which  this  singular  grant  was  negotiated,  no 
intimation  seems  to  have  reached  Ireland  of  even  the  existence  of  such  a  document, 
during  the  whole  of  the  long  interval  that  elapsed  between  its  first  grant  and  the  time 
of  its  promulgation.  Some  writers,  it  is  true,  liave  surmised  that  the  Irish  clergy  were 
from  the  first  informed  of  it;  and  account  thereby  for  the  increased  activity  with  which 
from  the  date,  as  they  say,  of  Adrian's  Bull,  public  synods  were  assembled,  and  decrees 
and  regulations  multiplied, — as  if  to  remove  from  the  Church  that  stigma  of  general 
laxity  in  morals  and  discipline  which  had  been  made  the  pretext  for  so  deliberate  a 
design  against  the  independence  of  the  whole  country.|  But  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to 
believe,  that,  had  any  knowledge  of  this  singular  document  transpired  in  Ireland,  there 
should  have  occurred  no  allusion  or  reference  to  it  at  any  of  the  numerous  synods  held 
throughout  the  country;  nor  even  the  slightest  notice  taken  in  any  of  our  native  records 
of  a  transaction  so  fijil  of  moment  to  the  future  destiny  of  the  kingdom. 

That  Dermot's  resolution  to  apply  for  aid  to  England  was,  in  any  degree,  prompted  by 
a  knowledge  of  the  papal  grant,  is  by  no  means  necessarily  to  be  implied.  Already  the 
proximity  of  the  two  islands  must  not  unfrequently  have  suggested  the  likelihood  of  an 
invasion,  at  no  distant  time,  from  the  shores  of  the  larger  and  more  powerful.     Up  to 

*  "  Jam  Hibemiam  et  oinnes  insiilas  quibus  Sol  justitiffi  Christus  illuxit,  et  quae  documenta  Fidei  Chris- 
lianas  receperuiit,  ad  jus  beati  Petri  et  sacrosanclte  RomansE  Ecclesiae  (quod  tua  eliain  nobilitas  recognoscit,) 
non  est  dubium  pertiriere." 

t  Some  zealous  champions,  as  well  of  the  papacy  as  of  Ireland,  have  endeavoured,  but  without  any  success, 
to  demonstrate  that  both  this  Bull,  and  the  Bull  of  Alexander  III.  confirminf;  it,  are,  upon  the  face  of  them, 
rank  forgeries.  See  Gratianus  Lucius,  loc.  citat.;  and  the  abbti  Gcoghegan's  Hist,  dirlande,  torn.  i.  c.  7.  The 
chief  argument  ofthe  latter  writer  is  founded  on  the  improbability,  as  he  conceives,  that  either  of  these  popes 
could  have  thought  of  selecting  as  an  apostle  for  the  reformation  of  Ireland' so  irreligious  and  profligate  a 
prince  as  Henry  II.  "Voila  d<inc  (says  the  abbt)  I'Papotre,  voila  le  rtformateur  que  le  saint  Si6ge  auroit 
■choisi  pour  convertir  I'lrlande." 

i  Gratianus  Lucius,  on  much  more  convincing  grounds,  attributes  this  increased  zeal  for  the  reform  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline  to  the  example  and  remonstrances  of  that  great  luminary  ofthe  ancient  Irish  church, 
St.  Malachy: — Ktenim  post  Hibernos  ad  bonam  frugem  a  S.  Malachia  revocatos,  sippe  saepius  indicia  sunt 
comiiia  multo  principum  et  antistitum  numero  frequentata."— Camftrens.  F.vera. 


246  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

this  period,  the  tide  of  incursion  appears  to  have  been  entirely  from  the  Irish  side  of  the 
Channel ;  and,  in  all  the  struggles  of  Wales  against  English  domination,  troops  were 
wafted  over  to  her  aid  in  the  corachs  of  her  warlike  neighbours.  In  the  rebellion  of 
Godwin  and  his  sons  against  Edward  the  Confessor,  Ireland  furnished,  as  we  have  seen, 
men  and  ships  in  their  cause;  and,  after  the  defeat  at  Hastings,  three  sons  of  the  con- 
quered king  sought  refuge  and  succour  in  the  same  country,  and  were  enabled  to  fit  out 
from  thence  a  large  fleet  for  the  mvasiun  of  England.  On  the  other  hand  it  appears 
pretty  certain  that  both  William  the  Conqueror  and  the  first  Henry  entertained  serious 
thoughts  of  adding  the  realm  of  Ireland  to  tiieir  dominions;  and  William  Rufus,  in  one 
of  his  expeditions  against  the  Welsh,  is  reported  to  have  said,  as  he  stood  on  the  rocks  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  St.  David's,  and  looked  at  the  Irish  hills,  that  he  would  "  make  a 
bridge  with  his  ships  from  that  spot  to  Ireland."* 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Dermot  solicits  aid  from  King  Henry. — Receives  permission  to  raise  forces  in  England. — 
Negotiates  wltli  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  ;wid  others. — Reliirns  to  Ireland. — Arrival  of  Fitz- 
Stephen, — Surrender  of  Wexvvord. —  First  Britisli  scUlemcrt  in  Ireland. — Invasion  of 
Ossory. — Arrival  of  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald. — UnviJorth)'  conduct  of  the  Monarcii  Roderic— 
His  negotiations  with  Dcrtnot  and  the  Foreigners. — Dermot  aspires  to  the  Monarcliy. — 
Encouraged  in  his  design  by  the  English. — Arrival  of  Raymond  Le  Gros. — Barbarous 
execution  of  Irish  prisoners.  — I;anding  of  Strongbow. — His  marriage  with  the  King  of 
Leinster's  daughter. — March  to  Dublin. — Roderic's  weakness. — His  cruelty, — Remarkable 
Synod  at  Armagii. 

It  has  been  already  stated  that  Dermot,  the  dethroned  King  of  Leinster,  finding  him- 
self an  object  of  general  odium  in  his  own  country,  and  without  the  means  of  encountering 
his  enemies  in  the  field,  took  the  resolution  of  applying  for  succour  to  England;  and  the 
port  of  Bristol,  then  most  in  use  for  communication  between  the  two  islands,  was  that 
to  which  he  sailed. f  On  his  arrival,  however,  he  learned  that  the  English  king,  to 
whom  it  was  his  intention  to  apply  for  a.ssistance,  was  at  that  time  in  Aquitaine,  and 
thither  he  accordingly  hastened  to  seek  him.  Though  engaged  an.xiously  then  in  his 
protracted  and  mortifying  contest  with  Becket,  and  also  in  breaking  the  refractory  spirit 
of  some  barons  of  Bretagne,  over  whose  territories  he  had  acquired  authority,  Henry  yet 
listened  with  politic  complacence  to  the  fugitive  Irish  prince,  while  he  told  indignantly 
of  the  treatment  he  had  met  with  from  his  rebellious  subjects,  and  oflx^red,  if  restored  to 
his  kingdom  by  Henry's  aid,  to  receive  it  as  a  fief,  and  render  him  homage  as  his 
vassal. 

Fully  aware  of  the  advantage  to  be  derived,  towards  the  fartherance  of  his  views  upon 
Ireland,  not  more  from  the  personal  alliance  and  co-operation  of  a  powerful  native  prince, 

*  See  Leland,  book  i.  chap.  i.  Girald.  Cainbr.  Itinerar,  Cambr.  1.  ii.  cap.  i.  Tiistead  of  citing  the  words  of 
the  original,  I  shall  give  the  wliole  anecdote,  as  rendered  by  Hanmer,  in  Iiis  Chronicle: — "Canibrensis  in  his 
Itinerarie  of  Cambria,  reporteth,  how  that  King  William,  standing  upon  some  high  rocke  in  the  farthest 
part  of  Wales,  l)pheld  Ireland,  and  said,  '  I  will  have  the  shippes  of  my  kingdome  brought  hither,  wherewith 
I  will  make  a  bridge  to  invade  this  land.'  Murchardt,  King  of  Leynster,  heard  thereof,  and  after  he  had 
paused  awhile,  asked  of  the  reporter,  '  Hath  the  king,  in  thiit  his  great  threatening,  inserted  these  words,  if 
it  please  God  ?'  '  No.'  '  Then,'  said  he,  '  seeing  this  king  putteth  his  trust  only  in  man,  and  not  in  God,  I 
feare  not  his  comming.' " 

t  "  Ad  nobilis  oppidi  Bristolli  partes  se  contulit;  ubi  etiam  occasione  navium,  qua;  de  Hibernia  eo  in  porta 
crebris  applicationibus  suscipi  consueverant,  &c."    Girald.  Cambrens.  Ilib.  Expug.  I.  i.  c.  2. 

Giraldus  says  nothing  of  the  sixty  followers  who,  according  to  some  writers,  accompanied  Dermot  in  his 
flight;  though  Leland  has  carelessly  cited  him  as  his  authority  for  the  assertion.  Considering  the  circum- 
stances of  his  departure,  it  would  seem  improbable  that  he  should  have  taken  with  him  such  an  escort.  We 
find,  however,  in  Sayer's  History  of  Bristol,  the  following  curious  notice;—-  One  of  our  MS.  Calendars  says, 
that  '  he  (Dermot)  came  to  Bristol  in  1168,  with  si.xly  friends  and  atten  lants,  and  was  here  entertained  by 
the  ancestors  of  the  lords  of  Berkely,  that  is,  by  Robert  Fitzharding  or  his  family.'"    Chap.  ix. 

According  to  the  English  chronicler  Bromton,  Dermot's  first  step  had  been  to  send  over  his  son  into  Eng- 
land, in  consequence  of  which,  says  Bromton,  he  received  from  thence  some  trifling  aid:—"  Cum  auiem  cito 
post  contra  euridem  regem  ferocissimi  totius  Hibernife  populi  indignari  et  tumultuari  incijierent,  eo  quod 
genteni  Anglicanam  Hibernia  immisisset,  illi  Angli  paucitate  sua;  metuentes,  accitis  ex  Anglia  viris  inopia 
laborantibuset  lucri  cupidis,  vires  paulatim  auxerunt."  There  is,  however,  1  believe,  no  authority  for  thi» 
mission  of  Dermod'a  son  in  any  of  our  native  annals. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  247 

than  from  the  influence  such  an  example  would  be  sure  to  exercise  upon  others,  Henry 
saw  not,  or  at  least  was  unirioveH  by,  those  better  and  nobler  considerations  which  would 
have  led  a  more  hifjh-minded  man  to  reject  so  unworthy  an  instrument  of  success.  He 
therefore  received  without  hesitation,  the  proffered  fealty  of  his  new  liegeman,  and,  as 
the  only  mode  in  which  he  could,  at  present,  forward  his  object,  gave  him  letters  patent, 
to  be  employed  throughout  his  dominions,  in  the  following  words: — "Henry,  King  of 
England,  Duke  of  Normandy  and  Aquitaine,  and  Earl  of  Anjou,  to  all  his  liegemen, 
English,  Norman,  Welsh,  and  Scotch,  and  to  all  the  nations  under  his  dominion,  sends 
greeting.  As  soon  as  the  present  letters  shall  come  to  your  hands,  know  that  Dermot, 
Prince  of  Leinster,  has  been  received  into  the  bosom  of  our  grace  and  benevolence. 
Wherefore  whosoever,  within  the  ample  extent  of  our  territories,  siuill  be  willing  to  lend 
aid  towards  the  restoration  of  this  prince,  as  our  faithful  and  liege  subject,  let  such  person 
know  that  we  do  hereby  grant  to  him,  for  said  purpose,  our  license  and  favour." 

Having  succeeded  thus  tar  in  the  object  of  his  mission,  Dermot  hastened  back, 
full  of  hope,  to  England,  and  repairing  once  more  to  Bristol,  made  every  effort,  A*/?-,* 
by  causing  the  letter  of  the  king  to  be  promulgated,  and  holding  forth  liberal  offers  *' 
of  lands  and  other  rewards,  to  induce  adventurers  to  take  up  arms  in  his  cause.  All 
these  exertions,  however,  proved  fruitless,  and  there  appeared,  for  some  time,  scarcely  a 
chance  of  success;  when,  at  length,  fortune  threw  in  his  way  the  very  description  of 
person  most  filly  qualified,  as  well  by  natin-e  as  by  extrinsic  circumstances,  to  take  a 
lead  in,  and  lend  importance  to,  such  an  enterprise.  Richard  de  Clare,  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, surnamed  as  his  father  had  been  before  him,  Strongbow,  was,  at  this  time,  at 
Bristol ;  and  in  his  brave  nature,  munificent  spirit,  and  ruined  fortunes,  combined  all  that 
was  likely  to  stimulate  as  well  as  adorn  a  course  of  warlike  adventure.  To  this  noble- 
man Dermot  addressed  himself,  and,  in  addition  to  the  temptations  opened  by  the  pros- 
pect of  fame  and  conquest,  offered  not  only  to  bestow  on  him  his  eldest  daughter,  Eva,  in 
marriage,  but,  however  inconsistent  with  the  law  of  the  land,  to  secure  to  the  earl  him- 
self the  succession  to  the  throne  of  Leinster,  on  condition  that  he  would  raise  for  Dermot 
an  efficient  body  offerees,  and,  in  the  course  of  the  ensuing  spring,  bring  them  over  with 
him  into  Ireland. 

To  these  propositions  Strongbow  assented ;  and  the  Irish  prince,  thus  far  successful, 
was  also  lucky  enough,  in  the  town  of  St.  David's,  whither  he  had  removed  from  Bristol, 
to  engage  in  his  service  two  young  men  of  high  rank,  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald  and  Robert 
Fitz-Stephen,  both  Normans  and  maternal  brothers  (being  sons  of  the  beautiful  Nesta, 
mistress  of  Henry  1.;*)  and  both  fitted,  like  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  by  broken  fortunes 
and  political  difficulties,  to  embark  in  any  enterprise,  however  desperate,  which  held 
forth  a  prospect  of  speedy  relief  and  change.  In  consequence  of  impediments  thrown  in 
the  way,  by  Rees  ap  Gryfiyth,  prince  of  that  country,  who,  on  some  grounds  of  political 
difl^erence,  not  requiring  to  be  here  enlarged  upon,  had  kept  Fitz-Stephen  confined  in 
prison  for  three  years,  and  was  now  unwilling  to  let  him  escape  from  his  grasp,  the  nego- 
tiation lingered  for  some  time,  but,  at  length,  was  concluded  satisfactorily  to  all  parties; — 
Dermot  pledging  himself  to  give  in  fee  to  the  two  brothers,  the  town  of  Wexford  and 
two  cantreds  of  land  adjoining;  while  they,  in  their  turn,  engaged  to  transport  into 
Leinster,  in  the  course  of  the  ensuing  spring,  a  body  of  English  and  Welsh  forces  to  aid 
him  in  recovering  the  throne  of  that  kingdom. 

Thus  precarious  and  limited  were  the  means,  and  thus  obscure  the  instruments,  by 
which  an  invasion  so  truly  momentous  in  all  its  consequences  was  to  be  accomplished; — 
the  prime  mover  of  the  whole  enterprise  being  a  rude  and  unprincipled  chieftain,  of 
whose  existence,  probably,  the  persons  he  applied  to  for  aid  had  never  even  heard  till  the 
moment  he  presented  himself  before  them;  and  the  few  adventurers,  of  any  note,  whom 
he  contrived  to  attach  to  his  fortunes,  being  persons  ignorant  alike  of  the  country  and 
the  nature  of  the  cause  with  which  they  connected  themselves,  but  who,  broken  down, 
either  by  misfortune  or  their  own  imprudence,  at  home,  found  sufficient  in  the  allure- 
ments of  lucre  alone  to  supply  the  place  of  all  other  more  worthy  inducements. 

Being  thus  far  assured  of  foreign  aid,  the  traitor  Dermot  ventured  to  return  into 
Leinster,  and  proceeding  privately  to  Ferns,  remained  concealed  there  the  greater  part 

*  This  lady,  who  was  no  less  celebraleil  for  hor  gallantries  than  for  her  beauty,  after  separating  from  her 
royal  lover,  married  Gerald,  governor  of  Pembroke  and  lord  of  Carevv,  by  whom  she  had  two  (or  three)  sons, 
and  the  second  of  them,  Maurice  Fitzgerald,  was  the  brave  adventurer  who  now  enlisted  in  the  service  of 
the  Irish  king.  His  mother,  Nesta,  after  having  been  carried  off  from  her  husband  by  a  Welsh  prince,  named 
Caradoc,  became,  on  Geralds  death,  the  mistress  of  the  constable,  Stephen  de  Marisco,  and  by  him  had  a  son, 
Robert  Fitz-Stophen,  the  same  who  engaged,  at  this  time,  in  the  Irish  wars,  in  company  with  his  half-brother, 
Maurice  Fitz-Gerald.  See  for  farther  notices  of  this  family,  Lcs  Montmorency  dc  France  et  d'Irlande,  and 
also  Mr.  Sheffield  Grace's  interest  ine  account  of  the  Grace  Familv. 


248  HISTORY  OF  Ireland. 

of  the  winter;  being  harboured,  as  it  is  said,  with  grateful  fidelity,  by  the  monka  of  a 
monastery  for  Augustin  Canons  which  he  himself  had  founded.*  He  miitit,  soon,  how- 
ever, have  felt  sufficient  confidence  in  his  own  strength, — being  emboldened,  most  pro- 
bably, by  the  arrival  of  some  straggling  Welsh  followers, — to  emerge  from  his 
!  vi^'  concealment,  as  we  find  him  early  in  this  year  taking  the  field,  and  regaining 
possession,  with  the  aid  of  foreign  auxiliaries,  of  that  part  of  his  territories  called 
Hy-Kinsellagh.  Surprised,  at  the  suddenness  of  his  reappearance,  in  arms,  and  attended 
by  foreigners,  of  whom  rumour,  as  usual,  exaggerated  the  numbers,  the  monarch  hastily 
collected  some  forces,  and,  being  joined  by  his  faithful  ally,  Tiernan  O'Ruarc,  «>arciied 
into  the  territory  of  Hy-Kinsellagh.  As  this  outbreak  of  Dermot  was  evidently  prema- 
ture,— none  of  the  Anglo-Norman  chiefs  with  whom  he  had  negotiated  having  yet  made 
their  appearance, — he  was  able  to  oppose  but  a  feeble  resistance  to  the  attack  of  the 
monarch,  and,  after  a  skirmish  or  two,  retreated  into  his  woods.  In  one  of  these  en- 
counters, the  son  of  a  petty  prince  of  South  Wales,  who  had  been  among  the  foreigners 
lately  arrived,  was  slain  ;  and  the  annals  of  the  day,  with  tiie  pronencss  too  common 
among  the  Irish,  to  look  up  to  and  eulogize  strangers,-);  for  no  other  reason  but  that  they 
are  strangers,  describe  this  Welshman,  in  recording  his  death,  as  "the  most  excellent 
warrior  in  all  the  island  of  Britain."J 

How  critical  was  the  state  to  which  Dermot  had  now  reduced  himself  by  his  rash  and 
weak  movement,  may  be  collected  from  tlie  terms  on  which,  as  a  matter  of  compassion, 
the  monarch  and  O'Ruarc  consented  to  receive  his  submission.  Renouncing  all  claim  to 
the  government  of  Leinster,  he  requested  to  be  allowed  to  reta'n  only  ten  cantreds  of  the 
province,  agreeing  to  hold  this  territory  in  dependence  upon  Rodcric,  and  giving  him 
seven  hostages  for  his  future  fealty  ;  while  the  forbearance  of  his  old  enemy  O'Ruarc  he 
conciliated  by  a  gift  of  a  hundred  ounces  of  gold.  This  specious  subnnssion  was,  of 
course,  but  a  means  of  gaining  time  till  the  arrival  of  his  expected  succours,  and  in  so 
far  warding  off  the  peril  to  which  his  rash  and  premature  sally  had  exposed  him. 

Though  it  must  be  clear  that  the  fate  of  a  nation  such  as  the  Irish  were,  at  this  period, 
embroiled  and  distracted  among  themselves  by  an  almost  infinite  division  of  interests  and 
factions,  nor  as  yet  recovered  from  the  efl^ects  of  a  long  series  of  barbarous  invasions, 
which,  though  not  powerful  enough  to  reduce  them  to  subjection,  v;erc  i)ut  too  efficient 
for  the  purpose  of  enfeebling  and  demoralizing  them, — though  the  doom  of  a  people,  thus 
lamentably  circumstanced,  was  sure  to  be  sealed,  and  perhaps  irreversibly,  whenever  a 
more  civilized  foe  found  footing  on  their  shores,  with  skill  to  avail  himself  of  their  dis- 
sensions, and  a  disciplined  force  to  oppose  to  their  rude  numbers,  yet  it  must  be  owned 
that  the  almost  unresisted  facility  with  which  a  mere  handful  of  men  was  allowed  to 
acquire  that  footing, — the  either  infatuated  or  treacherous  passiveness  with  which  the 
first  steps  of  a  design  so  formidable  were  witnessed, — far  outwent  even  all  that  might 
naturally  be  expected  from  the  weak,  degenerate,  and  disorganized  state  of  the  whole 
kingdom. 

That  neither  the  monarch  nor  any  of  the  other  princes  were  yet  auare  of  the  extent 
of  Dermot's  designs,  or  of  the  powerful  patronage,  he  had  secured  for  himself,  appears  to 
be  highly  probable;  though  assuredly  there  were  wanting  no  farthor  facts  to  awaken 
vigilance,  if  not  foresight,  than  the  flight  of  the  traitor  himself  from  the  country,  on 
avowed  purposes  of  revenge,  and  his  sudden  reappearance  in  ih^^  field  attended  by 
foreisjn  troops.  Even  then,  had  the  Irish  monarch  and  his  liegeman  of  Breffny  but 
followed  up  vigorously  their  first  advantage  over  the  fallen  renegade,  they  might  have 
crushed  at  once  the  whole  base  conspiracy,  and  at  least  postponed,  if  not  wholly  averted, 
the  fatal  extinction  of  their  country's  dearly-bought  independence. 

But  it  was  soon  apparent,  even  to  the  most  infatuated,  in  what  manner  the  faithless 

Dermot  had  all  along  designed  to  requite  their  weak  and  ill  judged  mercy  towards 

^J^'  him.     In  the  month  of  May,  this  year,  took  place  the  first  landing  of  the  Anglo- 

■  Normans   in   Ireland. ^     The   commander  of  the   pxpedilion   was   Robert  Fitz- 

Stephcn,  whom  Dermot  had  engaged,  as  we  have  already  seen,  in  his  service  at  St. 

♦  Ware's  Annals. 

t  In  nolicing  the  partiality  of  the  Irish  for  strangera,  Peter  Lombard  accounts  for  the  peculiar  exception 
to  this  tendency,  which  he  thinks  their  feeling  towards  their  lint'lish  neighbours  evinces,  by  the  sense  of 
injury  which  the  tyranny  of  that  people  has  left  in  their  minds,  and  the  consciousness  that  they  themselves 
are  looked  down  tipon  by  them  as  only  fit  to  be  treated  with  insult  and  injustice: — "  Quod  eniin  putenlur 
non  ainare  Anglicanam  nationem,  quicquid  est  de  ea  re,  procedit  totiitn  ex  his  fontibus,  partiin  quod  servi- 
tulem  piiteilt  qua'  sub  iis  est  subjectio,  partim  quod  persuasum  habeant  se  ab  illis  drfspici  et  injuriis  afiici."— 
De  Hibernia  Comwentarius. 

]  IV.  Map.  ad  ann.  1167. 

§  Ware,  .Annals  of  Ireland,  at  Hcnnj  II.  chap.  i.  Flaherty,  Opygia,  part.  iii.  chap.  0-1.  Respecting  the  date 
of' this  event,  there  is  sonic  difference  among  our  historians;  but  that  which  I  have  given  appaars  to  nic  th« 
most  correct. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  249 

David's,  and  who  brought  with  him  now  30  knights,  all  of  his  own  kin,  or  household, 
60  men  in  coats  of  mail,  and  300  of  the  most  skilful  archers  of  South  Wales.  With  thia 
small  party,  which  landed  at  a  creek  called  the  Bann,  near  the  city  of  Wexford,  came 
also  Hervey  de  Montemarisco,  or  Mount-Maurice,  the  paternal  uncle  of  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke,* and  described  as  a  person  in  needy  circumstances,  who,  without  either  arms  or 
means,  had  joined  the  expedition,  rather  as  the  emissary  of  his  noble  nephew  than  as  a 
soldier.  On  the  day  following  there  arrived  also  at  the  same  spot,  Maurice  de  Prender- 
gast,  a  valiant  gentleman  of  Wales,  at  the  head  of  10  knights  and  60  archers;  and,  as 
the  excitement  naturally  caused  throughout  the  vicinity  by  the  landing  of  a  foreign  force, 
rendered  their  situation  somewhat  precarious,  messengers  were  despatched  with  all 
speed  to  apprize  Dermot  of  their  arrival. 

Full  of  joy  at  the  welcome  intelligence,  this  prince  instantly  collected  together  all  the 
forces  it  was  then  in  his  power  to  muster,  consisting  of  but  500  men ;  and,  aware  that  in 
despatch  lay  his  only  chance  of  success,  hastened  to  join  the  invaders.  The  engagements 
already  formed  between  them  having  been  renewed  and  ratified,  it  was  resolved  to 
march  with  their  united  forces  to  the  town  of  Wexford,  which  both  from  its  proximity, 
lying  about  12  miles  from  the  place  of  their  landing,  and  the  rank  it  held  as  a  maritime 
city,  was  a  post  combining  all  the  advantages  they  could  desire.  On  reaching  the 
suburbs  of  that  place,  which  was  inhabited  chiefly  by  Dano-Irish,  they  were  met  by 
about  2000  of  the  inhabitants,  who,  on  being  apprized  of  their  coming,  had  boldly  sallied 
forth  to  meet  them.  But  the  advantage  of  a  regular  and  disciplined  force  over  mere 
untrained  numbers, — a  disparity  manifest  throughout  the  whole  of  the  sad  struggle  we 
are  about  to  contemplate, — was  no  less  conspicuous  in  this  its  first  trial.  The  crowd 
that  had  poured  forth  to  meet  the  enemy,  as  soon  as  they  observed  the  orderly  array  of 
the  troops,  the  cavalry  drawn  up  on  the  flank  of  the  archers,  according  to  the  forms  of 
Norman  discipline,  when  they  beheld  the  shining  armour  and  shields  of  the  knights,  the 
novelty  of  the  spectacle  caused  them  to  hesitate  in  their  advance,  and,  after  a  few  mo- 
ments of  deliberation,  they  set  fire  to  the  suburbs,  and  retired  hastily  into  the  town. 
This  slight  panic,  however,  was  but  of  short  duratioti;  for  when  Fitz-Stephen,  taking 
advantage  of  the  circumstance,  led  on  bis  men  to  scale  the  walls,  so  brave  and  obstinate 
was  the  resistance  he  met  with  from  the  townsmen,  who  hurled  down  huge  stones  and 
beams  of  wood  on  the  heads  of  the  assailants,  that  he  was  compelled  to  withdraw  his 
troops,  and  for  the  present  content  himself  with  burning  all  the  ships  that  were  then 
lying  at  anchor  in  the  strand  before  the  town.f 

The  following  day,  resolving  to  renew  the  attack,  he  caused  masses  to  be  solemnly 
celebrated  throughout  the  camp,  and  prepared  deliberately  for  another  assault.  This 
the  inhabitants  of  the  town  perceived,  and  being  struck,  most  probably,  with  the  patient 
resolution  which  such  perseverance  implied,  began  to  consult  among  themselves  as  to 
the  prudence  of  making  any  farther  resistance.  It  is  even  alleged  that,  among  the  mo- 
tives which  now  disposed  them  to  surrender,  were  some  feelings  of  compunction  at  the 
rebellious  part  they  had  been  led  to  take  against  their  king, — feelings,  which  the  clergy 
within  the  walls  would  not  fail,  it  is  supposed,  to  encourage,  being,  like  most  of  their 
clerical  bretiiren  throughout  the  country,  disposed  to  view  with  indulgent  eyes  the  enor- 
mities of  Dermot's  career,  in  consideration  of  the  extent  and  munificence  of  his  contri- 
butions to  the  Church.  But,  whatever  were  the  real  n)otives  that  led  to  the  step,  it  was 
finally  resolved  by  the  citizens  to  capitulate;  and  terms  were  obtained  through  the 
mediation  of  two  bishops,  by  which,  on  condition  of  the  town  being  immediately  delivered 
up,  and  hostages  given  for  their  observance  of  fidelity  in  future,  the  inhabitants  were  to 
be  pardoned  their  first  rebellion,!  and  again  received  into  the  royal  service  and  favour. 

Having  acquired,  thus,  possession  of  Wexford,  Dermot  hastened  to  fulfill  his  engage- 

•  Girald.  Cambrens.  Lodge  has  mistakenly  made  him  the  nephew  of  Strongbow,  while  the  French  genea- 
logical authorities.  Duchesne  and  DCsormeaux,  make  him  out  to  be  the  father-in-law  of  that  nobleman: — 
"  II  6pousa  (says  the  latier  writer)  Elizabeth  de  Meiillent,  veuve  de  Gislebert  de  Claire,  comte  de  Pembroc  so 
Angleterre,  et  mere  de  Richard  de  Claire,  surnomme  Strongbow,  compie  de  Pembroc,  dompteur  de  rHiberoie, 
duquci,  a  raisonde  cette  alliance,  un  auteur  du  tems  le  qiialifie  parastre  ou  beau-pere."  This  whole  account, 
however,  is  manifestly  incorrect.  A  number  of  other  mistakes  respecting  Hervey  occurs  in  an  account  given 
of  the  Ormonde  family  by  a  Mr.  Butler,  which  we  find  cited  in  Carle. 

t  Hibern.  Expiignat.  lib  i.  c  3 

X  Thus  early  was  it  considered  "  rebellion  '"  in  the  Irish  to  defend  their  own  rightful  possessions.  A  simi- 
lar view  of  the  historical  relations  between  the  two  countries,  has  continued  to  be  entertained  ever  since. 
Thus,  Thomas  Warton,  in  the  preface  to  his  spirited  ode,  "  Stately  the  feast,  and  high  the  cheer,"  speaks  of 
Henry  II.  •'  undertaking  an  expedition  into  Ireland  to  suppress  a  rebellion  raised  by  Roderic,  King  of  Con- 
naught,"  and  describes  him  in  the  ode  as— 


31 


Prepared  to  stain  the  briny  flood 
Of  Shannon's  lakes  with  rebel  blood. 


250  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

ments  to  the  two  Norman  brothers,  by  investing  Fitz-Stephen  and  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald 
(the  latter  of  whom  was  daily  expected)  with  the  lordship  of  the  city  and  its  domain; 
while,  at  the  same  time,  he  gave  in  fee  to  Hervey  of  Mount-Maurice,  in  order  to  attach 
him  to  his  service,  two  cantrcds  lying  on  the  sea-side  between  Wexford  and  Waterford. 
This  tract  of  country  is  now  comprised  in  the  baronies  of  Forth  and  Birgie,  and  it  is  not 
a  little  remarkable  that  the  descendants  of  its  first  settlers  remained  for  ages  a  com- 
munity distinct,  in  language  and  manners,  from  the  natives.*  Even  to  a  recent  period, 
a  dialect  has  continued  in  use  among  them,  peculiar  to  these  baronies,  and  which, 
judging  from  the  written  specimens  that  remain  of  it,  bore  a  close  affinity  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon. 

Had  the  invaders  met  with  defeat  in  their  first  experiment,  such  a  failure  might  have 
changed  materially  the  subsequent  fortunes  of  the  war;  as  the  junction  of  Strongbovv 
and  others,  not  actually  pledged  to  the  king,  depended  mainly,  of  course,  on  the  success 
of  the  first  blow.  In  a  like  proportion,  therefore,  advantageous  to  the  invaders  was  the 
impression  produced  by  this  first  achievement  at  Wexford;  though  so  little  efl^ct  had  it 
in  rousing  the  unworthy  rulers  of  Ireland  to  any  sense  either  of  their  danger  or  their 
duty,  that  Dermot  was  enabled,  after  his  triumphant  entry  into  Wexford,  to  conduct  the 
foreign  forces  to  his  own  abode  at  Ferns,  and  there  remain  for  no  less  than  three  weeks, 
without  interruption  or  molestation,  refreshing  the  commanders  and  their  troops,  and 
laying  the  plans  of  his  future  measures. 

The  first  object  to  which  he  now  eagerly  directed  his  force,  increased  by  the  accession 
of  the  garrison  of  Wexford  to  about  3000  men,  was  an  expedition  into  Ossory,!-  for  the 
purpose  of  revenging  himself  upon  the  prince  of  that  territory,  Mac-Gilla-Patrick,  who 
had,  some  time  before,  in  a  paroxysm  of  jealousy,  seized  on  the  son  of  the  King  of 
Leinster,  and,  according  to  the  savage  practice^  common  at  that  time  both  in  England 
and  Ireland,  ordered  his  eyes  to  be  rooted  out.  This  chieftain  had  also  been  the  first  to 
revolt  against  Dermot,  when  the  tide  of  his  prosperity  began  to  turn.  Well  knowing 
what  they  iiad  to  expect  from  such  an  enemy,  now  flushed  with  recent  success,  the 
Ossorians,  guarded  by  their  morasses  and  forests,  stood  manfully  and  unshrinkingly  hia 
attack;  and,  as  long  as  they  trusted  to  these  natural  defences  of  their  territory,  the 
repeated  assaults  made  upon  them,  by  the  Lagenians  and  Anglo-Normans,  were  all 
triumphantly  repulsed.  Misled,  however,  by  a  feigned  retreat  of  the  enemy,  they  were 
induced  to  follow  him  into  the  open  and  level  country;  where,  being  exposed  to  the 
onset  of  the  foreigners'  cav:ilry,  ihey  were  overpowered  and  borne  down;  and,  the  native 
infantry  of  the  king  then  rushing  upon  them,  with  those  long  battle-axes  which  they 
used,  cut  off  their  heads.  After  the  battle,  -300  of  these  heads  were  laid,  as  a  trophy,  at 
the  feet  of  Dermot,  who,  turning  them  over,  leaped  with  delight,  as  he  recognised  the 
different  faces;  and  then,  holding  up  his  hands,  shouted  aloud  thanksgiving  to  God.  It 
is  likewise  added,  though  hardly  to  be  credited,  that  perceiving  in  the  midst  of  this 
frightful  heap,  the  head  of  a  man  whom  alive  he  had  mortally  hated,  the  barbarian 
seized  it  by  both  ears,  and  lifting  it  to  his  mouth  ferociously  bit  off  the  nose  and  lips.^ 

Following  up  promptly  this  signal  advantage  over  the  Ossorians,  Dermot  and  his  allies, 
now  meeting  with  no  farther  resistance,  carried  fire  and  sword  in  the  inmost  regions  of 
that  territory.  While  they  were  employed,  however,  in  this  work  of  destruction,  some 
symptoms  of  activity  had  begun  to  be  manifested  on  the  part  of  the  monarch,  indicating 
a  sense,  at  least,  of  the  imminent  danger  which  threatened  the  country,  and  the  urgent 

*  Vallnncpy,  Travsacl.  Royal  Irish  Acad,  for  1788.  Tlie  reader  will  find  in  Vallancey's  account,  a  vocabu- 
lary of  the  ianjiiage  of  these  Baronies,  and  also  a  sons  in  their  peculiar  dialect,  which  he  supposes  to  have 
been  "  handed  down  by  tradition  from  the  arrival  of  the  colony  in  Ireland." 

In  the  Four  Masters  we  finil  those  foreigners  who  joined  Uie  army  of  Dermot  from  Wales  called  more  than 
once  Flemrn.'s,  and  of  this  penplf  we  know  spine  colonies  were  allowed  to  establish  themselves  in  South 
Wales  (ahont  'IVnhy  and  Haverfordwest,)  during  the  reigns  of  the  first  and  secnnd  Henrys.  It  was  most  pro- 
bably, therefore,  of  Flemings  that  the  colonies  planted  in  these  two  Irish  Baronies  consisted.  "  Even  at  the 
present  day,"  says  Mr.  Beauford,  "  the  port  and  countenances  of  the  inhabitants  often  designate  their  origin, 
especially  among  the  females,  many  of  whom,  if  dressed  in  the  garb  of  the  Netlierlands,  might  be  taken  for 
veritable  Dutchwomen."— MS.  of  Mr.  Beauford,  cited  in  Brewer's  Beauties,  &.C. 

"  Ketaiiiing,  at  this  day  (says  Speed,  in  speaking  of  these  baronies,)  the  ancient  attire  of  the  English,  and 
the  language  also  ilsi-lf,  tliongh  brackish  with  the  niixture  of  very  Irish,  which  therefore  by  a  distinct  name 
is  called  VVeisford  speech,  current  only  in  that  city  and  the  country  about."— Speed. 

t  Hibern.  E.xpugnat   I.  i.  c.  4. 

t  Henry  II  ,  in  his  excursion  into  Wales,  in  1164,  having  received  as  hostages  the  children  of  the  noblest 
families  of  that  country,  gave  orders  that  the  eyes  of  all  the  males  should  be  rooted  out,  and  the  ears  and 
no>ies  of  the  females  ninpiitated.  See  Lingnrd,  JJist.  of  England,  c.  IS.  In  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  it  was  made 
felony  •'  to  cut  out  any  persons  tongue,  or  to  put  out  his  eyes;  crimes  which,"  the  act  says,  "  were  very  fre- 
quent."— Hume,  c    18. 

§  In  the  narrative  attributed  to  Regan,  Dermot's  attendant,  this  incident  is  not  mentioned,  and  Harris 
supposes  him  to  have  suppressed  it  out  of  consideration  for  his  master.  The  authenticity,  however,  claimed 
for  this  record,  I  shall  avail  myself  of  some  other  opportunity  of  considering. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  251 

necessity  of  expelling  the  foreign  troops.  Foreseeing  the  likelihood,  therefore,  of  their 
force  being  wanted  for  a  much  more  serious  struggle,  Dermot  and  his  friends  resolved  to 
suspend  their  present  havoc;  and,  accordingly,  a  peace,  of  which  reconciliation  formed 
no  ingredient,  was  granted  to  the  hnrat^sed  people  of  Ossory.* 

The  step  by  which  Roderic  had  thus  far  alarmed  the  King  of  Leinster,  and  which 
wore  a  promise  of  vigour  but  ill  borne  out  by  the  sequel,  was  the  assembling  of  a  large 
army  of  "Irish," — as,  for  the  first  time,  we  find  a  force  distinctly  and  nationally  called.f — 
and  the  convoking  of  the  princes  and  nobles  of  the  land  in  general  council  at  Tara. 
From  this  site  of  traditional  fame  the  royal  confederates  proceeded  to  Dublin  ;  but  there, 
the  curse  of  all  Irish  counsels,  division,  began  to  work  its  accustomed  paralyzing  eflfects; 
and  even  in  this  crisis  of  their  country's  fate,  unable  to  cooperate  for  her  deliverance, 
the  northern  princes,  among  whom  were  Eochad,  King  of  Ulidia,  and  O'Carrol,  Prince 
of  Oriel,  drew  off  the  whole  of  their  firces  and  returned  home;  leaving  to  the  monarch 
and  his  provincial  troops,  assisted  by  O'Ruarc,  and  the  Dano-Irish  of  Dublin,  to  take  the 
field  against  the  intruders,  and  punish  the  traitor  who  had  brought  such  a  scourge  upon 
the  land. 

How  effective,  at  this  critical  moment,  in  crushing  at  once,  the  whole  treasonous 
design,  would  have  been  a  combined  and  vigorous  movement  of  all  the  princes  of  Ireland, 
may  be  judged  from  the  panic  into  which  Dermot  was  now  thrown,  and  the  almost 
cowardly  precautions  of  defence  he  was  driven  to  adopt.  For,  though  already  completely 
protected,  in  his  fastness  near  Ferns,  by  impassable  woods,  precipices,  and  morasses,  he 
yet  called  in  the  aid  of  art  to  strengthen  still  farther  his  position  ;  and,  under  the  special 
advice  and  directionofFitz-Stephen,  caused  artificial  pits  and  trenches  to  be  formed,  in  addi- 
tion to  those  with  which  nature  had  already  provided  him.  Besides  the  grounds  for  alarm 
exhibited  in  the  menacing  posture  assumed  by  Roderic,  there  was  also  another  warning 
presented  to  him  in  the  dispersion  of  most  of  his  Irish  fijllowers;  leaving  him,  at  last, 
but  few  supporters  besides  his  small  band  of  English,  who  ail,  to  a  man,  adhered  un- 
flinchingly to  his  cause. 

Such  was  the  relative  strength  and  bearing  of  the  two  parties,  when  Roderic  invested 
with  his  immense  force  the  position  of  Dermot  at  Ferns;  and  when,  had  but  a  portion  of 
the  courage  and  patience  which  actuated  the  besieged  few  been  felt  by  the  numerous 
force  which  encompassed  them,  the  final  result  of  the  experiment  could  not  have  been 
doubtful.  But,  as  it  was,  on  the  part  of  the  Irish — or,  to  speak  more  justly,  on  the  part 
of  their  unworthy  commander — there  was  shown  a  total  want  not  merely  of  the  high  and 
national  feeling  which  should  have  predominated  in  such  an  emergency,  but  even  of  the 
ordinary,  worldly  policy  which  a  prudent  regard  to  self  interest  and  safety  would  dictate. 
Preferring  a  tame  and  temporizing  Ime  of  conduct  to  manly  decision  and  vigour,  Roderic 
tried  his  ground  by  negotiation,  first  with  FitzStephen,  and  then  with  Dermot,  hopino-, 
by  a  plausible  appeal  to  the  interests  of  one  or  the  other,  to  dissolve  their  mutual  league. 
But,  the  consciousness  of  weakness  this  conduct  betrayed,  and  the  deceit  towards  both 
parties  which  the  attempt  to  tamper  with  each  implied,  produced  an  effect  the  very 
reverse  of  what  was  intended,  and  but  confirmed  the  two  leaders  the  more  fixedly  in 
their  plan  of  alliance  and  mutual  aid. 

The  feeble  monarch,  though  thus  exposed  and  baffled,  condescended,  after  a  short  in- 
terval, to  renew  the  negotiation,  and  preferring  any  course,  however  inglorious,  to  the 
obvious  alternative  of  the  sword,  accepted  such  terms  at  last  from  the  enemies  of  his 
country's  independence  as  gave  them  but  refreshed  power  and  inclination  to  assail  it. 
By  a  compact  now  entered  into  between  the  two  parties,  it  was  agreed  that  the  full  right 
of  sovereignty  over  the  kingdom  of  Leinster  should  be  enjoyed  inalienably  by  Dermot 
and  his  heirs,  on  the  usual  condition  of  his  acknowledging  the  supremacy  of  the  present 
monarch,  and  rendering  him  homage  as  his  liege  subject.  In  pledge  for  the  performance 
of  this  service,  Dermot  delivered  up  as  hostage  his  favourite  son  Connor;|  the  monarch 
promising  on  his  part  that,  should  the  compact  be  faithfully  observed  towards  himself,  he 
would  give  to  this  youth  his  daughter  in  marriage. 

By  this  mean  and  disgraceful  treaty  all  those  possessions  which  Dermot  had  forfeited 
through  his  treason,  were,  under  the  sanction  of  the  supreme  authority,  restored  to  him  ; 
and  the  only  effort  made  towards  saving  the  country  from  a  foreign  yoke,  was  the  addition 
of  a  secret  article  to  the  treaty  by  which  the  King  of  Leinster  pledged  himself  not  to  call 
over  any  more  foreigners  into  the  kingdom,  promising,  at  the  same  time,  that  he  would 
dismiss  those  now  in  his  service,  as  soon  as  the  affairs  of  his  province  should  have  settled 
into  a  more  tranquil  state.     Whether  to  this  article,  as  well  as  to  the  others,  the  solemn 

*  Hibern.  Expugnat.  I.  i.  c.5.  f  IV.  Mae. 

t  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1159. 


262  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

eanclion  of  an  oath  was  appended,  does  not  dearly  appear;  but  it  was  soon  seen  that  the 
"  Foreigners'  Friend,"  as  he  was  nicknamed,  could  not  be  trusted  either  on  his  honour  or 
his  oath.  In  the  mean  time,  the  treaty  of  peace  having  been  ratified,  Roderic  drew  off 
all  his  forces,  leaving  this  prince  and  his  foreign  auxiliaries  to  pursue  their  career  of 
spoil  and  aggression  unmolested. 

How  little  sincere  were  Dermot's  promises,  with  respect  to  the  farther  employment  of 
foreigners  in  his  service,  there  was  soon  an  opportunity  afforded  him  of  proving,  by  the 
arrival,  in  the  port  of  Wexford,  of  Maurice  Filz-Gerald,  Fitz-Stephen's  brother,  attended 
by  ten  knights,  thirty  horsemen,  and  about  a  hundred  archers.  So  far  from  scrupling  to 
employ  this  small,  but,  to  him,  most  seasonable  succour,  the  king  hastened  immediately 
in  person  to  receive  them ;  and,  as  Fitz-Stephen  was  just  then  occupied  in  erecting  a 
castle,  or  fort,  on  the  summit  of  a  hill  near  Wexford,  associated  the  new  comer  with 
himself  in  the  command  of  an  army  he  was  about  to  lead  against  Dublin.  The  alle- 
giance exacted  by  the  throne  of  Leinsler  from  that  city  had  been,  at  all  times,  reluctantly 
and  precariously  submitted  to;  and  the  exceeding  rigour  of  Dermot's  sway  during  his 
prosperity,  had  rendered  him  as  odious  as  he  was  formidable  to  the  inhabitants.  They 
had,  therefore,  availed  themselves  of  the  change  in  his  furtunes  to  get  rid  of  a  yoke  so 
insulting  and  oppressive,  and  had  chosen  for  their  governor  a  prince  of  their  own  mixed 
race  named  JVIac  Torcill.  To  revenge  tliis  and  some  other  still  stronger  marks  of  their 
hate  towards  him  was  the  object  of  his  present  expedition;  and  being  attended  by  Filz- 
Gerald  and  his  force  to  the  confines  of  Dublin,  he  there  initiated  his  foreign  allies  in  that 
process  of  havoc,  spoliation,  and  burning,  of  which  he  himself  was  so  practised  a  master; 
till,  at  length,  the  wretched  and  exhausted  inhabitants,  sinking  under  the  well-known 
scourge,  implored  for  mercy  and  peace;  and  their  proffers  of  allegiance  being,  in  the 
very  satiety  of  revenge,  accepted,  the  invading  army  was  withdrawn. 

Even  for  the  relief  thus  reluctantly  granted,  his  victims  were,  in  a  great  measure, 
indebted  to  a  new  impulse  in  another  direction  of  wrong,  which  his  ever  active  bad 
passions  had  just  received.  The  monarch  Roderic,  whose  military  zeal  was  always  most 
prompt  when  exerted  in  conflict  with  his  own  countrymen,  had,  after  his  ignoble  capitu- 
lation with  Dermot  and  the  Anglo-Normans,  carried  his  forces  into  North  Munster,  for 
the  purpose  of  attacking  and  punishing  Donald,  the  prince  of  that  country,  who,  en- 
couraged by  the  tottering  state  of  the  monarchy,  had  cast  off  his  allegiance  to  Roderic, 
and  bade  open  defiance  to  the  power  of  Connaught.  To  assist  this  rebellious  prince,  and 
thereby  distract  and  enfeeble  still  more  the  authority  of  the  monarch,  was  the  object  to 
which  Dermot  now  found  himself  able  to  transfer  the  whole  of  his  victorious  force;  in 
consequence  of  which  Roderic,  outnumbered  and  overpowered,  was  compelled,  after 
several  unsuccessful  eflxirts,  to  retire  into  Connaught. 

Elated  by  this  flow  of  prosperity,  the  King  of  Leinster  no  longer  limited  his  ambition 
to  the  secure  possession  of  his  own  hereditary  sovereignty,  but  extended  his  prospects  to 
the  acquisition  of  the  supreme  throne  itself;  nor  on  consulting  his  confederates,  Fitz- 
Stephen  and  Fitz-Gerald,  did  he  find  them,  in  any  degree,  indisposed  to  his  design.  On 
the  contrary,  these  able  and  zealous  partisans,  perceiving  how  efficiently  such  a  scheme 
might  be  turned  to  account  for  the  English  interests,  gave  every  encouragement  to  his 
ambitious  project;  advising  most  strongly,  as  the  only  means  of  ensuring  success,  that 
he  should  immediately  renew  his  application  to  Strongbow,*  and  urge  him  to  fulfill  his 
promise  of  aid  without  farther  delay. 

This  lord,  who  had  been  watching  the  progress  of  his  countrymen  in  Ireland  with  all 
the  anxiety  which  his  own  contemplated  share  in  their  proceedings  would  naturally 
excite,  had  even  already  observed  enough  in.  the  state  of  afl^airs  throughout  that  country, 
to  convince  him  that,  as  a  field  of  speculation,  it  was  well  worth  the  working,  nor  pre- 
senting any  difficulties  but  such  as  courage  and  judicious  conduct  might  easily  find 
means  to  overcome.  At  the  time,  however,  when  he  made  up  his  mind  to  this  conclu- 
sion, the  definite  objoct  for  which  letters  patent  had  been  granted  to  Dermot,  namely, 
the  recovery  of  his  own  dominion,  had  been  fully  accomplished  ;  and,  as  the  war  was  to 
be  henceforth  continued  on  new  and  different  grounds,  it  appeared  to  the   earl  that, 

*  Giraldus  {Hib.  Expug.  lib  i.  c.  12.)  professes  to  give  the  substance  of  the  letter  addressed,  in  pursuance  of 
this  advice,  to  Strongbow.  But,  like  those  speeches  which  he  occasionally  puts  into  the  mouths  of  his  heroes, 
this  letter  is  evidently  of  his  own  florid  manufacture.  The  following  is  the  sentimental  style  in  which  he 
supposes  Dermot  and  his  Nnrnian  associates  to  have  addressed  the  earl: — •' Ciconias  et  liirundines  observa- 
vimus ;  venerunt  aves  ajstivee  :  venerunt,  et,  Circio  jam  dante.  reversse  sunt.  Desiderabilem  et  diu  expecta- 
taui  prsesentiam  vestram  nee  Favonius  nee  Euros  advexit."  Thus  translated  by  Hooker: — "  We  have  already 
seen  the  storcks  and  swallows,  as  also  the  summer  birds  are  come,  and  with  the  westerly  winds  are  gone 
again  ;  we  have  long  looked  and  wished  for  your  coming,  and,  albeit  the  winds  have  been  at  east  and  easterly, 
yet  hitherto  you  are  not  come  to  us." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  253 

before  he  himself  took  any  part  in  it,  a  farther  authority  should  be  asked  and  obtained 
from  the  kinof.  For  this  purpose  he  repaired  to  Normandy,  where  Henry  was  at  that 
time  sojourning;  and,  having  urged  his  suit  with  earnestness,  received  in  return  an 
evasive  and  ambiguous  answer,  such  as,  from  a  prince  of  Henry's  calculating  nature, 
must  have  been  designed,  he  knew,  to  admit  of  a  double  interpretation.  He  accordingly 
accepted  it  as  meaning  an  assent  to  his  prayer;  and,  returning  to  England,  proceeded  to 
prepare  with  all  due  vigour  for  his  expedition. 

As  soon  as  the  season  admitted  of  the  embarkation  of  troops,  he  sent  over  to  Ireland, 
as  his  advanced  guard,  ten  knights  and  seventy  archers,  under  the  conduct  of  Raymond 
le  Gros;*  who,  landing  with  his  small  party  at  a  place  not  far  from  Wuterford,  under  a 
rock  then  called  Dundolf,  was  soon  joined  by  Hervey  of  Mount-Maurice,  and  a  few  other 
knights.f  Here,  with  the  hopes  of  being  able  to  maintain  themselves  till  the  arrival  of 
Strongbow,  they  hastily  raised  a  small  fort  of  turf  and  wood.  But  the  lodgment  of 
foreign  troops  so  near  their  city  being  viewed  with  apprehension  by  the  citizens  of 
Waterford,  it  was  thought  advisable  to  attack  the  intruders  before  their  numbers  should 
be  increased  ;  and  a  large  tumultuary  force,  amounting,  we  are  told,  to  3000  men,  which 
had  been  collected  with  the  aid  of  O'Faolan,  Prince  of  the  Desies,  and  O'Ryan  of  Jdrone, 
crossed  the  Suir  which  divides  Leinster  from  Desmond,  and  advanced  to  attack  the 
English  fort. 

In  the  confidence  of  valour,  the  young  Raymond  le  Gros  had  sallied  forth  with  his 
small  garrison  to  receive  this  multitude;  but,  on  seeing  their  immense  superiority  of 
numbers,  retired  again  into  the  fort,  being  followed  so  closely  by  the  assailants  that  many 
entered  along  with  him.  Thus  pressed,  the  gallant  Raymond,  with  the  true  instinct  of 
courage,  faced  round  on  his  pursuers,  and  ran  the  foremost  person  of  those  who  were 
within  the  gateway  through  the  body,  crying  out  at  the  same  time  to  his  own  companions 
to  be  of  good  cheer;  and  this  example  having  animated  his  small  band,  while  their 
assailants,  panic-struck  by  the  suddenness  and  daring  of  the  action,  gave  way,  the  young 
warrior  again  sallied  forth  at  the  head  of  his  comrades,  and  the  whole  multitude  fled 
before  him  in  utter  confusion  and  dismay.  Above  500  men,  it  is  stated,  were  cut  down 
in  that  rout  by  the  pursuers;  and  when  tired  of  killing,  says  the  chronicler,  they  carried 
a  great  number  of  those  whom  they  had  made  prisoners  to  the  rocks,  and  cast  them  head- 
long into  the  sea. 

Seventy  of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  Waterford  having  been  made  prisoners  in  the 
pursuit,  sums  of  money  to  any  amount  were  offered  for  their  ransom  by  the  inhabitants; 
and  even  the  surrender  of  the  city  itself  was  proffered  as  the  purchase  of  their  liberty. 
But  it  had  been  determined  that  the  fate  of  these  citizens  should  be  decided  by  a  council 
of  war;  and  seldom,  if  ever,  has  an  achievement  so  truly  heroic  been  sullied  by  a  sequel 
so  wholly  unworthy  of  the  character  of  soldiers  and  brave  men.  The  gallant  Raymond, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  declared  strongly  for  the  humane  alternative  of  accepting 
ransom  for  these  prisoners,  and  restoring  them  all  to  their  families.  But  the  pitiless 
counsel  of  Hervey  of  Mount  Maurice,  who  urged  thus  early  the  policy  vainly  pursued 
ever  since,  of  "striking  terror  into  the  Irish,"  was  unfortunately  suffered  to  prevail  ;J 
and  the  prisoners,  bome  away  to  the  rocks,  were  there  most  cruelly  put  to  death,  by 
first  breaking  their  limbs,  and  then  casting  them  down  headlong  into  the  sea. J 

While  these  events  were  passing  in  Ireland,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  having  left  Chep- 
stow for  that  country,  proceeded  through  the  coasts  of  South  Wales  to  St.  David's, 
gathering  new  followers  to  his  standard  all  the  way.  Having  collected  thus  a  sufficient 
force,  consisting  partly  of  volunteer  adventurers,  and  partly  of  his  own  vassals,  he  was 

*  This  yoima;  officer,  whose  name  was  Raymond  Fitzwilliam,  but  who  bore  the  cognomen  of  Le  Gros,  as  a 
personal  chaiacterislic,  was  of  the  same  ancient  and  noble  race  from  whence  sprung  so  many  other  of  the 
leaders  of  this  Irish  expedition,  being  the  second  son  of  William  Fitzgerald,  Lord  of  Carew,  and,  accordingly, 
nephew  both  to  Maurice  Fitzgerald  and  Robert  Fitzstephen. 

t  Hibern.  Expiignat.  I.  i.  c.  J3. 

J  Ibid.  c.  14,  15.  Some  of  the  arguments  employed  respectively  by  the  two  leaders  have  formed  the  staple  of 
almost  all  that  has  been  said  or  written  upon  the  subject  ever  since.— "  Recollect,"  said  Raymond,  "  they 
are  not  enemies  now,  but  our  brother  men;  not  rebels,  but  conquered  foes,— conquered  by  adverse  fortune 
while  standing  in  defence  of  their  own  country.  Honourable  was  the  cause  for  which  they  stood  "—"  Hi 
non  hostes  jam  sed  homines;  non  rebelles,  sed  debellati,  sed  victi,  sed  fatis  urgentibus,  ob  patriee  tutelam 
superati.  Honesta  quidem  occupatio."  Hervey,  on  the  other  side,  could  see  no  safely  but  in  severity. — 
•*  Let  our  victory,"  he  said,  "  be  so  used,  as  that  the  destruction  of  these  now  in  our  hands  should  act  as  a 
warning  to  others,  and  that  in  future  this  lawless  and  rebellious  nation  may  be  struck  with  terror  by  the 
example." — '*  Nostra  siquidem  sic  victoria  consumetur,  ut  istorum  interitus  aliorum  sit  metus.  Et  ipsorum 
exeniplo  populus  effrenis  ac  rebellis  nobiscum  de  cetero  congredi  reformidet." 

§  "  An  act  (says  Lord  Lyttelion)  which  stains  the  whole  glory  of  their  honourable  victory,  and  which  the 
king  should  have  punished,  when  he  came  into  that  country,  by  some  very  signal  mark  of  his  royal  displea- 
sure against  the  adviser."  Even  Stanihurts,  the  warm  apologist  of  the  English  throughout,  thus  reprobates 
this  act; — Ex  quo  tempore  Herveius  gravi  diuturnaque  infamia  et  invidia  flagraret;  cum  nemo  repertus 
esset,  cui.  non  ista  civium  internecio  prorsus  displiceret." — De  Reb.  in  HUt.  Oest.  1,  3. 


254  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

just  on  the  point  of  embarking  with  his  army  from  Milford,  when  an  order  reached  him 
from  King  Henry,  forbidding  positively  that  he  should  leave  the  kingdom.*  A  command 
60  decisive  from  his  royal  master  could  not  but  occasion  at  least  a  pause  in  the  earl's 
purpose;  and  had  the  prospects  that  awaited  him  at  home  been  somewhat  leas  dark,  or 
the  hopes  that  beckoned  him  to  the  opposite  shore  less  inviting,  the  duty  of  the  subject 
might  possibly  have  prevailed  over  the  sanguine  promptings  of  the  adventurer.  As  it 
was,  however,  his  hesitation  could  be  but  momentary ;  the  order  to  sail  was  boldly  issued  ; 
and,  on  the  eve  of  the  feast  of  St.  Bartholomew,  his  fleet  landed  him  near  Waterford 
with  an  army  of  about  1200  men,  of  whom  200  were  knights.f 

Immediately  on  their  arrival,  these  troops  were  joined  by  Raymond  le  Gros,  with  a 
small  body  of  horsemen;  and,  ns  Strongbow  was  anxious  to  commence  his  operations  by 
a  successful  attack  upon  Waterford,  it  was  determined  that,  with  the  forces  then  under 
his  command,  and  without  waiting  for  the  promised  junction  of  Dermot,  the  assault  upon 
the  city  should  be  undertaken  on  the  following  day. 

Though  but  little  display  of  heroism  was  to  be  expected  from  the  people  of  Waterford, 
who  had  tamely  suffered  the  murderers  of  their  seventy  citizens  to  remain  three  whole 
months^  unmolested  in  their  neighbour Irood,  their  defence  of  the  city  on  the  present 
occasion  appears  to  have  been  spirited  and  vigorous;  and,  with  the  assistance  of  FaoJan, 
Prince  of  the  Desies,  thoy  twice  repulsed  the  attempts  of  the  assailants.  At  length 
Raymond,  perceiving  in  the  east  angle  of  the  walls  a  small  house  projecting  on  timber 
props,  ordered  some  of  his  knights  to  hew  down  these  props,  which  having  been  done, 
the  house  fell,  and,  with  it,  part  of-the  wall.  A  breach  being  thus  opened,  the  troops  all 
poured  into  the  city,  and  there  took  dreadful  revenge  for  the  resistance  which  they  had 
encountered,  by  a  general  slaughter  of  all  whom  they  met  in  the  streets,  without  dis- 
tinction or  mercy.  In  a  tower,  of  which  Reginald,  a  Dano-Irish  lord,  was  governor,  that 
chieftain  himself,  and  O'Faolan,  Prince  of  the  Desies,  had  taken  refuge;  but,  being 
dragged  forth  from  thence,  were  on  the  point  of  being  put  to  death,  when  most  unexpect- 
edly they  found  themselves  rescued  by  the  interposition  of  King  Dermot,  who  had  just 
arrived  at  this  scene  of  carnage,  with  his  daughter  Eva,  the  destined  bride  of  Strongbow, 
and  accompanied  also  by  his  trusty  liegemen,  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald  and  Fitz-Stephen. 

The  earl  received  him  with  all  the  honours  of  triumph;  though  but  short  was  the  time 
allowed  for  ceremony  or  welcome,  as,  in  consequence  of  news  from  Dublin  of  the  revolt 
of  the  governor  of  that  city,  it  was  necessary  to  march  the  army  thither  without  delay. 
The  still  reeking  horrors,  therefore,  of  the  sacked  and  ruined  city  were  made  to  give 
place  to  a  scene  of  nuptial  festivity;  and  the  marriage  of  Strongbow  with  the  Princess 
Eva,  according  to  the  promise  pledged  to  that  lord  at  Bristol,  was,  in  haste  and  confusion, 
celebrated.  Immediately  after  the  ceremony,  the  banners  of  the  respective  forces  were 
displayed,  and  the  whole  army,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  troops  left  to  garrison  Wa- 
terford, were  in  full  march  for  Dublin. 

The  bold  step  now  taken  by  Ilasculf,  the  governor  of  that  city,  in  declaring  his  defec- 
tion from  Dermot,  is  supposed  to  have  been  adopted  chiefly  in  consequence  of  this  new 
descent  of  the  foreigners,  and  also  in  concert  with  the  monarch,  Roderic,  who,  under  a 
similar  alarm  at  the  progress  of  the  English,  had  assembled  an  immense  army,  and, 
joined  by  the  troops  of  the  princes  of  Breffny  and  Orid,  had  taken  up  his  post  at  Ciandal- 
kan,  a  few  miles  southward  of  Dublin,  In  the  mean  time,  the  confederate  forces  of  the 
earl  and  Dermot  were  rapidly  pursuing  their  march;  but,  having  learned  that  the  woods 
and  defiles,  between  them  and  the  city,  were  occupied  by  native  troops,  they  wound  their 
course  along  the  tops  of  the  mountains  of  Glendalough,  and  so  reached,  uninterrupted, 
the  walls  of  Dublin.^  The  inhabitants,  who  had  relied  for  the  protection  of  the  city  on 
the  strength  of  the  Irish  force  immediately  in  its  vicinity,  were  now  seized  with  conster- 
nation at  the  sudden  appearance  of  so  large  an  army  at  their  very  gates. 

In  this  emergency,  their  only  resource  was  one  not  unfrequently  resorted  to,  in  Irish 
warfare,  the  mediation  of  the  clergy;  and  the  pious  and  exemplary  Archbishop  of  Dublin, 
St.  Laurence  O'Toole,  who  was  then  within  the  walls,  undertook,  at  the  earnest  request 
of  the  citizens,  to  intercede  with  Dermot  in  their  behalf.  But,  to  men  with  arms  in 
their  hands,  and  confident  in  their  own  superiority,  such  late  and  weak  attempts  at  pro- 
pitiation could  hardly  be  expected  to  appeal  with  force  or  success.  Accordingly,  while 
the  negotiators,  on  each  side,  were  conferring  together,  outside  the  walls,  respecting  the 

*  OuUelm.  J\reubriff.  J.  2.  c.  26. — "Cumque  jam  solvere  pararet,  affiierunt  qui  ex  parte  Regis  transfreta- 
tioneni  inhlberent.  llle  vero,  iiullius  rei  quam  in  Anglia  possidere  videbatur  remoratus  afiectu,  nihilominus 
transfretavit." 

t  Hibern.  Eipugnat.  1.  1.  c.  16.  {  Ware,  Annals. 

§  "  Perconvexa  montium  de  Glandelochan  latere,  exercitum  ad  nobis  mcenia  duxit  indemnem."— .MJern. 
Expugnat.  I.  1.  c.  17. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  255 

demand  of  thirty  hostages,  which  Derraot  had  advanced  as  the  condition  of  his  agreeing 
to  terms,  the  young  Milode  Cogan,  and  his  adventurous  comrades,  were  eyeing  tlie  ram- 
parts in  search  of  an  assailable  point;  and,  as  soon  as  llie  time  allowed  to  St.  Laurence 
for  the  purpose  of  parley  iiad  expired,  or,  according  to  some  accounts,  even  before  Milo 
de  Cogan  and  Raymond  gave  the  signal  for  the  assault,  and,  leading  their  troops  to  a 
part  of  the  walls  which  they  had  observed  to  be  ill  defended,  were,  in  a  few  moments,  in 
the  streets  of  the  city  ;  where  the  wretched  inhabitants,  thus  taken  off  their  guard,  having 
been  led  to  expect  terms  of  peace,  became  almost  unresistingly  victims  of  the  slaughter 
and  plunder  which  ensued. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  suddenness  of  the  assault,  the  governor,  Hasculf,  and 
a  number  of  the  leading  citizens,  succeeded  in  gaining  some  small  vessels  which  lay  at 
anchor  in  the  harbour,  and,  with  the  aid  of  a  favourable  wind,  made  their  escape  to  some 
of  the  Orkney  Isles.*  In  the  midst  of  all  the  confusion  and  massacre,  the  good  St. 
Laurence  was  seen  exposing  himself  to  every  danger,  and  even,  as  his  biographer  de- 
scribes him,  dragging  from  the  enemies'  hands  the  palpitating  bodies  of  the  slain,  to  have 
them  decently  interred.f  He  also  succeeded,  at  great  risk,  in  prevailing  upon  the  new 
authorities  to  retain  most  of  the  clergy  in  their  situations,  and  recovered  from  the  plun- 
derers the  books  and  ornaments  which  had  belonged  to  the  different  churches. 

On  Slrongbow's  departure  from  Waterford,  he  had  left,  tor  the  defence  of  that  town, 
a  small  garrison,  chiefly  of  archers;  which  Cormac  M'Carthy,  King  of  Desmond,  by  a 
sudden  and  vigorous  attack  surprised  and  defeated. J 

While  the  invaders  were  thus  employed  in  possessing  themselves  of  the  most  impor- 
tant city  in  the  kingdom,  the  forces  of  the  monarch,  instead  of  opposing  them,  and  endea- 
vouring to  embarrass,  if  not  wholly  defeat,  their  operations,  had  been  drawn  off  for  the 
local  and  partisan  purpose  of  supporting  his  liegeman  O'Ruarc,  in  the  possession  of  the 
territory  of  East  Meath,  over  which  he  had  lately,  by  an  act  of  arbitrary  favour,  placed 
him.  To  back  by  arms  his  own  and  O'Ruarc's  claims,  in  that  territory,  was  the  object 
for  which  he  now  marched  his  forces  into  Meath;  and  no  sooner  had  Dublin  been  taken 
possession  of,  than  Dermol  determined  to  transfer  the  scene  of  his  own  operaticms  to  the 
same  quarter.  In  addition  to  the  desire  of  still  farther  humbling  Roderic,  the  indulgence 
of  his  old  and  inveterate  grudge  to  Tiernan  O'Ruarc  lent,  of  course,  a  peculiar  zest  to 
the  enterprise.  Having,  through  Stronirbow's  recommendation,  intrusted  the  govern- 
ment of  Dublin  to  the  gallant  Milo  de  Cogan,  he  sent  the  earl,  with  a  large  force,  to 
invade  and  lay  waste  the  lands  of  Meath,  and  followed  himself,  soon  after,  with  the  re- 
mainder of  the  army. 

Besides  the  usual  waste  and  ruin  of  which  fire  and  sword  were  the  prompt  instruments, 
a  more  than  ordinary  excess  of  barbarity  is  said  to  have  marked  the  course  of  these  con- 
federate chiefs,  as  well  through  the  parts  of  Meath  now  under  the  government  of  O'Ruarc, 
as  in  that  chieftain's  own  principality  of  Breffny.  The  sacrilegious  violence  once  so 
foreign  to  the  character  of  the  Island  of  Saints,  and  which  had  been  engrafted  on  Irish 
warfare  by  the  evil  example  of  the  Danes,  was  exhibited,  in  the  course  of  this  expedition, 
in  its  most  revolting  form;  and  the  churches  of  Cluanrard,  Tailten,  Cell-Scire,  and 
Disirt-Ctaran  are  among  those  mentioned  as  having  been  despoiled  and  burnt  down  by 
the  ravagers.5 

Of  all  these  insulting  acts  of  aggression,  the  humbled  monarch  found  himself  forced  to 
be  an  unresisting  witness,  wanting  the  power,  even  if  possessed  of  the  spirit,  to  resent 
such  reiterated  defiance  of  his  authority  and  arms.  In  this  dilemma,  resorting  once 
more  to  his  old  expedient  of  negotiation,  he  despatched  deputies  to  the  camp  of  Dertnot, 
who  were  charged  to  upbraid  him,  in  the  name  of  their  monarch,  with  these  gross  and 
repeated  violations  of  all  his  most  solemn  engagements;  and  to  threaten,  moreover,  that 
if  he  did  not  instantly  withdraw  his  troops,  and  restrain  the  excursion  of  his  foreigners, 
the  head  of  his  son,  who  was  still  in  Roderic's  hands  as  a  hostage,  should  be  cut  off  and 
sent  to  him.  To  this  message  Dermot  haughtily  replied,  that  he  meant  to  persevere  as 
he  had  begun,  nor  would  desist  till  he  had  brought  Connaught,  his  ancient  inheritance, 
under  his  sway  ;  and  also  recovered  for  himself,  not  merely  by  arms,  but  in  right  of  his 
title,||  the  supreme  government  of  all  Ireland.  On  receiving  this  insolent  answer,  the 
weak  and  angry  Roderic,  whose  few  accesses  of  vigour  were  as  odious  as  his  general 
weakness  was  contemptible,  ordered  the  unoffending  son  of  Dermot  to  be  beheaded,ir 

*  IV.  Mag.  ad  ami.  1170.  It  is  stated,  in  tlie  account  given  by  the  Four  Masters  of  this  event,  that  Asgal 
Mac  Ragnall,  the  King  of  the  Northmen  of  that  city,  also  made  his  e.scape. 

t  Vita  S.  Laurentii,  cap.  18.  J  IV.  Mag.  ad  an.  1170. 

§  IV.  Mag.  ad  ann.  1170. 

II  It  appears  to  have  been  on  his  descent  from  the  monarch  Murkertach  O'Brien,  that  he  founded  this  claim 
to  tlie  sovereignty. 

IT  Stanihurst,  lib.  3. — IV.  Mag.  Ibid.  In  the  face  of  this  record — if,  indeed,  he  knew  of  its  existence — 
Keating  tells  us  that  Roderic,  "  astonished  at  the  insolence  of  this  petty  prince  (Dermot,)  resolved  in  his 


256  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

putting  to  death,  at  the  same  time,  a  grandson  of  that  prince,  the  son  of  Donald  Kave- 
nagh,  and  also  a  third  hostage  he  had  received  from  him,  the  son  of  his  Comhalt,  or 
foster-brother,  O'Coallag.  By  these  multiplied  acts  of  cruelty,  the  wretched  monarch 
drew  down  upon  himself  universal  odium. 

Among  a  people  of  strong  religious  feelings,  such  as  the  Irish  had,  even  to  this  period, 
remained,  notwithstanding  the  ignorance  and  barbarism  to  which  internal  misrule  and 
foreign  invasion  had  reduced  them,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  the  new  scourge  which 
had  now  fallen  upon  their  land  should  be  viewed  with  terror  as  a  judgment  of  God  on 
account  of  the  sins  of  the  people, — an  awful  renewal,  by  the  hand  of  Providence,  of  all 
that  their  fathers  had  endured  in  days  gone  by,  when  first  the  Black  and  the  White 
Strangers  descended  in  swarms  upon  their  shores.  That  some  such  panic  must  at  this 
period  have  taken  possession  of  them  appears  manifest,  not  merely  from  the  unmanly 
alarm  with  which,  on  several  occasions,  whole  multitudes  of  the  natives  are  said  to  have 
fled  before  small  parties  of  these  foreigners,  but  also  from  the  proceedingsof  a  remarkable 
synod,  convened  at  Armagh  this  year,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  into  their  consideration 
the  perilous  state  of  the  country.  Concluding  that  the  sins  and  offences  of  the  people 
were  the  great  cause  of  the  awful  calamities  that  threatened  them,  they  resolved  to  seek, 
in  some  general  and  national  act  of  repentance  the  salutary  means  both  of  propitiation 
and  self-relief. 

"  The  synod  declared,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  that  this  calamity  was  to  be  held  as  an 
infliction  of  Divine  justice,  on  account  of  the  sins  of  the  Irish  people;  and  more  especially 
because  that,  in  former  times,  they  used  to  make  bond-slaves  of  the  English  whom  they 
had  purchased  as  well  from  merchants  as  from  robbers  and  pirates; — a  crime,  for  which 
God  now  took  vengeance  upon  them  by  delivering  them  into  like  bondage  themselves. 
For  the  English  people,"  it  was  added,  "  while  yet  their  kingdom  was  in  a  state  of 
security,  were  accustomed,  through  a  common  vice  of  the  nation,  to  expose  their  children 
for  sale;*  and,  even  before  they  were  pressed  by  want  or  distress,  to  sell  their  own  sons 
and  kinsmen  to  the  Irish.f  It  was  therefore  natural  to  suppose  that  the  purchasers,  as 
well  as  the  sellers,  in  such  a  traffic,  would  well  deserve,  for  their  enormous  crime,  to  be 
doomed  themselves  to  wear  the  yoke  of  servitude.^  "Acting  upon  the  spirit  of  these 
humane  and  Christian  views,  the  synod  unanimously  decreed  and  ordered  that  all  the 
English  throughout  the  island,  who  were  in  a  state  of  slavery,  should  be  restored  to  their 
former  freedom." 

It  may  be  remarked  here  that  slavery  had,  from  a  very  early  period,  existed  among 
the  Irish,  as  is  proved  by  the  regulations  respecting  bondmen  and  bondwomen,  which  are 
found  in  some  very  ancient  canons  of  our  Church.§  Wherever  the  practice,  indeed,  of 
piracy,  whether  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  has  prevailed,  there  the  traffic  in  human 

passion  to  execute  his  purpose  upon  the  royal  hostage  he  had  in  his  hands,  but,  upon  mature  reflection,  he 

desisted knowing  that  such  a  barbarous  act  would  render  him  odious  to  his  people,  whose  afiections 

were  his  only  support." 

*  Dr.  Warner,  in  referring  to  this  curious  document,  observes,  very  justly, — "  Cambrensis,  Bishop  of  St. 
David's,  who  gives  this  account,  adds,  'That  the  English,  by  a  common  vice  of  their  country,  had  a  custom 
to  sell  their  children  and  kinsfolk  into  Ireland,  although  they  were  neither  in  want  nor  extreme  poverty.' 
The  English  reader,  after  this,  must  never  charge  the  Irish  of  that  age  with  being  rude  and  barbarous; 
because  he  will  be  bid  to  look  at  home." — Hist,  of  Irelavd,  vol.  i.  book  ~. 

t  By  reference  to  the  original  it  will  be  seen  how  carelessly,  if  not  ignoranlly.  Dr.  Campbell  has  interpreted 
the  meaning  of  this  passage.—"  It  was  the  common  vice,"  he  says,  "  of  all  the  English,  from  their  first  set- 
tlement in  Britain,  to  expose  their  children  and  relations  to  sale  rather  than  that  they  should  suffer  avy  want." 
— Strictures,  S^c.  sect,  12.  With  the  extremities  to  which  want  reduces  its  victims,  the  Irish  were  themselves 
but  too  weli  acquainted  ;  and  the  annalists  frequently,  in  describing  the  horrors  of  a  famine,  say  that  it  was 
such  as  "  would  compel  a  father  to  sell  his  son  or  daughter  for  food."  Thus  in  the  Ulster  Annals  {ad  ann. 
964:) — "  Goria  mor  diulocta  in  er,  eo  renadh  an  tathair  a  mac  et  ingen  arbiadh." 

I  "  Tandem  communis  omnium  in  hac  sententia  resedit,  propter  peccata  scilicit  populi  sui,  eoque  praecipue 
quod  Anglos  olim  tarn  a  mercatoribus  quam  a  praedonibus  atque  pyiatis,  emere  passim  et  in  servitutem 
redigere  consiieveranl,  divinoe  censura  vindictie  hoc  eis  incommodum  accidisse,  ut  et  ipsi  quoque  ab  eadem 
genie  in  servitutem  vice  recriproca  jam  redigantur.  .Anglorum  namque  ponulus  adhuc  integro  eorum  regno, 
communi  gcntis  vitio.  liberos  suos  venales  ezponere,  et,  priusquam  inopiam  ullam  aut  inediam  sustiiierent,  Jilios 
proprios  et  tognatos  in  Hiberniam  vendcrc  consueverant.  Vnde  et  probabiliter  credi  potest,  sicut  vendilores  olim, 
ita  et  emptiires  tarn  enormi  dilicto  juga  servitutis  jam  meruisse." — Girald.  Camhrens.  Hib.  Expug.  lib  i.  c.  18. 
In  Ware's  Annals,  as  translated  into  English,  there  occurs  a  most  gross  and,  as  it  appears,  wilful  misrepre- 
sentation of  the  meaning  of  the  sentences  here  printed  in  Italics,  which  the  writer  thus  shamefully  per- 
verts:— "  With  the  consent  of  the  wholi;  clergy  ii  was  concluded  that  God  for  the  sins  of  the  people  had 
afflicted  the  Irish;  and  parlicularly  for  their  selling  the  English  taken  by  pirates,  or  otherwise."  Of  all 
share  in  this  bare  faced  falsificaiion,Sir  James  Ware  himself  is  to  be  acquitted,  being,  as  Dr.  Lanigan  justly 
remarks,  •'  too  honest  to  corrupt  his  authority."  The  blame,  therefore,  of  the  dishonesty,  or  the  ignorance, 
whichsoever  it  may  have  been,  must  lie  at  the  door  of  his  translators.  The  calumny,  however,  has  l)een 
adopted,  without  examination  or  scruple,  hy  others,  and  we  find  Rapin  confusedly  assigning,  as  the  pretext 
for  Henry's  invasion,  "the  Irish  having  taken  some  Englishmen  prisoners,  and  afterwards  sold  them  for 
slaves."  Speed,  also,  who  takes  the  same  false  view  of  the  subject,  adds,  in  the  genuine  spirit  of  misrepre- 
sentation, "  which  made  the  Irish  clergy  themselves  confess  that  they  had  deserved  no  other  than  that  their 
land  should  be  transferred  to  that  nation  whom  they  had  so  cruelly  bandied." 

§  See,  for  three  canons,  Ware,  Jlntiq.  c.  20. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  257 

creatures,  as  an  ordinary  article  of  commerce,  has  also  existed ;  and  it  was  in  the  course, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  a  predatory  expedition  of  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages  to  the  coast  of 
Gaul,*  that  St.  Patrick,  then  a  youth,  was  carried  away  and  sold  as  a  bond  slave  in  Ire- 
land. Besides  the  slaves  imported  from  England,  of  which  traffic  Bristol  was  the  great 
mart,t  the  Irish  had  also  a  class  of  bondmen  called  Villeins,  which  were  regardant,  as 
the  law  expresses  it,  to  the  manor,  and  esteemed  a  part  of  the  inheritance  or  farm. 

In  referring  to  the  remarkable  synodic  decree,  just  cited,  an  Irisli  writer  of  the  seven- 
teenth century, — one  of  the  many  whom,  at  that  time,  the  persecution  of  their  country's 
creed  at  home  compelled  to  carry  their  talents  and  industry  to  other  shores, — indulges  in 
a  wish  as  deeply  significant,  as  it  is  melancholy  and  hopeless.  "  If,  tlien,  the  Irish,"  he 
says,  "as  Giraldus  intimates,  made  themselves  accomplices  in  the  guilt  of  the  English  by 
buying  their  children,  when  offered  willingly  by  them  for  sale,  it  were  to  be  wished  that 
the  English  nation,  which  reduced  the  children  of  those  Irish  to  slavery,  contrary  to  the 
will  and  wish  of  their  parents,  would  in  so  far  imitate  the  act  of  the  Irish  of  that  period, 
as  to  release  their  posterity,  long  suffering  in  servitude,  and  restore  them  to  their 
former  independence  and  freedom.  For,  if  the  lighter  crime  drew  down  on  its  perpe- 
trators such  punishment,  how  heavy  a  judgment  must  fall  upon  the  greater  and  more 
lasting  wrong  I"| 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 


Alarm  of  Henry  at  the  progress  of  StrongBow. — His  proclamation,^ — Raymond  despatched  to 
him  with  a  letter. — Death  of  the  King  of  Leinster. — Attack  upon  Dublin  by  Hasculf. — His 
defeat  and  death. — Patriotic  exertions  of  Archbishop  Laurence. — Dublin  invested  by  a  large 
army  of  the  Irish. — Negotiation  between  Strongbow  and  Roderic. — Intrepid  sally  of  tiie 
English. — Retreat  of  the  Irish  forces. — Filz-Stephen  besieged  at  Carrig. — Strongbow 
marches  to  relieve  him. — Treacherous  conduct  towards  FilzStephen. — Strongbow  repairs 
to  England. — Makes  his  peace  with  King  Henry. — Embarkation  of  Henry  for  Ireland. — 
Receives  the  submission  of  several  of  the  Irish  Princes.— Holds  his  court  in  Dublin. — Synod 
of  Cashel. — Its  decrees. —  Council  held  by  Henry  at  Lismore. — Laws  enacted  by  him. — 
Grants  of  estates  and  dignities  to  Hugh  de  Lacy  and  others. — Henry  removes  to  Water- 
ford. — His  departure  for  England. 

The  open  defiance  by  Strongbow  of  the  mandate  of  his  king,  together  with  the  inde- 
pendent course  of  conquest  he  was  now  pursuing,  would,  even  in  a  prince  far  less 
tenacious  of  liis  kingly  authority  than  Henry  If.,  have  awakened  resentment  and  alarm. 
It  was  not  to  be  expected,  therefore,  that  he  would  any  longer  brook  such  encroachments  ; 
and  the  earl,  in  the  midst  of  his  flow  of  success,  found  himself  checked,  at  once,  by  the 
appearance  of  an  edict  of  the  king,  forbidding  strictly  all  traffic  and  intercourse  with 
Ireland,  from  any  part  of  his  dominions;  and  commanding  all  his  subjects,  now  in  that 
country,  of  every  order  and  degree,  to  return  home  before  the  ensuing  feast  of  Easter, 
on  pain  of  perpetual  banishment  and  the  forfeiture  of  all  their  estates.  The  effects  of 
this  measure  were  soon  most  embarrassingly  felt  by  Strongbow  in  the  total  stoppage  of 

*  See  chap,  vii.,  p.  88.,  of  this  Work. 

t  "  Slaves,"  says  Seyer,  "were  exported  from  England  in  such  numbers  that  it  seems  to  have  been  a 
fashion  ainang  the  people  of  property  in  Ireland,  and  other  neiglrbouring  countries,  to  be  attended  by  Eng- 
lish slaves."— //('sMry  of  Bristol.  He  ought  to  have  added,  that  it  was  from  liis  own  city,  Bristol,  these 
slaves  were  chietiy,  and  to  so  late  a  period  as  the  reign  of  king  John,  exported.  William  of  Malmesbury, 
who  describes  the  number  of  young  English  slaves,  of  both  sexes,  who  used  to  be  shipped  off  from  Bristol  to 
Ireland,  tied  together  by  ropes,  attribiues  to  St.  WIstan  the  credit  of  having  sirppressed  this  unchristian 
tralhc. — "  Homines  enim  ex  omni  Anglia  coemptos  inajoris  spe  quiestus  in  Hiberniani  distrahebant ;  ancil- 
lasque  prius  ludibrio  lecti  habitas  janique  prregnantes  venum  proponebant.  Videres  et  gemeres  concatenates 
funibus,  miserorum  ordines  et  utiiusque  sexus  adolescentes." — De  Vit.  Wlstavi. 

J  Colgan. — "Sed  si  Hiberni.  ut  ipse  innuit,  fuerint  participes  delicti  Anglorum  emendo  filios  eorum  ab 
ipsis  parentibus  sponte  divenditos,  utinam  et  Angli  postea  filios  Hibernorum  contra  parentum  vota  et  volun- 
lates  in  servitutem  redigentes,  sint  iinitatores  Hibernorum  in  filios  eorum  scrvitufis  vinculo  diu  maneipatos 
in  prisUnam  revocando  llbertatcm,  el  vereantur  ubi  delictum  levius  severe  jam  punitum  est  graviori  delicto 
severiorem  vindictam  aliquando  non  defecturaui,"— XVias  Tkaumat.  Sept.  Append,  ad  aim.  1170. 

32 


258  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

his  supplies  from  England,  and  the  desertion  of  a  number  of  his  soldiers  and  knights; 
which  state  of  things  being  ominous  of  ruin  to  his  future  prospects,  he  consulted  the 
most  judicious  of  those  persons  about  him,  as  to  the  steps  advisable  for  him  to  take,  and 
the  result  was  his  sending  off  Raymond  le  Gros  to  the  English  king,  who  was  then  ia 
Normandy,  with  a  letter  expressed  in  the  following  terms: — 

"  My  sovereign  lord,  I  came  into  this  land,  and  (if  I  remember  aright)  with  your  per- 
mission, for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the  restoration  of  your  liegeman  Dermot  Mac 
Morrough  ;  and,  whatsoever  the  favour  of  fortune  has  bestowed  upon  me,  whether  from 
his  patrimony  or  from  any  other  source,  as  to  your  gracious  munificence  I  owe  it  all,  so 
shall  it  all  return  to  you,  and  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  your  absolute  will  and 
pleasure." 

Though  this  acknowledgment  comprised  in  it  all  that  the  king  could  desire,  both  pride 
and  policy  forbade  his  yielding  too  ready  a  pardon  to  acts  of  self-will  so  dangerous  in 
their  example.  He  did  not  deign,  therefore,  even  to  notice  the  earl's  letter,  and  Ray- 
mond waited  some  time  at  his  court,  expecting  an  answer,  but  in  vain.  In  the  mean 
while  the  assassination  of  that  remarkable  man,  Thomas  a  Becket,  had  drawn  down 
upon  Henry,  throughout  Europe,  such  a  load  of  suspicion  and  odium  as  required  all  the 
resources  of  mind  he  so  eminently  possessed,  to  enable  him  to  confront  and  overcome ; 
and,  accordingly,  for  a  time  his  views  upon  Ireland  were  merged  in  objects  of  more  deep 
and  pressing  interest. 

In  the  state  of  embarrassment  to  which  the  English  adventurers  were  now  reduced, 
they  had  to  suffer  another  serious  blow  in  the  loss  of  the  great  projector  and  patron  of 
their  expedition,  Dermot  himself,  who  died  about  the  close  of  this  year*  at  Ferns,  of 
some  unknown  and  frightful  malady,  which  is  said  to  have  rendered  him  in  his  last 
moments,  an  object  of  horror  and  disgust.  It  is  added,  too,  that  so  dreadful  was  the 
state  of  impenitence  in  which  he  departed,  that  his  death  combined,  at  once,  all  the 
worst  features  of  moral  depravity  with  the  most  loathsome  form  of  physical  disease. 
This  evidently  exaggerated  account  must  be  taken  as  a  record,  not  so  much  of  the  real 
nature  of  his  death,  as  of  the  deep  and  bitter  hatred  with  which  he  was  regarded  by 
most  of  his  contemporaries;  the  instances  being  numerous  in  history,  where  the  mode 
of  death  attributed  to  personages  who  had  rendered  themselves  odious  during  their  lives, 
have  been  rather  such  as,  according  to  popular  feeling,  they  deserved,  than  as  they 
actually  did  suffer. 

On  the  demise  of  the  King  of  Leinster,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  succeeded,  in  defiance 
of  the  law  of  the  land,  to  the  throne  of  that  province,  having  been  raised  most  probably 
to  the  post  of  Roydamna,  by  a  forced  election,  during  the  life-time  of  the  king.f  As  he 
had  been  indebted,  however,  for  much  of  his  following  to  the  personal  influence  acquired 
by  Dermot  over  the  lower  classes,  he  now,  in  addition  to  his  other  difficulties,  found 
himself  deserted  by  the  greater  number  of  those  partisans  whom  only  fidelity  to  the 
fortunes  of  his  father-in-law  had  led  to  range  themselves  under  his  banner.  With  the 
view  of  looking  after  his  possessions  and  adherents  in  other  parts  of  the  country,  the  earl 
now  left  Dublin,  and  the  commanders  entrusted  with  the  charge  of  that  city  during  his 
absence  were  soon  afl^orded  an  opportunity  of  displaying  as  well  tiieir  good  fortune  as 
their  valour.  The  late  Governor  of  Dublin,  Hasculf,  who  on  its  capture,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  Strongbow  and  the  King  of  Leinster,  succeeded  in  escaping  to  the  Orkney 
Islands,  had  been  able  to  collect  there  a  large  army,  as  well  of  Norwegians  as  of  other 
inhabitants  of  those  isles,  with  which  he  now  sailed  up  the  Liffey  ;  liis  armament,  con- 
sisting of  no  less  than  sixty  ships,  while  the  troops  armed,  as  we  are  told,  in  the  Danish 
manner,  wearing  coats  of  mail  and  round  red-coloured  shiekls,|  were  under  the  special 
conduct  of  a  chieftain  called  by  his  countrymen  John  the  Furious. 


*  From  this  last  King  of  Leinster,  Dermot  MacMorrougli,  descended  the  family  of  the  O'Cavenaghs,  the 
head  of  whom,  through  each  successive  seneratioii,  continued  to  style  himself  The  Mac-Morrough  till  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  when,  on  the  submission  of  the  Irish  chiefs  to  Lord  Leonard  lirey,  Charles  O'Cavanach 
surrendered  his  title  to  Henry,  and  was  constitute<l  governor,  for  the  king,  of  the  Castle  of  Ferns.  See,  for 
an  account  of  this  circumstance,  as  well  as  of  the  title  subsequently  conferred  upon  the  f;iuiily,  Hibernia 
Dominicana,  c.  9.,  where  the  author  thus  cites  his  authority  for  the  facts: — "  Hue  porro  faciunt  sequentia 
verba  qua;  nudiustertius  vidi  in  Regesto  Feciali  Kegis  Arnioruin  in  hac  Dubliniensi  civitate,  nempe:  Anti- 
quissima  familia  de  O'Cavanah  onginem  ducit  a  Morrough  Rege  Lagenia;,"  &c. 

t  The  explanation  of  this  anomaly  given  by  Mr.  Sheffield  Grace  (in  his  Account  of  Tullyroan)  is  as 
follows:—''  Allliough,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Englisli  nation  and  sovereign,  Strongbow  was  merely  regarded  as 
an  English  noble,  holding  of  ihcir  king,  yet,  in  the  estimation  (if  the  Irish,  he  was  accepted  as  the  King  of 
Leinster,  in  right  of  his  wife  Eva,  heiress  of  that  kingdom."  But  as,  by  the  old  Irish  law,  women  themselves 
were  e.xcluded  from  inheritance,  they  were  also,  of  course,  inc.-i)iable  of  communicating  a  right  of  inheritance 
10  their  husbands. 

i  Hibern.  Expugnat.  I.  1.  c.  2L— "  Viri  bellicosi  Danico  more,  uwdique  ferro  vebtiti,  alii  loricis  longis,  alii 
laminis  fcrrcis  arte  cunbulis,  clypeis  quoquc  roluiidib  et  rubris." 


HISTOUY  OF  IRELAND.  259 

Landing  with  this  force,  Hasculf  attacked  the  eastern  gate  of  the  city,  where,  being 
encountered  by  Milo  de  Cogan,  he  was  repulsed  with  the  loss  of  500  men.  But  the 
Anglo-Norman,  flushed  with  this  advantage,  and  leading  his  knights  in  pursuit  of  the 
fugitives  too  eargerly,  found  himself  beset  at  length  by  superior  numbers, — some  of  his 
best  men  falling  around  him,  while  others  were,  it  is  said,  seized  with  sudden  panic,  on 
seeing  the  thigh  of  a  knight,  which  was  cased  all  over  in  iron,  cut  oft"  by  a  Danish  chief 
with  a  single  blow  of  his  battle-axe.*  Thus  hardly  pressed,  Milo  endeavoured,  with  his 
small  band,  to  regain  the  gate  for  the  purpose  of  retiring  within  the  walls;  but,  the 
besiegers  still  crowding  upon  him,  he  was  on  the  very  point  of  falling  beneath  their 
numbers,  when  his  brother,  Richard  de  Cogan,  whether  from  knowledge  of  his  perilous 
situation,  or  more  probably  in  pursuance  of  a  pre-arranged  plan,  issued  forth  with  a  body 
of  horse  from  the  southern  gate  of  the  city,  and  coming  unobserved  on  the  rear  of  the 
assailants,  raised  a  loud  shout,  and  suddenly  charged  them.f  Dismayed  by  so  unexpected 
an  attack,  and  imagining  it  to  proceed  from  some  newly  arrived  re-enforcement,  the 
besiegers  fled  in  such  headlong  terror  and  confusion,  that,  in  the  eflTorts  of  all  to  save 
themselves,  but  a  small  number  escaped. 

After  a  long  and  fierce  struggle  with  his  assailants,  John  the  Furious  was  at  length 
felled  to  the  ground;  and  an  English  knight,  named  Walter  de  Riddlesford,  with  the 
assistance  of  some  others,  slew  him.  Hasculf  himself,  in  flying  to  his  ships,  was  taken 
prisoner  upon  the  sands,  and  brought  back  alive  to  be  reserved  for  ransom.  On  appear- 
ing, however,  before  the  governor  and  a  large  assembly  in  the  council  house,  he  haughtily 
exclaimed,  "  We  came  here  with  only  a  small  force,  and  this  has  been  but  the  beginning 
of  our  labours.  If  I  live,  far  other  and  greater  things  shall  follow."  More  angry  at  the 
insolence  of  this  speech  than  touched  by  the  brave,  though  rash,  spirit  which  dictated  it, 
the  governor  ordered  the  unfortunate  chieftain  to  be  immediately  beheaded. 

Notwithstanding  this  turn  of  success,  as  signal  and  brilliant  as  it  was  fortuitous,  which 
had  come  thus  seasonably  to  relieve  the  sinking  fortunes  of  the  English,  it  was  clear  that 
the  relief  could  be  but  superficial  and  temporary  ;  the  small  amount  of  force  they  could 
command  being  dispersed  through  different  garrisons,  while  the  defection  of  the  natives 
had  become  almost  universal,  and  all  means  of  supply  or  re-enforcement  from  England 
were  interdicted.  Under  such  circumstances,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  there  wanted 
but  a  single  combined  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Irish,  to  sweep  at  once  this  handful  of 
hardy  and  desperate  adventurers  from  the  face  of  the  land.  That  there  should  have 
arisen,  at  a  crisis  so  momentous,  not  even  one  brave  and  patriotic  Irishman  to  proclaim 
aloud  to  his  divided  countrymen  that  in  their  union  alone  lay  strength  and  safety,  would 
be  a  fact  which,  however  disgraceful  to  the  whole  nation,  might  have  been  in  so  far 
consolatory,  that  it  would  prove  all  to  have  been  alike  worthy  of  the  ignominious  fate  that 
befell  them. 

But  the  history  of  that  period  is  not  so  utterly  unredeemed  and  desolate,  for  such  a 
patriot  did  then  exist;  and  in  the  pious  and  high-minded  St.  Laurence  O'Toole,  Ireland 
possessed  at  that  time  both  a  counsellor  and  leader  such  as,  had  there  been  hearts  and 
swords  worthy  to  second  him,  might  have  rescued  her  from  the  vile  bonds  into  which  she 
was  then  sinking.  Observing  the  reduced  and  straitened  condition  of  the  enemy,  the 
archbishop  saw  with  delight  that  the  moment  was  arrived,  when  by  a  prompt  and  general 
coalition  of  his  countrymen  a  blow  might  be  struck  to  the  very  heart  of  the  yet  infant 
English  power, — a  blow  that  would  crush  at  once  the  swarm  of  foreign  intruders  now 
on  their  soil,  and  hold  forth  a  warning  of  similar  vengeance  to  all  who,  in  future,  might 
dare  to  follow  in  their  footsteps.  To  effect  this  great  national  purpose  a  cordial  union  of 
the  Irish  princes  was  indispensable,  and  neither  labour  nor  eloquence  was  spared  by  St. 
Laurence  in  his  noble  efforts  to  accomplish  so  glorious  a  result.|  He  went  from  province 
to  province,  to  every  chieftain  of  every  district,  imploring  them  to  forget  all  trivial  ani- 
mosities at  such  a  crisis,  and  to  rally  round  their  common  sovereign  for  the  salvation  of 
their  own  and  their  fathers'  land.  He  likewise,  in  conjunction  with  Roderic,  despatched 
emissaries  to  Godfred,  King  of  the  Island  of  Man,  as  well  as  to  the  princes  of  the  neigh- 
bouring isles,  entreating  them,  for  their  own  sakes,  as  having  a  common  interest  in  the 
reduction  of  the  English  power,  to  assist  with  their  ships  in  the  general  attack  which 
was  now  meditated  upon  Dublin. 

Informed  of  these  designs,  Strongbow  threw  himself  into  the  city,  accompanied  by  Fitz- 

*  Regan.  By  this  metrical  chrnnicler  the  feat  here  described  is  attributed  to  John,  the  Norwegian  chief 
himself,  who  bore  tlie  cognomen,  according  to  Giraldus,  of  T/tecwoode,  meaning  the  Mad,  or  Furious. 

t  Lambeth  MSS. 

t  Laurentio  Dnblinicnsi  Anlistile,  zelo  suae  gentis,  lit  ferebatur,  hoc  procurante. — Hib.  Eipug.  I.  1.  c.  22. 
See  Ware,  Annals,  ad  aim.  1171. 


260  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Gerald  and  Raymond, — the  latter  but  lately  returned  from  his  fruitless  mission  to 
Henry, — and  though  considerably  straitened  for  the  maintenance  of  the  army,  prepared 
boldly  for  defence.  Nor  was  it  long  before  his  resolution  and  means  were  put  to  the 
trial ;  as  a  force,  far  more  considerable  than  he  could  have  expected  to  see  assembled, 
was  now  brought  to  invest  his  position  on  every  side ; — the  fleet  of  the  Isles,  which  con- 
sisted of  thirty  ships,  being  so  stationed  as  to  block  up  the  harbour,  while  the  confederate 
Irish  forces  were  all  encamped  around  the  city,  and  amounted,  according  to  an  estimate 
most  probably  exaggerated,  to  no  less  than  30,000  men.  Among  the  leaders  of  this  great 
national  force  was  seen  St.  Laurence  himself, — bearing  arms,  it  is  said,  like  the  rest, 
and  endeavouring  to  animate,  by  his  example  and  eloquence,  the  numerous  chieftains  of 
all  septs  and  factions,  whom  he  had  brought  thus  together  under  one  banner. 

But,  encouraging  as  was  all  this  commencement  of  the  enterprise,  the  results  fell 
miserably  short  of  the  cheering  promise  which  it  held  forth.  Whether  from  some  diffi- 
culty in  coming  to  an  agreement  among  themselves,  as  to  the  peculiar  mode  of  assault, 
or  probably  a  persuasion  among  the  majority,  that  a  patient  blockade,  preventing  entirely 
the  introduction  of  provisions,  would  be  the  most  secure  mode  of  compelling  the  garrison 
to  submission,  it  appears  certain  that  for  nearly  two  months  tiiis  great  besieging  force 
lay  wholly  inactive  before  the  city.  In  the  desired  object,  however,  of  reducing  the 
garrison  to  the  utmost  dilficuities,  the  policy  adopted  was  completely  successful;  and  the 
earl  iiaving  at  length  notitie<l  a  desire  to  negotiate  with  the  besiegers,  the  Archbishop  of 
Armagh,  as  the  most  worthy  representative  of  all  that  ought,  at  least,  to  have  been  the 
feelings  of  his  countrymen  at  such  a  crisis,  was  unanimously  deputed  to  receive  his 
overtures. 

The  proposition  of  Strongbow  was,  that,  provided  Roderic  would  raise  the  siege  and 
consent  to  receive  him  as  his  vassal,  he  would,  on  his  part,  agree  to  receive  the  province 
of  Leinster  from  the  monarch,  and  to  acknowledge  him  as  his  sovereign.  This  proposi- 
tion having  been  laid  before  Roderic  by  the  archbishop,  an  answer  was  returned,  so  much 
more  in  consonance  with  the  cliaracter  of  the  prelate  himself  than  with  that  of  his  un- 
worthy master,  that  it  was  most  probably  of  his  own  dictation,  in  which  it  was  declared 
that,  unless  the  English  vvonld  forthwith  surrender  to  Roderic  the  towns  of  Dublin, 
Waterford,  and  Wexford,  together  with  all  the  forts  and  castles  then  possessed  by  them, 
and  would  agree,  on  a  dny  assigned,  to  depart  with  all  their  forces  from  Ireland,  the 
besieging  army  would  without  delay  attack  and  storm  the  city.  Taking  into  account 
the  relative  position  of  the  two  parties,  the  garrison  being  at  that  moment  reduced  to 
extremity,  and  apparently  at  the  mercy  of  the  besiegers,  while  the  latter  were  still  a 
fresh  unbroken  force,  there  was  assuredly  nothing  in  the  nature  of  these  terms,  however 
mortifying  to  the  hitherto  successful  invaders,  which  the  Irish  were  not  justified  as  well 
on  grounds  of  equity  and  mercy  to  the  conquered,  as  by  a  sense  of  duty  towards  their 
own  aggrieved  and  insulted  country,  to  demand.*  So  utterly  hopeless  was  the  state  of 
the  garrison,  that  there  appeared  every  prospect  of  the  earl  being  driven  to  accept  of 
these  terms,  or  even  to  surrender  at  discretion;  when,  by  one  of  those  inspirations  of 
despair  which,  for  the  time,  invest  men  with  an  almost  supernatural  strength,  and  enable 
them  to  control  and  conquer  fortune  itself,  the  whole  complexion  of  the  fortunes  of  the 
English  were,  in  a  few  eventful  hours,  brightened  and  changed. 

Having  eluded,  by  some  means,  the  vigilance  of  the  enemy,  Donald  Kavenagh,  the 
son  of  the  late  King  Dermot,  had  contrived  to  enter  the  city,  and  acquaint  Strongbow 
with  the  distressing  intelligence,  that  Fitz-Stephen  was  now  closely  besieged  in  the 
fort  of  Carrig,  by  a  large  multitude  of  the  people  of  Wexford  and  Hy-Kinsellagh,+  and 
that  having  with  him  but  five  knights  and  a  small  company  of  archers,  if  not  relieved 
within  a  few  days,|  not  merely  himself  and  his  followers,  but  also  his  wife  and  children, 

*  See  Lcland,  who  views  in  tfie  same  light  the  terms  proposeil  on  this  occasion  by  the  Irish.  Dr.  Campbell, 
confoimdiiig  Leland  with  Lord  Lytlelton,  quntes  the  laltor  as  expressing  this  opinion  respecting  the  terms, 
tlioiigh  he  has  taid  nolhing  whatsoever  about  them. 

t  "  Ecce  Diivenaldus  Dermitii  tiliiis  Kenceli^  finibiis  adveniens,  Stephanidem  inter  Karractense  castrum  a 
Guesfordi.T  civibiis  nee  non  et  Kencelieiisibus  quasi  tribiis  viroruni  millibus  cum  paucis  obsessum  nunti- 
avit."— //iA.  Erpug.  1.  i.  c.  22.  liord  Lytlelton,  whose  general  accuracy  in  the  portion  of  his  history  which 
relates  to  Ireland,  is  deserving  of  the  highest  praise,  has  here  fallen  into  a  slight  geographical  error.  "  Fitz- 
Stephen,"  he  says,  "  was  besieged  in  his  fort  at  Carrick,  near  We.vford,  hy  the  citizens  of  that  town  and  the 
Irish  of  Kinsalc;"  thus  confounding  the  seaport  town  of  this  name  in  the  county  of  Cork  with  the  great 
territory  called  Kinsellagh,  or  Ily-Kinsellagh,  which  comprehended  the  chief  portion  of  the  southern  part  of 
Leinster. 

t  It  is  stated,  in  Regan's  account,  that  Fitz-Stephen  had  still  farther  weakened  his  small  garrison  by  con- 
tributing liiirtysi.v  of  his  soldiers  to  the  force  collected  for  the  defence  of  Dublin  by  Strongbow. 

As  the  historical  fragment  attributed  to  Regan,  the  servant  and  interpreter,  as  it  is  pretended,  of  Dermot, 
King  of  Leinster,  will  he  occasionally  referred  to  in  these  notes,  it  is  right  that  the  reader  should  know  upon 
what  grounds  the  pretensions  of  this  tract  to  an  authentic  character  are  founded.  Of  the  alleged  author,  or 
rather  dictator,  of  this  fragment.  Maurice  Regan,  no  mention  whatever  is  made  in  our  annals;  and  the 
original  manuscript  preserved  at  Lambeth,  from  which  Sir  George  Carew  made  his  translation,  instead  of 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  261 

who  were  sliut  up  with  him  in  the  fort,  must  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  fierce  and  impla- 
cable besieg-ers.  On  learning  this  painful  intellinrence,  the  earl  summoned  without  delay 
a  council  of  war  to  consult  as  to  the  measures  that  should  be  pursued ;  and  for  some  time, 
all  thoughts  of  their  own  reduced  and  desperate  condition  were  forgotten  in  their  anxiety 
for  the  fate  of  Fitz-Stephen  and  his  family.  At  length,  with  a  courage  which  could  only 
have  arisen  out  of  the  very  hopelessness  of  their  common  lot,  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald  pro- 
posed to  his  comrades,  as  the  only  chance  now  left  for  their  own  deliverance,  or  the 
relief  of  his  kinsman  Fitz-Stephen,  that  they  should  at  once  sally  forth  with  the  whole  of 
the  garrison,  and  cut  their  way  through  the  besieging  army. 

This  bold  suggestion  the  gallant  Raymond,  with  characteristic  zeal  and  eloquence, 
seconded  ;  and  Strongbow,  adopting  readily  the  project,  selected  from  the  garrison  three 
bodies  of  horse;  the  first  of  which,  forming  the  vanguard,  consisted  of  twenty  knitrhts 
under  the  conduct  of  Raymond  ;  while  tiie  second,  thirty  in  number,  and  formino-°the 
centre,  had  for  its  leader  Milo  de  Cogan,  and  the  third,  consisting  of  about  forty  knights, 
under  the  command  of  Strongbow  himself  and  Fitz-Gerald,  was  appointed  to  brino-  up 
the  rear.  The  remainder  of  the  force,  which  amounted  altogether,  it  is  said,  to  but'^GOO 
men,  was  made  up  of  the  esquires  of  the  knights,  also  on  horseback,  and  of  some  infantry 
composed  of  the  citizens  of  Dublin.  With  this  small  band  the  earl  sallied  forth,  about 
the  ninth  hour  of  the  day,  to  attack  an  army  stated  by  the  English  chroniclers  to  have 
been  no  less  than  30,000  strong. 

In  the  presumed  security  of  their  own  numbers  and  strength,  and  expecting  hourly 
the  surrender  of  the  exhausted  garrison,  so  sudden  and  vigorous  an  outbreak  from  the 
city  was  the  very  last  of  all  possible  events  that  the  besieging  multitude  could  have  ex- 
pected. In  the  terror  and  confusion,  therefore,  into  which  all  were  thrown  by  the  first 
onset,  their  great  numbers  were  but  an  impediment  to  effectual  resistance;  and  the 
panic  spreading  also  to  the  armies  of  Irish  that  were  quartered  to  the  north  and  south  of 
the  city,  they,  in  like  manner,  with  scarcely  even  an  attempt  at  resistance,  precipitately 
broke  up  their  camps  and  fled.  The  monarch  himself,  who  was  at  the  time  indulging  in 
the  luxury  of  a  bath,  received  the  first  intimation  of  what  had  occurred  from  the  sudden 
flight  of  his  attendants,  and  succeeded  with  difficulty  in  effecting  his  own  escape.  Having 
thus,  notwithstanding  the  fewness  and  feebleness  of  their  force,  dispersed  in  a  few  hours 
the  mighty  army  that  had  held  them  in  durance  for  nearly  two  months,  the  English  re- 
turned at  the  close  of  the  evening  into  the  city,  loaded  with  the  spoils  and  baggage  of 
the  enemy,  and  having  gained  sufficient  provisions  to  victual  the  city  for  a  year.* 

The  relief  of  Fitz-Stephen  from  his  alarming  position  was  now  the  great  object  to 
which  Strongbow's  attention  was  devoted;  and  having  committed  the  government  of 
Dublin  to  Milo  de  Cogan,  he  without  delay  marched  towards  Wexford,  to  effect  the 
delivery,  if  possible,  of  the  fort  of  the  Carrig.f     In  his  way  thither  the  road  lay  through 

being  in  Irish,  as  might  have  been  expected,  was  written  in  old  French  or  Norman  verse,  having  been  taken 
down,  as  we  are  told,  in  that  form  by  a  contemporary  and  friend  of  Regan  himself.  The  following  are  the 
introductory  lines  of  the  Fragment:— 

"  Parsoen  demande  Latinner 
L'nioi  conta  de  sim  Historic 
Dunt  far  ici  la  Memorie 
Morice  Regan  iret  celui 
Buche  a  buclie  par  la  alui 
Ri  cest  gest  endita 
Lestorie  de  lui  mi  mostra 
■  Jeil  Morice  iret  Latinner 

Al  rei  se  Murcher 
Ici  lira  del  Bacheller 
Del  rei  Dermod,  vous  voil  center." 

This  metrical  narrative  which  comprises  a  period  only  of  tlirce  years,  differs,  on  many  essential  points, 
from  the  accounts  given  of  the  same  transactions  by  Giraldiis  and  others;  and  notwithstanding  the  emphatic 
declaration  of  Harris  that  "  whoever  writes  the  history  of  Ireland  during  the  English  period,  must  make  this 
piece  the  main  basis  of  liis  account,"  the  preference  given  by  almost  every  writer  who  has  hitherto  treated  of 
this  period,  to  the  authority  of  Giraldus  over  tiiat  of  the  supposed  Regan,  is  a  sufficient  proof  of  the  doubt 
entertained  of  the  authenticity  of  this  Fragment.  "  I  cannot  think,"  says  Lord  Lyttelton,  "  that  this 
rhyming  chronicle,  drawn  from  a  verbal  relation,  imperfectly  recollected,  and  mixed  with  other  hearsays, 
picked  up,  we  know  not  how,  or  from  whom,  is  of  equal  credit  with  the  history  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis, 
whose  near  kinsmen  were  actors,  and  principal  actors,  in  most  of  the  facts  he  relates."  Vol.  v.  note, 
pp.  70,  71. 

The  notion  of  Mr.  Whitty  {Popular  Hist,  of  Ireland,)  that  this  Fragment  may  have  been  written  by  some 
Norman  rhymester,  who  had  accompanied  his  countrymen  into  Ireland,  seems  by  no  means  improbable. 

*  Hibern.  Expugnat.  I.  1.  c.  22,  23. 

t  An  eloquent  Irishman  of  the  present  day,  in  a  speech  delivered  by  him  some  years  since,  at  Wexford, 
thus  alludes  to  this  memorable  tower  and  its  history: — "Situate  at  the  gorge  of  the  mountain,  and  com- 
manding the  passage  over  the  stream,  whose  waters  are  darkened  with  its  shadow,  it  is  invested  with  many 


262  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

a  narrow  pass,  in  the  territory  then  called  Idrone,  where  he  found  himself  stopped  by 
O'Regan,  the  prince  of  that  district,  who  waited  to  receive  him  with  a  considerable  force. 
An  action  ensued,  which  was,  for  some  time,  maintained  with  balanced  success,  when  at 
leno-th  an  arrow,  shot  from  the  bow  of  a  monk  named  Nicholas,  who  fought  in  the  Eng- 
lish^ranlis,*  brought  the  Prince  of  Idrone  to  the  ground,  and  his  troops,  disheartened  by 
the  death  of  their  leader,  took  to  flight,  and  left  the  English  army  masters  of  the  field. 
Among  the  knights  who  most  distinguished  themselves  ia  this  action  was  the  young 
Meyler  Fitz-Henry,  another  of  the  descendants  of  the  fair  Nesta,  and  nephew  of  Maurice 
FitzGerald.  A  tale  is  told,  but  on  no  other  authority,  as  it  appears,  than  tradition,  of  a 
son  of  Strongbow,  a  youth  of  but  seventeen  years  of  age,  who,  making  on  this  occasion 
his  first  appearance  in  a  field  of  battle,  was  so  terrified  by  the  war-cry  of  the  Irish,  on 
advancing  to  the  attack,  that  he  instantly  took  to  flight,  and,  returning  to  Dublin  in  the 
utmost  terror,  announced  that  his  father  and  all  the  English  forces  were  slain. 

Hurrying  on  from  Idrone  impatiently  to  his  object,  the  earl  was  met  at  a  short  distance 
from  Wexford  by  messengers  sent  to  convey  to  him  the  painful  intelligence,  that  the 
fort  he  was  on  his  way  to  relieve  had  fallen,  by  an  act  of  the  basest  treachery,  into  the 
hands  of  the  Irish.  After  repeated  and  fruitless  attacks  upon  the  castle,  the  besiegers 
despairing  at  length  of  success,  had  resorted  to  a  stratagem  which,  if  at  all  fairly  repre- 
sented, must  for  ever  draw  down  the  historian's  most  unmitigated  reprobation  on  all  those 
persons,  lay  and  clerical,  who  took  part  in  so  base  and  impious  a  fraud.  In  order  to 
inveigle  Fitz-Stephen  into  the  surrender  of  his  castle,  information  was  conveyed  to  him 
that  Roderic  and  his  army  had  made  themselves  masters  of  Dublin;  and  a  parley  was 
proposed  for  the  purpose  of  satisfying  him  of  the  truth  and  accuracy  of  this  intelligence. 
With  utter  disregard  as  well  of  religious  as  of  all  moral  obligations,  they  brought  for- 
ward, it  is  said,  at  this  conference,  the  Bishops  of  Wexford  and  Kildare,  who,  coming 
arrayed  in  their  sacred  vestments  to  the  brink  of  the  ditch,  there  took  a  most  solemn 
oath,  upon  some  relics  of  saints  which  they  had  brought  for  the  purpose,  that  the  Irish 
were  in  possession  of  Dublin  ;  that  the  whole  of  the  garrison,  including  the  earl  himself, 
Fitz-Gerald  and  Raymond,  were  all  cut  to  pieces;  and  that  the  monarch  was  now  on  his 
march  to  Wexford,  to  extirpate  the  remains  of  the  English  adventurers  in  that  quarter.  It 
was  partly  out  of  friendship,  as  they  pretended,  to  Fitz-Stephen,  on  account  of  his  mild 
government  of  the  territory  over  which  he  had  been  placed,  that  they  now  communicated 
to  him  this  information;  and,  should  he  think  right,  while  there  was  yet  time  for  his 
rescue,  to  avail  himself  of  their  protection,  they  solemnly  promised  to  convey  both  him- 
self and  his  garrison  safely  to  Wales. 

Deceived  by  this  gross  stratagem,  Fitz  Stephen  surrendered  himself  into  the  hands  of 
these  perjurers;  when  instantly  the  mask  they  had  assumed  was  thrown  off,  some  of  his 
companions  were  basely  murdered  by  them,  and  the  remainder,  after  having  been  beaten 
almost  to  death,  were,  together  with  himself,  chained  and  thrown  into  prison. 

Scarcely  had  this  infamous  fraud  been  accomplished,  when,  to  the  utter  dismay  of  all 
the  accomplices  in  it,  intelligence  reached  them  that  Earl  Strongbow,  having  forced  the 
Irish  to  raise  the  siege  of  Dublin,  was  advancing  with  his  army  to  Wexford.  Thrown 
into  consternation  by  this  news,  they  immediately  set  fire  to  the  town,  and  taking  with 
them  their  efl^ects,  and  all  the  prisoners  they  had  made  at  the  Carrig,  retired  to  an  island, 
lying  oft' the  harbour,  called  Bog-Erin,  or  Little  Erin.f 

On  Strongbow's  arrival  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  scene  of  this  transaction,  he  had 
to  endure  the  double  mortification  of  at  once  hearing  of  the  melancholy  fate  of  his  friends, 
and  finding  himself  debarred  from  even  the  satisfaction  of  taking  revenge;  for,  on  his 

melancholy  associations,  and  imparts  to  the  solemnity  of  the  scene  what  I  may  call  a  political  picturesque. 
Prom  the  fosse  of  that  tower,  memory  may  take  a  long  and  dismal  retrospect:  ....  years  have  flowed  by, 
like  the  waters  which  it  overshadows,  and  yet  it  is  not  changed.  It  stands  as  if  it  were  the  work  of  yester- 
day ;  and,  as  it  was  the  first  product  of  English  domination,  so  it  is  its  type,  &c.  &.c."— Speech  of  Mr.  Sheil 
delivered  at  Wexford,  ^2d  of  July.  1825. 

*  "  We  have  a  sample,"  says  Dr.  Lanigan,  "  of  the  hopeful  kind  of  ecclesiastics  who  came  over  to  Ireland 
with  Strongbow  and  others,  in  one  Nicholas,  a  monk  who  fought  in  their  armies Such  were  the  mis- 
sionaries who,  according  to  the  wish  of  Adrian  IV.,  were  to  establish  pure  religion  and  sound  ecclesiastical 
discipline  in  Ireland."— £cc/es.  Hist  chap.  x.\ix.  note  106. 

t  According  to  Regan's  account,  Beckerin  (as  he  calls  it)  was  "a  castle  situated  upon  the  river  Slane." — 
See  Ware,  Antiij.  ch.  G.  at  Edri;  also  ch.  30.,  where,  in  speaking  of  Beg  Eri,  he  says,  "  Perhaps  this  is  the 
island  which  Pliny  calls  Edros.  and  Ptolemy,  Edri:'  This  island  was  celebrated  for  a  monastery  built  upon 
it  by  St.  Ibar;  in  reference  to  which  there  occurs  a  passage  in  the  life  of  St.  Abban,  another  Irish  saint, 
which  will  be  found  confirmatory  of  what  I  have  above  stated,  as  to  the  e.\tent  of  the  territory  anciently 
called  HyKinsellagh.  "  In  famosissimo  quondam  et  sanctissimo  monasterio  suo  quod  Beg-Erin,  id  est,  Parva 
Hibernia  vocatur,  et  situm  est  ad  Australem  partem  regionis  Hua-Kensellach." — Ciuoted  by  Usher,  Eccles. 
Primord.  .Addend,  et  Emcndand. 

O'Halloran's  Irish  learning,  such  as  it  was,  ought  to  have  taught  him  hotter  than  to  identify  Hy-Kinsel- 
lagh  in  extent  with  We.xford.  "  Mac  Murchad,"  he  says,  (book  .\iii.  ch.  1.,)  "  was  to  possess  the  country  of 
Ily-Cinscllagh,  or  We.xford." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  263 

approach  to  the  town  of  Wexford,  he  was  met  by  persons  sent  from  Beg-Eri,  to  give  him 
warning  that,  should  he  attempt  to  invade  or  molest  that  retreat,  the  heads  of  all  the 
English  prisoners  would  be  cut  off  and  sent  to  him.  As  there  appeared  no  means,  there- 
fore, of  releasing  Fitz-Stephen  at  present,  the  earl  and  his  companions  abandoned  their 
intention  of  proceeding  to  Wexford,  and  "  with  sorrow  in  their  hearts,"  says  the  chroni- 
cler, "  turned  their  reins  towards  Waterford."* 

It  has  been  already  stated  that  Raymond  le  Gros,  whom  Strongbow  had  sent  with  a 
letter  of  submission  to  his  royal  master,  returned  to  Ireland  without  any  answer  from  the 
king.  In  the  intelligence,  however,  brought  by  him,  there  appeared  sufficient  encourage- 
ment to  induce  the  earl  to  despatch  another  envoy,  and  Hervey  of  Mount-Maurice,  his 
own  uncle,  was  the  person  selected  for  this  mission.  On  the  earl's  arrival  now  at  Wa- 
terford,  he  found  this  gentleman  just  landed  from  England,  charged  with  messages  and 
letters  from  persons  whom  he  had  consulted,  all  advising  him  to  lose  not  a  moment  in 
presenting  himself  before  the  king.  This  advice  Strongbow  followed  without  delay,  and, 
repairing  to  England,  waited  upon  Henry,  who  was  then  at  Newnham  in  Gloucester- 
shire, with  a  large  army  in  a  state  of  preparation  to  pass  over  with  him  into  Ireland. 
To  meet  the  expenses  of  this  expedition  he  had  levied,  from  the  landed  proprietors 
throughout  his  dominions,  that  pecuniary  composition,  in  lieu  of  personal  service,  called 
Escuage,  or  Scutage ;  and  from  the  disbursements  made  for  the  arms,  provision,  and 
shipping  of  the  army,  as  set  forth  in  the  Pipe  Roll  of  the  year  1171,  still  preserved,  it 
would  appear  that  the  force  raised  for  the  expedition  was  much  more  numerous  than  has 
been  represented  by  historians.f 

Still  maintaining  his  tone  of  displeasure  towards  Strongbow,  the  king  refused  at  first 
to  admit  him  into  his  presence ;  but  the  loyal  readiness  evinced  by  the  earl  to  submit 
unconditionally  to  his  will,  soon  smoothed  the  way  to  peace,  and  succeeded  in  satisfying 
as  well  the  pride  as  the  self-interest  of  offended  majesty.  Through  the  intervention, 
accordingly,  of  Hervey,  a  reconciliation  was  easily  effected; — the  terms  agreed  upon 
being,  that  the  earl,  renewing  his  homage  and  oath  of  fealty,  should  surrender  to  the 
king  the  city  of  Dublin  and  the  adjacent  country,  together  with  all  the  other  sea-port 
towns  and  forts  possessed  by  him  in  Ireland;  the  king,  on  his  part,  graciously  consenting 
that  all  the  other  Irish  possessions  of  Strongbow  should  remain  in  perpetuity  to  that  earl 
and  his  heirs,  to  be  held  under  homage  and  fealty  to  the  English  crown. 

At  the  time  of  Henry's  proclamation  against  Strongbow,  he  had  also  seized  on  the 
English  estate  of  that  nobleman,  as  forfeited  to  the  crown  by  his  act  of  disobedience.| 
The  restoration  of  this  property  was  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  reconcilement  now  effected; 
and  the  whole  having  been  satisfactorily  arranged,  the  king,  attended  by  Strongbow, 
proceeded,  by  the  Severn-side  and  western  coast  of  Wales,  to  Pembroke,  where  he  took 
up  his  abode  for  the  short  interval  during  which  the  ships,  for  the  transport  of  his  army 
to  Ireland,  were  collecting  in  Milford  Haven.  Even  here,  however,  the  jealous  wake- 
fulness of  Henry's  fears,  with  regard  to  the  danger  likely  to  result  from  Strongbovv's 
example,  very  strikingly  manifested  itself;  as,  during  his  stay  at  this  time  in  Wales,  he 
called  severely  to  account  all  those  barons^  who  had  suffered  an  expedition,  forbidden  by 
himself,  to  sail  unopposed  from  their  coasts;  and  even  punished  this  proof  of  disloyalty, 
as  he  deemed  it,  by  seizing  on  the  castles  of  these  lords  and  garrisoning  them  with  his 
own  troops. 

The  whole  armament  being  now  in  a  state  of  readiness,  the  king,  having  previously 
performed  his  devotions  in  the  church  of  St.  David,  embarked  at  Miltbrd,  attended        ^ 
by  Strongbow,  William  Fitz-Aldelm,  Humphry  de  Bohen,  Hugh  de  Lacy,  Robert  ij^'yi* 
Fitz-Barnard,  and  other  lords.     His  entire  force,  which  was  distributed  in  400 
6hips,||  consisted  of  500  knights,  and  about  4000  men  at  arms;  and,  after  a  prosperous 

*  "  Quibus  auditis,  non  sine  magna  mentium  amaritudine  versis  in  dexteram  loris.  versus  Guaterfordiam 
iter  arripiunt."— //iicrji.  Expugnat.  1.  1.  c.  "8. 

\  Lynch,  Feudal  Dignities.  Sfc.  Some  of  the  smaller  payments,  as  given  by  this  writer  from  the  Pipe  Roll 
(17  Henry  II.,)  preserved  in  Somerset  House,  are  not  a  little  curious.  Thus  we  find  2()s.  'id.  paid  for  adorning 
and  gilding  the  king's  swords;  12/.  10^-.  for  1000  pounds  of  wa.x;  n8s.  Id.  for  569  pounds  of  almonds  sent  to 
the  icing  in  Ireland;  15s.  lid  for  five  carts,  bringing  the  clothes  of  the  king's  household  from  Stafford  to 
Chester,  on  their  way  to  that  country;  10/.  7s.  for  spices  and  electuaries  for  Josephus  Medicus,  his  majesty's 
doctor;  Al.  for  one  ship  carrying  the  armour,  &c.  of  Robert  Poer  ;  29/.  0.«.  2rf,  for  wine  bought  at  Waterford; 
9s.  Sd.  for  the  carriage  of  the  king's  treasure  from  Oxford  to  Winton;  333/.  6s.  M.  to  John  the  marshal,  to 
carry  over  to  the  king  in  Ireland ;  and  200/.  to  the  king's  chamberlain,  to  bring  to  his  majesty  on  returning 
from  that  country." 

I  Oulielm  JVeubrig. 

§  Hibern.  Expugnat.  lib.  i.  cap.  29. 

II  "  Applicuit  in  Hiberniacum  400  magnis  navibus."  Lord  Lyttelton  makes  the  number  of  ships  440;  but  I 
know  not  on  what  authority.    Gervas,  Diceto,  and  Bromlon,  all  agree  in  the  number  I  have  stated. 


264  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

voyage,  he  landed  at  Croch  *  a  place  near  Waterford,  on  St.  Luke's  day,  the  18th  of 
October,  a.  d.  1171.t 

Durinc  the  whole  of  these  momentous  and  singular  transactions,  while  a  foreign  prince 
was  thus  dealing  with  Ireland  as  with  his  own  rightful  property,  and  affecting  to  consider 
as  rebels  to  himself  all  those  minor  intruders  and  depredators,  who  had  but  anticipated 
him  by  a  few  months,  and  on  a  smaller  scale,  in  that  work  of  usurpation  he  was  now 
come  by  wholesale  to  accomplish, — during  all  these  deliberate  arrangements  for  the 
utter  extinction  of  an  ancient  nation's  independence,  the  nation  itself  was  awaiting 
tamely,  and  with  scarcely  even  a  show  of  alarm  or  resistance,  the  result.  As  if  ex- 
hausted, or  rather  satisfied,  with  the  few  feeble  and  scattered  efforts  already  made  by 
them,  the  people  now  heard,  without  even  an  attempt  to  arouse  the  national  spirit,  of 
the  mighty  preparations  in  progress  to  invade  their  shores,  and  stood  unmoved  as  if 
under  the  influence  of  some  baleful  fascination,  to  allow  the  collar  of  political  slavery 
to  be  slipped  quietly  round  their  necks. 

One  short  and  unsupported  effort  was,  indeed,  ventured  upon  by  the  veteran  O'Ruarc, 
who,  encouraged  by  the  weakened  state  of  the  garrison  of  Dublin,  in  consequence  of  the 
troops  drawn  from  thence  by  Strongbow  on  his  departure,  raised  hastily  a  force  in  Ulster 
and  East  Connaught,  and  made  a  furious  assault  on  the  walls  of  the  city.  But,  as  usual, 
the  want  of  patient  coolness  and  discipline  rendered  even  valour  itself  of  little  avail. 
Just  as  the  Irish  were  rushing  forward  to  the  attack,  Milo  de  Cogan  sallied  forth  unex- 
pectedly from  the  gates,  and  charging  them,  at  the  head  of  a  small  but  gallant  band,  put  the 
whole  multitude,  with  immenseslaughter,torout.  With  the  exception  ofthis  one  headlong 
effort,  not  a  single  movement  appears  to  have  been  hazarded  against  the  common  enemy, 
during  the  whole  interval  which  elapsed  between  the  departure  of  Strongbow  from  the 
country  and  his  return  in  the  train  of  a  foreign  sovereign.  Nor  was  it  that  the  habitual 
warfare  of  the  natives  was,  in  other  respects,  suspended  at  this  crisis;  for,  on  the  contrary, 
there  occur  few  periods  in  our  history  during  which  its  annals  are  found  more  crowded 
with  records  of  civil  strife;  and  a  fierce  war  was  actually  raging  in  the  heart  of  Ulsterf 
at  the  very  moment  when  a  foreign  prince  was  about  to  descend  upon  the  shores,  and 
reduce  all  parties  alike  to  one  common  level  of  subjection  and  vassalage. 

Soon  after  his  landing^  at  Waterford,  the  king  was  waited  upon  by  a  deputation  of  those 
citizens  of  Wexford  who  had  been  concerned  in  the  atrocious  capture  of  Fitz-Stephen  ; 
nor  could  he  have  been  presented  with  more  genuine  specimens  of  that  worst  species  of 
Irishmen,  at  once  cruel  and  servile,  tyrants  as  well  as  slaves,  who  were  destined  in  future 
to  render  themselves  useful  as  tools  of  the  English  power.  Making  a  merit  in  the 
eyes  of  Henry,  of  their  flagitious  conduct  towards  Fitz-Stephen,  these  citizens  brought 
with  them  tiieir  captive  in  fetters,  like  a  criminal,  and  presented  him  to  the  king,  as 
"one  who  had  made  war  without  his  sovereign's  permission  in  Ireland,  and  had  been 
thereby  the  occasion  of  much  enmity  and  wrong."  Though  at  once  fathoming  the 
mean  policy  of  his  new  courtiers,  Henry  was  resolved  not  to  be  behindhand  with  them 
in  dissimulation,  but,  affecting  sincere  indignation  against  Fitz-Stephen, 1|  for  "daring 
to  attempt  the  conquest  of  Ireland  without  his  leave,"  he  ordered  him  to  be  handcuffed 
and  chained,  and  committed  him,  as  a  prisoner  of  state,  to  Reginald's  Tower. 

The  design  of  the  king  was  clearly  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  the  people  that  he 
came  rather  to  protect  them  from  the  aggressions  of  others  than  to  acquire  any  advan- 
tage or  possession  for  himself;  and  this  skilful  policy  it  was,  combined  with  the  total  want 
of  a  united  or  national  spirit  among  the  people  themselves,  that  rendered  his  progress 
now,  as  far  as  it  extended,  much  more  like  the  visit  of  an  acknowledged  sovereign 
to  his  own  states  and  subjects  than  the  first  descent  of  a  royal  invader  upon  wholly 

*  Bromton,— "  Cum  tnagno  gaudio  in  Hibernia  applicuit,  in  loco  Cjui  dicitur  Croch  qui  a  Watcrfordia  per 
octo  miliaria  distat  et  ibi  nocte  remansit."  Tliis  place  is  supposed  to  be  the  Crook,  over  against  Hook  Tower. 
See  Whitelaw's  7/iis«.  o/Z>jti;i?t.  Introduct. 

t  Doctor  Lelaiul  has  fallen,  somewhat  strangely,  into  the  error  of  advancing  the  date  of  Henry's  arrival  to 
"  the  October  of  the  year  eleven  hundred  and  seventy-two;"  a  mark  of  carelessness,  unquestionably,  but  by 
no  means  meriting  tlie  grave  severity  with  which  Dr.  O'Connor  remarks  upon  it,  as  being  a  false  step  at  the 
threshold,  which  inspires  distrust  in  all  that  follows :— In  ipso  itaque  limine  titubantis,  et  in  rebus  pra-cipuis, 
quid  in  minutioribus  sperandum  sit  accurate  scriptum,  quod  critico  acumine  ad  trutinam  revocatum,  vix 
divinari  relinquunt."— Acr.  Ilib.  Scrip,  torn.  2.  cxv.  It  should  be  recollected,  also,  that  for  the  dale  1172, 
Leiand  has  the  authority  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis. 

J  Her.  Hib.  Script,  torn.  ii.cxiii.no«e. 

§  Hoveden  mentions,  as  a  lucky  omen,  that  on  Henry's  landing  a  white  hare  was  seen  to  jump  out  of  a 
neighbouring  hedge.  The  animal  was  caught  immediately, says  the  chronicler,  and  presented  to  the  king  "in 
Bignuin  victori.-E." 

II  See  Stanihiirst  (lib.  iii..)  who  in  his  usual  inflated  style,  has  made  the  most  of  this  incident.  The  follow- 
ing may  be  taken  as  a  specimen  of  the  mock-heroic  language  which  he  supposes  the  king  to  address  to  Filz- 
Slephen  :— "Cluare  oculorum  ardore  in  rheum  contumeliis  opertum  alque  oppressum  intueus:  quis  tu  es,  in- 
quit,  qui  hujus  reipub.  munia  susiinere  audeas?  Nihil  prster  regiam  dignitatem  ambitiosuni  tuum  aniaium 
satiare  polcril  ?    Me  doclore,  condiscus  optabilius  esse  nobis  servire,  quam  alicuis  imperare." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  265 

alien  and  yet  unconquered  shores.*  After  receiving  the  homao^e  of  tlie  Kinn;  of  Des- 
mond, who  came  forth  voluntarily  with  offers  of  submission  and  tribute,  Henry  advanced, 
at  the  head  of  his  army,  to  Lismorc,  and  from  thence,  after  a  sojourn  of  about  two  days, 
proceeded  to  Cashel,  near  which,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Suir,  he  was  met  by  Donald 
O'Brian.t  King  of  Thomond,  who,  surrendering  to  him  his  city  of  Limerick,  became  tri- 
butary and  swore  fealty.  Having  placed  rulers  of  his  own  over  Cork  and  Limerick,  the 
king  next  received  the  submission  of  Donchad  of  Ossory,  and  O'Faolan  of  the  Desies; 
and  the  example  of  these  princes  was  speedily  followed  by  all  the  inferior  potentates  of 
Munster,  each  of  whom,  after  a  most  courteous  reception,  was  dismissed  to  his  territory 
laden  with  royal  gifts. 

From  Cashel  Henry  returned,  through  Tipperary,  to  Waterford,  where  his  prisoner 
Fitz-Stephen  being  again  brought  before  him,  the  sight  of  so  brave  a  man  in  chains,  after 
the  many  gallant  services  performed  by  him,  touched  the  king's  heart  with  compassion, 
and,  at  the  intercession  of  some  of  his  nobles,  he  readily  consented  to  set  him  free.  Act- 
ing on  the  same  principle,  however,  as  in  Strongbow's  case,  ho  asserted  his  own  right  to 
the  possession  of  Wexford,  and  annexed  that  town  and  the  territory  belonging  to  it  to  his 
royal  demesne  in  the  island.  It  is  satisfactory,  too,  to  learji  that  some  of  those  base 
wretches,  who,  having  possessed  themselves  of  Fit^-Stephen  by  treachery,  gave  him  up 
as  a  tribute  of  servility  to  a  new  master,  suffered,  themselves  the  ignominious  death  they 
so  richly  deserved. 

After  remaining  for  a  short  time  at  Waterford,  the  king  marched  to  Dublin, — a  city 
which  from  the  extent  of  its  commerce,  had  risen  at  that  time,  to  such  importance,  as  to 
have  become,  according  to  an  old  English  chronicler,  the  rival  of  London. J.  Here  he 
was  joyfully,  we  are  told,  reoeived  by  the  inhabitants:  while  all  the  neighbouring  lords 
and  chieftains  hasten  to  proffer  their  allegiance;  and  among  the  rest  O'Ruarc  of  Breffny, 
so  long  the  liegeman  of  Roderic,  now  joined  in  the  train  of  the  English  sovereign,}  and 
became  his  tributary  and  vassal.  In  the  midst  of  this  general  defection,  the  monarch  Rode- 
ric himself, — an  object,  for  the  first  time  in  liis  life,  of  sympathy  and  respect, — having 
collected  together  his  provincial  troops,  and  taken  up  a  position  on  the  banks  of  the 
Shannon,  appeared  disposed  for  a  time  to  follow  the  example  of  the  hardy  Ultonians,  and 
to  make  a  last  stand  for  the  independence  of  the  nation*  This  show  of  resistance,  how- 
ever, was  not  of  long  duration  ;  as,  shortly  after,  he  consented  to  meet,  on  the  borders  of 
his  Connaught  kingdoms,  Hugh  de  Lacy  and  William  Fitz-Aldelm,.  the  persons  em- 
powered to  receive  his  act  of  homage,  and  treat  of  the  tribute  he  was  to,  pay.  Thes& 
preliminary  matters  having  been  arranged,,  peace  was  declared  between  the  two, 
sovereigns. 

The  festival  of  Christmas  being  now  at  hand,  the  English  king,  who  was  no  lesa 
knowingly  practised!  in  all  the  lesser  and  lighter  policy  of  his  station  than  in  the  deeper 

*  It  has  been  stated  by  Bromton,  by  the  abbot  of  Peterborough,  and  by  others,  that  all  the  arclibishops  and 
bishops  of  Ireland  waited  upon  Henry  on  his  arrival,  and  not  only  tendered  iheirown  obedience,  but  gave  him 
letters  with  their  seals  attached  ("  lileras,"  says  Bromton,  "  cum,  sigillis  siiis  in  modum  cartce  pendentibus,") 
confirming  to  him  and  his  heirs  the  sovereignty  over  Ireland  for  ever.  But  there  is  not  the  slightest  founda- 
tion for  this  story,  of  which  neither  Giraldus  nor  any  of  our  Irish  authorities  say  a  single  word.  A  still  more 
glaring  mistake  respecting  the  history  of  this  period  has  been  fallen  into  by  Camden,  who  supposes  a  meeting 
of  the  states  of  Ireland  to  have  taken  place  on  Henry's  arrival,  at  which  Roderic  O'Connor  and  most  of  the 
other  princes  attended,  and  there  made  over  to  him,  by  charters  signed  and  delivered,  their  whole  power  and 
authority;  in  consequence  of  which,  as  he  states,  Pope  Adrian  invested  Henry  with, the  sovereignty  of  that 
kingdom.  It  need  hardly  be  added,  that  no  such, proceeding  of  the  states  occurred,  and  that  the  grant  to 
Henry,  by  the  pope,  of  the  sovereignty  of  Ireland,  had  taken  place  near  sixteen  years  before. 

t  This  brave  but  unprincipled  chieftain  was  one  of  the  first,  according  to  the  Munster  jlnnals,  cited  by 
Vallancey,  who  availed  himself  of  the  alliance  of  the  new  comers  in  malting  war  against  his  own  country- 
men. In  the  year  1170  he  fought  several  battles  against  Roderic,  assisted  by  the  forces  of  Fitz-Stephen;  in 
1171,  he  paid  homage  and  delivered  hostages  to  the  same  prince ;  and,  in  a  few  months  after,  as  we  see,  swore 
homage  and  allegiance  to  Henry  11. 

X  "pivelinuni,  urbem  maritimam,  totius  Hibernise  Metropolim,  portuque  celeberrimo  in  commerciis.  et 
commealibus  nostrarum  aemulani  Lundoniarum." — Ouliel.  J^eubrig.  Rerum  Angl.  I.  2.  xxvi. 

§  Adverting  to  the  "vain  and  ridiculous  parade"  as  he  describes  it,  ''of  English  writers"  respecting 
Henry,  O'Halloran  says, — "We  are  told  that  his  army  proceeded  in  slow  and  solemn  marches  throughout  the 
country,  in  order  to  strike  the  rude  inhabitants  with  the  splendour  and  magnificence  of  their  procession; 
and  we  have  been  already  entertained  with  tlie  terror  which  the  appearance  of  Fit&-Stephen  and  his  armed 
forces  impressed  on  the  natives,  who  had  never  beheld  the  like!  Assertions  of  this  kind  mightindeed  appear 
plausible,  had  this  people  dwelt  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic;  but,  when  a  brave  and  polished  people 
were  the  subjects,  the  futility  of  the  assertion  diverts  our  thoughts  from  cholor  and  contempt.  The  reader 
has  been  already  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  distinguished  figure  which  the  Irish  nation  cut  in  arts  and 
arms:  he  has  heard  how  remarkably  attentive  they  were  to  the  article  of  their  armour;  that  their  corslets 
and  head-pieces  were  ornamented  with  gold ;  that  the  handles  of  their  swords  were  of  the  same  metal ;  and  the 
shields  of  the  knights  and  of  the  nobility  were  mostly  of  pure  silver:  he  has  been  informed  that  their  heavy- 
armed  infantry  were  cased  in  armour  from  head  to  foot;  and  he  must  be  convinced  that  the  equestrian 
orders  among  the  Celtse  of  Europe  originated  from  hence." — Book  xiii.  chap.  2. 

Could  any  thing  add  to  the  feeling  of  melancholy  and  shame  with  which  this  sad  period  of  our  history 
is  contemplated,  it  would  be  assuredly  the  pompous  vapour  thus  thrown  around  it  by  such  weak  and  vaunt- 
ing historians  as  O'Halloran. 

33 


266  HISTORY  OF  Ireland. 

and  more  important,  proposed  to  celebrate  that  festive  season  in  the  metropolis  of  his  new 
kingdom,  with  all  the  state  which  the  limited  resources  of  his  present  situation  would 
permit;  and,  as  the  city  afforded  no  building  sufficiently  large  to  contain  his  numerous 
court  a  laro-e  pavilion  was  raised  temporarily  without  the  walls,  constructed  of  smoothed 
twites',  or  w'attles,  according  to  the  Irish  fashion;*  and  here  the  guests,  both  English  and 
native,  were  feasted  with  sumptuous  hospitality.  The  Irish  princes  and  nobles,  present 
on  this  occasion,  appear  to  have  come  but  as  curious  spectators  of  the  feast:  till,  being 
invited  by  the  king  to  join  in  the  Christmas  cheer,  they  took  their  places  at  the  royal 
board,  and  were,  it  is  said,  struck  with  admiration  both  at  "  the  plenty  of  the  English  table 
and  the  goodly  courtesy  of  tlie  attendants,  "f- 

Early  in  the  year  1172  a  synod  was  held,  by  the  order  of  Henry,  at  Cashel,  con- 
:^'3  cerning  the  acts  of  which  there  has  been  handed  down,  from  historian  to  historian, 
^^'''^-  much  of  ignorant,  and,  in  some  instances,  wilful  misrepresentation.  It  will  be 
recollected  that  the  principle  object  whicli  Adrian  professed  to  have  at  heart  in  bestowing. 
the  sovereignty  of  Ireland  on  the  English  monarch,  was  the  reformation  of  the  alleged 
abuses  of  the  Church  of  that  realm,  for  which  he  looked  to  the  pious  efforts  of  its  new- 
sovereign;  and,  the  synod  now  held  being  meant  as  a  redemption  of  this  pledge,  it  is 
obvious  that  as  strong  a  case  would  be  made  out  against  the  Irish  Church  as  could 
decently  be  hazarded,  for  the  purpose  both  of  justifying  the  grounds  or  pretext  upon  which 
the  pope  had  acted,  and  enhancing  the  merit  of  his  royal  vicegerent  in  performing, 
effectually  so  urgent  and  arduous  a  task.  With  all  these  pretences,  however,  of  reforma- 
lion,  it  will  be  seen  in  the  following  decrees, — the  most  important  of  all  those  passed  by. 
the  svnod, — how  insignificant,  after  all,  was  the  amount  of  reform  which  it  appeared  the 
Irish' Church  wanted,  and  to  obtain  which  was  the  pretended  object  of  Adrian's  grant  of 
Ireland  to  the  English  king. 

It  was  decreed,  "  1.  That  all  the  faithful  throughout  Ireland  should  contract  and 
observe  lawful  marriages,  rejecting  those  with  tlieir  relations,  either  by  consanguinity 
or  affinity.  2.  That  infants  should  be  catechized  before  the  doors  of  the  Church,  and 
baptized  in  the  holy  font  in  the  baptismal  churches.  3.  That  all  the  faithful  should  pay 
the  tithe  of  animals,  corn,  and  other  produce  to  the  church  of  which  they  are  parishioners. 
4.  That  all  ecclesiastical  lands,  and  property  connected  with  them,  be  quite  exempt  from 
the  exactions  of  all  laymen.  And  especially,  that  neither  the  petty  kings,  nor  counts,  nor 
any  powerful  men  in  Ireland,  nor  their  sons  with  their  families,  should  exact,  as  was 
usual,  victuals  and  hospitality,  or  entertainments,  in  the  ecclesiastical  districts,  or  presume 
to  extort  them  by  force ;  and  that  the  detestable  food  or  contributions  which  used  to  be 
required  four  times  in  the  year,  by  the  neighbouring  counts,  from  farms  belonging  to  the 
churches,  should  not  bo  claimed  any  more.  " 

These,  and  one  or  two  other  such  regulations,!  having  no  reference  whatever  to  religious, 
dogmas,  to  matters  of  faith,  or  even  to  points  of  essential  discipline,  comprise  the  whole^of 
the  wonderful  reforms,  for  which  a  kingdom  was  not  thought  too  costly  a  price ;  and,  in 
speaking  of  which,  a  court-flatterer  of  those  times  says,  "  It  was  worthy  and  just  that 
Ireland  should  receive  a  better  form  of  living  from  England,  seeing  that  to  its  magnanimous 
king  she  entirely  owed  whatever  advantages  she  enjoyed  both  as  to  church  and  state,  and 
that  the  manifold  abuses  which  had  prevailed  ia  the  country,  had,  since  his  coming,, 
fallen  into  disuse.  "§ 

♦  "  Ibi  fecit  silii  construi  palalium  regium  miro  artificio  de  virgis  levigatis  ad  modum  patria?  illhis  con- 
slructnm,  in  quo  ipse  cum  lUgibus  et  principibus  Iliberiiife  fesluni  soleinne   teiiuit  die  Natali  Domini."— 

Uovcden.  ,  ...      .,,  .      .  ,      .         .      ,. 

+  "  Dubliniam  terric  illius  piincipes  ad  Curiam  videndam  accesscre  quam  plunmi.  Ubi  et  lautam  .'\n5U- 
cana- meiifffi  copiam  venusli.ssimum  quoque  verna  obfpquium  plurimuiii  admiianles."  It  is  also  mentioned 
by  the  chronicler  that,  at  Henrv's  desire,  they  were  induced  to  partake  of  some  crane's  flesh,— a  food  which, 
till  then,  it  seems,  they  had  always  held  in  abhorrenco.- "  Carne  griiina  quam  hactenus  abhorrnerant,  regia 
voluntate  passim  per  aulam  vesci  ceperunt  ''—JJibcrn.  Eipiiir.  I.  i.  c.  'M. 

X  Ainong  tlicse  there  is  one  regulating  the  testamentary  dlspo^al  of  property,  the  chief  provision  of  which 
is  as  follows  :—"  That  all  the  faithful  lying  in  sickness  do,  in  the  pre-ence  of  their  confessor  and  neighbours, 
make  their  will  with  due  soleinniiy,  dividing,  in  case  thev  have  wives  and  children  (their  own  debts  and 
servants'  wages  being  excepted,)  all  their  moveable  goods  into  three  parts,  and  bequeathing  one  for  the  chil- 
dren another  for  the  lawful  wife,  and  a  third  for  the  liineral  obsequies.  " 

S  Ilihern.  Eipuff).  i.  c.  34.— The  whole  of  this  passage,  which  clearly,  on  the  face  of  it,  is  nothing  more  than 
a  laudatory  coininenl  anne.xed  by  Giraldiis  to  his  report  of  the  proceedings  of  the  synod,  is  strangely  repre- 
sented, both  by  Lord  Lytlelton  andLeland,  as  the  language  of  the  synod  itself,— a  comment  of  that  body  on 
their  own  acts,  and  a  tribute  of  flattery  to  their  roval  master.  'J'his;  mistake,  which,  in  two  such  writers, 
,  was  clearly  not  wilful,  can  only  bo  accounted  for  by  their  having  relied  too  much  upon  Hookers  translation, 
in  which  the  passage  is  made  to  assume  an  appearance  of  the  import  they  have  given  to  it :  and  that  such 
was  the  source  of  their  mistake  appears  the  more  probable  from  their  having  also  followed  Hooker  in  a 
mistranslation  made  by  him,  not  without  design,  of  a  passage  which  soon  after  follows.  Giraldus,  still 
spoaking  in  his  own  person,  remarks,  that  the  manifold  abuses  which  had  p.-evailed  in  the  church  previously 
to-HftJM-y's  coining,  had  now  gone  into  disuse—"  in  desuetudinem  .abiere.  "  But  to  say  that  the  synod  had 
met  but  for  tlic  purpose  of  abolishing  abueea  which  had  already  gone  into  difuse,  wouU  have  appeared,  of 


HTSTOUY  OF  IRELAND.  267 

As  neither  in  tlie  nature  nor  in  tiie  extent  of  the  few  abuses  which  the  synod  of  Cashel 
professed  to  rectify,  is  there  found  any  thing  to  justify  this  pompous  vaunt,  succeeding 
writers  have  endeavoured  to  prop  the  misrepresentation  by  invention, — alleging  that  the 
decree  relative  to  marriage,  which  regarded  really  only  the  degrees  of  consanguinity 
within  which  it  was  lawful  to  marry  (and  which  were  extended  to  an  unusually  rigorous 
point  in  Ireland,*)was  enacted  in  consequence  of  the  prevalence  of  polygamy!  among  the 
Irish. 

According  to  the  same  veracious  authorities,  the  decree  relating  to  baptism  had  for  its 
object  to  put  down  a  practice  also  common,  as  they  allege,  among  the  richer  natives,  of 
baptizing  their  new-born  infants  in  milk.]:  For  neither  of  these  often  repeated  assertions 
does  there  appear  to  have  been  the  least  foundation  in  truth. 

In  addition  to  the  decree  of  this  synod,  aboye-mentioned,  exempting  lands  and  other 
property  belonging  to  the  Church  from  all  impositions  exacted  by  the  laity,  there  was 
also  another  relieving  the  clergy  from  any  share  in  the  payment  of  the  eric,  or  blood-fine, 
which  the  kindred  of  a  layman,  convicted  of  homicide,  were  compelled  to  pay  among 
them  to  the  family  of  the  slain  ;  and  the  extension  of  such  favours  and  immunities  to  the 
Church,  though  by  no  means  in  accordance  with  Henry's  general  policy,  appeared  to 
him  an  expedient  necessary  to  be  adopted  in  Ireland,  where  the  support  of  a  strong  party 
among  the  natives,  was  indispensable  towards  the  establishment  of  his  power;  and  the 
great  influence  gained  by  the  clergy,  over  all  ranks,  rendered  them  the  most  useful  and 
legitimate  instruments  he  could  employ.  From  the  same  motive,  doubtless,  the  payment 
of  tithes,  which  the  Irish  had  never,  during  their  unreformed  state,  observed,  was  now 
enjoined  by  Henry's  council,  with  a  hope  that  they  would  serve  as  a  lasting  bribe  to  the 
Church.  But  the  people  of  this  country  were  as  little  disposed  to  adopt  new  observances 
as  to  forget  or  surrender  the  old;  and  accordingly,  when  Cambrensis  visited  Ireland, 
several  years  after  the  date  of  this  synod,  he  found  marriages  within  the  seven  pro- 
hibited degrees  still  practised,  and  tithes  still  unpaid. 

Besides  this  synod,  which  was  employed  almost  wholly  upon  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
there  is  stated  to  have  been  also  held  by  Henry,  a  council,  or  parliament,  at  Lismore,*in 
which  "the  laws  of  England  were  gratefully  accepted  by  all  present,  and,  under]  the 
sanction  of  a  solemn  oath,  established. "5  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that,  among  the 
acts  of  authority  exercised  by  him,  while  in  Irelatul,  he  may  have,  more  than  once,  held 
what  was  called  a  "  Curia  Regis,  "  or  Council  of  the  Realm,  for  the  purpose  of  conferring 
with  his  prelates  and  magnates  on  the  important  matters  in  which  he  was  engaged. 
But  to  apply  to  a  council  of  this  kind  the  name  of"  parliament,"  is,  if  not  an  anachronism 
in  language,  at  least  a  use  of  the  term  calculated  to  mislead  ;|1  as  that  form  of  legislative 
council  to  which  we,  at  present,  give  the  name  of  Parliament,  did  not  develope  itself, 
however  long  its  rudiments  may  have  been  in  existence,  for  more  than  a  hundred  years 
after  this  period. 

With  regard  to  the  important  act  of  policy  which  is  said  to  have  arisen  out  of  the 
deliberations  at  Lismore, — that  of  communicating  to  Ireland  the  laws  and  usages  of 
England, — a  very  false  notion  has  been  entertained  by  some  writers,  who,  taking  for 
granted  that,  under  the  head  of  "  Ireland,  "  the  natives  themselves  must  have  been  in- 
cluded, conceive  the  Irish  to  have  been  equally  sharers  in  the  benefit  of  this  transaction, 

course,  ridiculous.  In  order,  tiierefore,  to  accommodate  the  meaning  of  the  passage  to  tlie  supposition  of  its 
liaving  formed  a  part  of  the  synod's  decrees,  the  words  "  in  desuetiidinem  abiere  "  have  been  rendered  by 
Honker,  "are  now  abolished;"  and  in  this  mistranslation  both  Lord  Lyttelton  and  Leland  have,  without 
reference  to  the  original,  followed  him. 

In  VVilkins's  Concilia,  as  well  as  in  the  account  of  the  synod,  by  Lanigan  (chap.  xxix.  note  12.,)  .the  Acts  of 
the  synod  and  Giraldus's  comment  upon  them  are  kept  correctly  distinct. 

*  While  the  Church,  in  general,  did  not  extend  the  prohibition  of  marriage  beyond  the  fourth  degree  of 
consanguinity,  the  canons  of  the  Irish  Church  would  not,  for  a  longtime,  allow  of  marriage  within  the 
seventh.  Thus,  in  the  treatise  de  Statu  Ecclesiiv,  preserved  by  Usher,  it  is  said,  "  Conjugatorum  est,  nullam 
usque  in  sextam,  vel  etiamseptimam  progeniein  sanguine  sibi  conjunctam,  aut  illi  quam  habuerit  aut  quani 
babuit  proximas,  vel  commatrem  ducere  niorem."— Ke<.  Epist.  Hiberii.  Sylloge.  Ep.  x.MX. 

\\  The  chronicler  Bromton  even  goes  so  far  as,  on  the  strength  solely  of  this  decree,  to  accuse  the  Irish  of 
marrying  their  sisters :— '  Plerique  enim,  illorum  quot  uxores  volebant  tot  habebant ;  el  etiam  cognatas  suas 
et  germanas  habere  solebant  uxores.  " 

I  After  stating  that,  in  the  whole  course  of  his  inquiries  into  the  religious  practices  of  the  Irish,  he  found 
no  instance  of  this  sort  of  baptism,  Dr.  Lanigan  adds,  that  "  perhaps  the  notion  of  baptizing  in  milk  was 
taken  from  the  Irish  having  probably  retained  the  ancient  practice  of  giving  milk  to  the  newly  baptized, 
which,  as  those  ignorant  calumniators  did  not  understand  the  meaning  of  it,  they  changed  into  actual 
baptism  in  milk.  "—Chap.  xxix.  §  4. 

§  "  Sed  rex  pater,  antequam  ab  Hybernia  rediret  apud  Lissemor  Concilium  congvegavit,  ubi  leges  Anglia: 
ab  omnibus  sunt  gratanter  recept.T,  et,  juratoria  cautione  prrestita  confirmatK. — Matth.  Paris. 

In  reference  to  this  council,  held  by  Henry,  at  Lismore,  Mr.  Shaw  Mason  mentions,  as  rather  a  curious 
circumstance,  that—"  the  duke  of  Rutland,  when  viceroy,  called  a  privy  council  at  the  castle  of  Lismore,  and 
issued  proclamations  from  it.  "—ParocAia/ Surrey. 

U  The  question  with  respect  to  the  "  Modus  tenendi  Parliamentum"  said  to  have  been  sent  into  Ireland  py 
Henry  II.,  I  shall  have,  at  a  later  period,  a  more  fit  opportunity  of  considering. 


268  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and  to  have  received  thankfully  the  substitution  of  the  laws  of  England  for  their  own.* 
But  such  was  by  no  means  the  real  nature  of  this  legislative  act  of  the  king,  the  sole 
object  of  which  was  to  insure  to  his  English  subjects,  settling  in  Ireland,  the  continued 
enjoyment  of  the  laws  and  usages  of  tliat  country  from  whence  they  had  sprung,  in  return 
for  their  continued  allegiance  to  him  and  his  heirs  in  the  new  territories  which  they  had 
adopted. 

So  far  was  Henry,  indeed,  from  wishing  to  innovate  on  the  ancient  laws  of  the  land,  that 
in  the  synod  held,  as  we  have  seen,  at  Cashel,  under  his  authority,  a  direct  sanction  was 
tacitly  given  to  some  of  the  most  inveterate  of  those  old  Irish  abuses  of  which  so  much 
is  heard  in  the  subsequent  history  of  the  country.  For  it  is  clear,  that,  in  exempting 
specially  the  body  of  the  clergy  from  Coyn,f  Coshering,  the  payment  of  Eric,  and  other 
such  exactions,  that  synod  left  these  old  laws  and  customs  still  in  full  force,  as  regarded 
the  laity.  We  shall  Hnd,  as  we  proceed,  that  the  attachment  to  traditional  usages 
and  observances  which  so  strongly  characterized  the  native  Irish,  was  by  them  communi- 
cated, together  with  many  other  features  of  the  national  character,  to  the  descendants  of 
the  foreigners  who  had  settled  among  tliem;  insomuch,  that  the  spirit  of  English  legislation 
has  been  forced  to  accommodate  itself  to  this  jealous  reverence  of  the  past;J  and,  through- 
out the  statutes  and  ordinances  extended  to  Ireland,  exceptions  in  favour  of  the  old  usages 
and  cuntoms  of  the  land  will  be  found  of  very  frequent  occurrence.  Even  in  the  Magna 
Charta,  as  extended  to  this  country,  a  recognition  of  its  old  laws  and  usages  is  to  be 
traced; — a  number  of  minute  differences  being  discoverable  between  the  English  and 
Irish  charters,  all  referrible  to  the  over-ruling  force  of  the  customs  of  ancient  Ireland,  be- 
fore which  even  the  legislation  cif  her  foreign  masters  was  compelled  to  bow.  So  far  was 
this  deference,  indeed,  carried,  that  in  the  few  instances  which  occur  in  later  times,  of 
the  grant  of  dignities  to  native  chieftains,  it  was  thought  expedient,  in  consequence  of 
the  ancient  Irish  law  of  succession,  according  to  which  honours  and  possessions  did  not 
descend  hereditarily,  but  by  election,  to  confer  such  dignities  only  during  life.} 

Among  the  enactments  of  the  king  and  his  council,  at  this'time,  was  one  known,  at  a 
later  period,  as  tiie  statute  of  Henry 'Fitz-Empress,  by  which  it  was  provided,  that,  ia 
case  of  the  death  of  any  chief  governor,  the  chancellor,  treasurer,  chief  justices,  and 
certain  other  officers  should  be  empowered,  with  the  assent  of  the  lords  spiritual  and 
temporal,  to  proceed  to  the  election  of  a  successor  to  that  office. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  observe  that,  in  all  the  laws  and  ordinances  enacted  by 
Henry,  during  his  brief  stay  in  Ireland,!]  for  the  foundation  and  future  government  of  the 
new  settlement,  he  was  guided  wholly  by  the  spirit  and  principles  of  the  feudal  polity 
according  to  which  the  great  body  of  the  English  laws  was  at  that  time  modelled.  Thus 
the  estates  and  dignities  conferred  by  him  upon  his  officers,  who  had  been  already  most 
of  them  tenants  in  capite  from  the  crown,  were  granted  on  consideration  of  homage  and 
fealty,  and  of  military  or  honorary  services  to  be  rendered  to  himself  and  his  heirs.  Of 
such  importance  did  he  conceive  the  general  acceptance  of  tiiis  system,  and  ofthe  duties, 
services,  and  conditions  enforced  by  it,  that,  even  in  the  instance  of  Strongbow,  who,  as 
we  have  seen,  acquired,  by  h:s  marriage  with  Eva,  the  principality  of  Leinster,  it  was 
imperatively  required,  that  he  should  resign  the  possession  of  that  estate,  and  accept  a 
new  grant  of  it  from  the  king,  subject  to  the  feudal  conditions  of  homage  and  military 
service.  With  the  view,  too,  of  balancing  the  weight  of  so  powei^ful  a  vassal,  he  granted 
by  charter  to  Hugh  de  Lacy,  whom  he  had  appointed  Justiciary  of  Ireland,  the  seignory  of 
the  land  of  Mealh,  to  be  held  of  him  and  his  heirs  by  the  service  of  fifty  knights. 

*  Thus  Lnrd  Lyttelton:— "  It  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  a  reformation  had  been  made,  not  only  in  the 
s^piritual,  but  civil,  stale  of  Ireland,  before  this  lime  (llie  time  of  the  synod  of  Cashel,)  by  giving  the  Irish  a 
better  constitution  of  government,  and  a  better  rule  of  life  and  action  than  their  barbarous  Brehon  lavy. 
Accordingly  we  are  told  hy  Matthew  Paris,  that  a  council,  or  parliament,"  &c.;  and  again  : — "  However.this 
may  have  been,  the  communicating  to  Ireland  the  laws  and  customs  of  England  was  unquestionably  a  great 
boon  to  ilie  people  of  ihat  country,  and  a  most  wise  act  of  policy  in  the  king  who  did  it.  " — Book  iv. 

It  is  rather  singular  that  a  notion,  so  wholly  at  variance  with  all  subsequent  facts,  should  have  acquired 
so  wide  a  currency.  Sec  Wanr,  who  adopts  the  same  false  view.  Evrii  Mr.  O'Connor  (Dissert,  sect.  20.) 
understands  the  icsult  of  the  council  at  Lismore  to  have  been  "a  grant  of  the  laws  and  constitution  of 
England  to  the  Irish,"— a  conclusion  in  which  ho  is  followed,  almost  verbally,  by  Plowden. —//ist.  Review. 

t  Called  by  the  Irish  tlicniselves,  Bonaght.  "  This  extortion  (says  Sir  John  Davi^■s)  was  originally  Irish  ; 
for  they  used  to  l.iy  l5oiia<;lit  upon  their  people,  and  never   gave  their  soldiers  any  other  pay.  "—Hist.  Discov. 

\  See  Lyiich's  View  of  the  Legal  Institutions,  ^-c,  in  which  several  of  these  variances  in  the  two  charters  are 
pointed  out. 

§  A  remarkable  instance  of  this  sort  of  compliance  with  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  law  of  Ireland  is  found 
in  the  reign  of  queen  Mary,  when  Kavenagh,  a  descendant  of  the  kings  of  Leinster,  was  created  a  peer,  by 
the  tille  of  baron  Balyane,  but  still,  in  conformity  vvitli  the  old  Irish  custom,  was,  by  the  same  patent,  nomi- 
nated captain  of  his  sept,  or  nation  ;  and,  as  such,  was  permitted  to  have  a  bodyguard  of  hoblers  (horse) 
and  kerns,  or  infantry. 

II  To  Henry  is  attributed,  by  I.eland  and  others,  the  credit  of  having  caused  the  territories  subject  to  him 
to  lie  divided  into  shires,  or  ccninliea ;  as  well  as  of  appointing  therein  sheriffs  and  other  officers,  according 
to  the  English  model,  llul  it  was  clearly  in  John's  reign  that  these  institutions  were  for  the  first  linio 
introduced  into  Ireland. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  269 

With  respect  to  Meath,  we  have  already  seen  that  the  Irish  monarch,  Roderic 
O'Connor,  having  taken  forcible  possession  of  this  territory,  which  belonged,  hereditarily, 
to  the  princes  of  the  house  of  Melachlin,  had  appointed  his  trusty  liegeman,  O'Ruarc,  to 
be  the  temporary  ruler  of  East  Meath,  retaining  the  western  parts  of  the  province  in  his 
own  hands.  Following  but  too  closely  this  flagrant  example  of  usurpation,  Henry  granted 
the  same  territory  to  one  of  his  own  followers;  and  thus,  with  a  disregard  to  the  national 
feelings  as  impolitic  as  it  was  unjust,  left  to  remain  as  a  standing  insult  in  the  eyes  of 
succeeding  generations,  the  spectacle  of  an  English  lord  holding  possession'of  the  ancient 
patrimony  of  the  kings  of  Tara.* 

The  territory  thus  transferred  to  Hugh  de-Lacy  contained,  as  it  appears,  about  800,000 
acres;  and  the  baron  himself,  and  his  family  after  him,  hold  their  courts,  therein  with  an 
extent  of  jurisdiction  and  cognizance  of  pleas  which,  as  trenching  upon  the  rights  of  the 
crown,  it  was  found,  at  a  subsequent  period,  necessary  to  repress.  It  seems  to  have  been 
also  soon  after  the  arrival  of  Henry  that  large  possessions  in  the  counties  of  Limerick, 
Cork,  and  Kerry  were  granted  to  the  ancestors  of  the  earl  of  Desmond.! 

There  was  yet  another  source  of  honour  and  wealth  of  which  the  politic  king  adroitly 
availed  himself,  as  well  for  the  reward  of  his  most  active  chiefs,  as  for  the  establishment 
in  his  new  kingdom  of  a  feudal  nobility  attached  hereditarily  to  the  crown  by  oath  of 
fealty  and  honorary  services;  and  this  was  the  introduction  into  Ireland  of  the  various 
h'lcrh  offices  of  constable,  marshal,  seneschal,  and  other  such  hereditary  dignities,  v.hich 
had  been  attached  to  the  king's  court  in  England  from  the  time  of  the  Norman  conquest. 
On  the  favoured  Hugh  de  Lacy  the  office  of  lord  constable  was  bestowed,|  while  the  dignity 
of  lord  marshal  is  supposed  to  have  been  borne  by  Strongbow-;  and  either  during  the  king's 
stay  in  Ireland,  or  some  time  after  the  office  of  high  steward,  or  seneschal,  was  conferred 
upon  Sir  Bertram  de  Vernon. 

Among  the  ancient  honorary  officesof  the  court,  both  in  France  and  England,  none 
stood  higher  in  rank  or  estimation  than  the  "  Pincerna  Regis, "  or  king's  butler, — an 
officer  who,  in  the  former  country,  even  disputed  the  precedency  of  the  constable  of 
France.5  On  Theobald  Walter,  the  ancestor  of  the  earls  of  Ormonde,  this  high  dignity 
was  conferred  by  Henry  soon  after  1170,  and  from  a  motive,  it  is  said,  which  somewhat 
enhances  the  interest  and  memorableness  of  the  event.  Desirous  of  relieving  his  cha- 
racter from  the  weight  of  odium  which  the  fate  of  Becket  had  drawn  down  upon  it,  the 
king  availed  himself  at  this  time  of  every  opportunity  of  conferring  wealth  and  honours 
upon  the  relatives  of  that  prelate  ;||  and  it  is  supposed  that  to  the  circumstance  of  their 
being  descended  from  the  sister  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  the  family  of  Le  Boteler  were 
chiefly  indebted  for  the  high  dignities  they  enjoyed. 

Early  in  February  1172,  the  king  removed  from  Dublin  to  Waterford,  having  left  Hugh 
de  Lacy  his  governor  of  the  former  city,  with  a  guard  of  twenty  knights,  assisted  by 
Maurice  Filz-Gerald  and  Robert  Fitz-Slephen,  with  a  similar  train.  During  the  whole 
of  the  winter  months  so  remarkably  tempestuous  had  been  the  weather,  that  all  communi- 
cation with  the  coasts  of  England  was  interrupted  ;  and,  the  continued  storms  preventing 
the  arrival  of  intelligence  from  his  other  dominiorts,  the  mind  of  the  king  was  kept  in  a 
constant  state  of  suspense.  At  length  about  the  middle  of  Lent,  there  arrived  couriers 
from  the  continent  with  alarming  intelligence,  to  the  effect  that  the  Cardinals  Albert 
and  Theodine,  who  had  been  sent  into  Normandy  to  investigate  the  circumstances  of 
Becket's  death,  had  summoned  Henry  to  appear  before  them,  threatening,  in  the  event 
of  his  not  soon  presenting  himself,  to  lay  all  his  kingdom  under  an  interdict.1T 

He  had  intended,  with  a  view  of  the  subjection  of  Roderic,  to  defer  his  departure  to 

♦  "The  transferring  an  ancient  kingdomof  Ireland  from  the  present  Irish  possessors,  and  from  every  branch 
of  that  race  which  could  legally  claim  the  inheritance  of  it,  to  an  English  lord  and  his  heirs,  was  a  measure 
which  the  nation  would  not  easily  approve,  or  even  forgive." — Lord  Lyttellon,  book  iv. 

t  "  One  of  the  territories  thus  obtained  by  them  was  a  district  now  called  the  barony  of  Connal,  or  Con- 
nelloe.  in  the  county  of  Limerick,  containing  upwards  of  100,000  acres  of  land  ;  and  this  tract,  which  in 
ancient  documents  is  called  "  Okonayl  "  and  "  Ogonneloe,  "  was  ceded  to  them  by  the  native  family,  or  sept, 
of  UConnel,  in  consideration  of  lands  assigned  them  in  the  counties  of  Kerry  and  Clare,  where  branches  of 
that  family  continue  to  the  present  day.  " — Lynch. 

I  In  the  year  1185  he  witnessed,  as  Constable  of  Ireland,  jirince  John's  charter  to  the  abbey  of  "  FalU 
Salufis,  "  as  well  as  several  other  charters  executed  in  that  reien.— Lynch,  Feudal  Dignities. 

§  A  still  more  lofty  notion  may  be  formed  of  the  honour  attached  to  this  otfice  from  the  circumstance  of 
Henry  himself  having  attended  on  his  son,  as  chief  butler,  at  that  prince's  coronation. 

II  ■'  He  hoped,"  says  Camden,  "  to  redeem  his  credit  in  the  world  by  preferring  the  relations  of  Thomas 
Becket  to  wealth  and  honours.  " 

According  to  Carte  and  Lodge,  the  butlership  was  not  conferred  upon  Theobald  Walter  till  the  year  1177, 
a  lapse  of  time  which  seems  to  lessen  a  good  deal  the  probability  of  the  favour  having  originated  in  a  feeling 
of  the  king  respecting  Becket. 

IT  For  the  tremendous  consequences  of  a  sentence  of  interdict,  see  Hume  chap.  11. 


270  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  following  summer;*  and,  though  it  be  now  but  an  idle  and  melancholy  speculation, 
to  consider  how  far,  under  other  circumstances,  the  fortunes  of  Ireland  might  have  been 
more  prosperous,  we  cannot  but  regret  that  he  was  so  soon  interrupted  in  the  task  of  pro- 
viding for  her  future  settlement  and  government;  as  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that, 
at  such  a  crisis,  when  so  much  was  to  be  instituted  and  originated  on  which  not  only  the 
well-being  of  the  new  colony  itself,  but  also  of  its  acceptance  with  the  mass  of  the  natives, 
would  depend,  the  direct  and  continuous  application  of  a  mind  like  Henry's  to  the  task, 
would  have  presented  the  best,  if  not  perhaps  sole,  chance  of  an  ultimately  prosperous 
result,  which  a  work,  in  any  hands  so  delicate  and  difficult,  could  have  been  expected  to 
afford.  This  chance,  unluckily,  the  necessity  of  his  immediate  departure  forever  fore- 
closed. To  effect  good  would  have  required  time,  and  the  immediate  superintendence 
of  his  own  mind  and  eye;  whereas  mischief  was  a  work  more  rapid  in  its  accomplish- 
ment, and  admitting  more  easily  of  being  delegated.  On  the  ready  instruments  he  left 
behind  him  now  devolved  the  too  sure  accomplishment  of  this  task ; — his  prodigal  grants 
to  his  English  followers  and  their  creatures  having  established  in  the  land  an  oligarchy 
of  enriched  upstarts  who  could  not  prove  otherwise  than  a  scourge  and  curse  to  the  doomed 
people  whom  lie  now  delivered  into  their  hands. 

Though  for  the  administration  and  security  of  the  countries  ceded  to  the  crown  he  had 
made  every  requisite  provision,  the  whole  of  Ulster  still  remained  independent;  and  this 
one  great  exception  to  the  recognition  of  his  dominion  must,  he  knew,  endanger,  as  long 
as  it  lasted,  the  security  of  all  the  rest.  How  summarily,  however,  he  was  disposed  to 
deal  with  what  he  considered  to  be  his  own  property,  appears  from  the  charter  granted 
by  him,  soon  after  he  had  taken  possession  of  Dublin,  giving  that  city  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Bristol,  "  to  be  held  of  him  and  his  heirs,  fully  and  honourably,  with  all  the  same  liber- 
ties and  free  customs  which  they  enjoyed  at  Bristol  and  throughout  his  land."f  The 
city  of  Waterford  he  gave  in  charge  to  Humphrey  de  Bohun,  while  Wexford  was  com- 
mitted by  him  to  William  Fitz-Aldelm  ;  the  former  officer  having  under  him  Robert  Fitz- 
Bernard  and  Hugh  de  Gundeville,  with  a  company  of  twenty  knights,  and  the  latter 
Philip  de  Hastings  and  Philip  de  Breuse,  with  a  similar  guard.  He  likewise  left  orders 
that  castles  should  be  built,  with  all  possible  expedition,  in  both  these  towns. 

The  urgent  affliirs  that  called  him  to  England  not  admitting  of  any  farther  de- 
A'-,(j*  lay,  the  king  ordered  his  troops  to  Waterford,  where  his  fleet  was  then  lying,  and 
'  setting  sail,  himself,  from  Wexford,  on  Easter  Monday,  which  fell  on  the  ITth  of 
April,  arrived  the  same  day,  at  Portfinnan,  in  Wales.  Here,  the  lord  of  so  many  king- 
doms assumed  on  landing  the  staff" of  the  pilgrim,  and,  with  pious  humility,  proceeded  on 
foot  to  the  church  of  St.  David,  where  he  was  met  at  the  White  Gate  by  a  procession  of 
the  clergy,  coming  forth  to  receive  him  with  solemn  honours.| 

The  conclusion  that  already  has  suggested  itself,  on  merely  speculatively  considering 
how  far  the  results  might  have  proved  more  prosperous  had  Henry  been  able  to  devote 
more  time  to  his  new  kingdom,  is  borne  out  practically  by  the  actual  effects  of  his  pre- 
sence during  the  six  months  which  he  passed  in  the  country;  for,  whether  owing  to  the 
imposing  influence  of  his  name,  or  to  the  hopes  that  generally  wait  on  a  new  and  un- 
tried reign,  so  long  and  unbroken  an  interval  of  peace  as  Ireland  enjoyed  during  that 
time  is  hardly  to  be  found  at  any  other  period  of  her  annals. 

*  Benedict,  abbot  of  Peterboroiigh,  referring  to  the  arrival  of  the  cardinals,  says, — "  Nisi  eorum  advenfus 
eum  impedisset,  proposuil  in  prnxima  sequent!  aestate  ire  cum  exercitu  sue  ad  subjiciendum  sibi  regem  Cog- 
natensem  qui  ad  eum  venire  nolebat." 

t  "  Sciatis  nie  dedisse  el  concessisse  et  presenti  cliarta  confirmasse  hominibus  meis  de  Bristow  civitatem 
ineam  de  Divelin,ad  inhabilandum.  Cluare  volo  et  flrmiter  pra^cipio  ut  ipsi  earn  inhahitent  et  teneant  illam 
de  me  el  ha;redibus  meis  bene  et  in  pace,"  &c.  A  facsimile  of  tliis  curious  charter,  taken  from  the  original, 
preserved  in  the  archives  of  Dublin,  may  be  found  in  the  History  of  Bristol,  by  Seyer,  who  in  explanation  of 
the  meaning  of  the  grant,  quotes  a  passage  from  Camden,  stating  that  an  English  colony  had  been  trans- 
planted by  Henry  from  Bristol  to  Dublin,  which  latter  city  was,  it  is  supposed,  drained  at  that  time  of  inha- 
bitants. 

X  "  Accedens  itaque  Meneviam  devoto  peregrinantium  more  pedes  baculoqne  infultus,  canonicorum  eccle- 
siiB  processione  ipsum  debita  reverentia  et  honore  suscipiontium,  apud  Albam  Portam  obviara  venit.— i/i*. 
Expuff.  c  37. 


HISTORY.  OF  IRELAND.  271 


GHATTER  XXIX. 

Conference  of  Do  Lacy  with  O'Ruarc. — Death  of  O'Ruarc. — Marriage  and  death  of  De  Quincy. . 
— Strongbow  summoned  to  attend  tiie  king  of  France. — Rivalry  between  Hervey  and  Ray- 
mond.— Strongbow  returns  to  Ireland. — Rayrnond's  popularity  and  success, — Retires  in 
discontent  to  Wales. — Strongbow  defeated  by  the  Irish. — Raymond  is  recalled. — His  mar- 
riage with  Basilia,  the  Earl's  sister. — Meath  overrun  and  despoiled  by  Roderic. — His  retreat, 
— Limerick  taken. — Bull  of  Adrian  promulgated. — Raymond's  successes. — Treaty  between 
Henry  and  Roderic. 

The  apparent  calm  produced  by  Henry  survived  but  a  short  time  his  departure. 
The  seeds  of  discontent  so  abundantly  sovvn  throughout  the  country,  by  the  many  liy.T 
unjust  usurpations  on  the  property  of  the  natives  which  the  king's  grants  to  his 
]6rds  and  followers  had  occasioned,  were  quickly  matured  into  a  general  feeling  of  hostility, 
wliich  every  succeeding  year  hut  rendered  more  bitter  and  deep.     The  grant  of  the 
whole  of  the  principality  of  Meath  to  Dc  Lacy  was  one  of  those  encroachments  on  the  right 
of  the  Irish  to  their  own  soil,  which,  though  rendered  familiar  afterwards  by  repetition, 
must  have  been  then  as  astounding  from  their  audacity,  as  they  were  irritating,  and  at  last 
infuriating,  from  their  injustice.     O'Ruarc,  the  party  immediately  grieved  by  this  spolia- 
tion,* having,  on  the  departure  of  the  king,  appealed  to  Hugh  De  Lacy  for  redress,  it 
was  agreed  that  a  conference  should  be  held  on  the  points  at  issue  between  them,  and 
a  day  and  place  were  appointed  for  that  purpose. 

Accompanied  on  each  side  by  a  stipulated  number  of  attendants,  they  met  at  a  place 
called  O^Ruarc's  Hill,  or,  according  to  other  accounts,  the  Hill  of  Tara,  near  Dublin; 
and,  oatiis  and  sureties  having  been  mutually  given,  the  two  chiefs,  unarmed  and  apart 
from  all  the  rest,  held  their  conference  together,  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  assisted  but  by  one 
unarmed  interpreter.  While  they  were  thus  occupied,  the  soldiers  who  had  accompanied 
O'Ruarc  remained  in  the  valley,  at  a  little  distance;,  while  a  small  band  of  about  seven 
or  eight  knights,  who  under  the  command  of  Gryffyth,the  nephew  of  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald, 
formed  part  of  the  guard  of  De  Lacy,  had  ascended  the  hill  ready  mounted  and  armed 
with  their  shields  and  lances,  for  the  purpose  of  being  near  the  place  of  conference, — 
having  reason  to  apprehend  treachery  on  the  part  of  O'Ruarc.  In  order  to  appear  as  if 
solely  bent  upon  pastime,  this  young  troop  continued  all  the  time  to  tilt  at  each  other,  as 
in  the  tournaments  of  their  own  country,  occasionally  wheeling  around  the  sppt  where 
the  two  chieftains  stood. 

Their  apprehensions,  which  are  ascribed  by  the  chronicler  to  a  warning  dream  that  had 
appeared  to  Gryffyth,  on  the  preceding  night,  proved  not  to  have  been  v/ithout  foundation. 
Whether  by  a  preconcerted  design,  or,  as  appears  more  probable,  in  the  irritation  of  the 
moment,  O'Ruarc  retiring,  under  some  pretence,  to  the  brow  of  the  hill,  made  a  signal 
to  his  soldiers  in  the  valley  to  join  him,  and  then  returned  towards  De  Lacy.  But  Mau- 
rice Fitz-Gerald,  who,  remembering  his  nepliew's  dream,  had  observed  watchfully  the 
movements  of  the  Irish  chief,  n.ow  seeing  him  advance  with  pale  visage  and  hurried 
strides,  holding  an  axe  uplifted  threateningly  in  his  hand,t  instantly  drew  his  sword,  and 
calling  out  to  De  Lacy  to  save  himself,  rushed  forward  in  his  defence.  Before,  however, 
he  could  reach  the  spot,  O'Ruarc  had  aimed  a  blow  at  the  English  lord,  which  the  inter- 
preter, rushing  in  bravely  between  them,  caught  on  his  own  arm,  and  fell  mortally 
wounded.     Twice  did  De  Lacy  fall  in  endeavouring  to  escape  ;|  and  was  only, saved  by 

*  The  abbe  Geoghegan,  with  the  view  of  making  out  a  stronger  case  against  the  English— as  if  the  story 
of  their  wrongs  towards  Ireland  needed  aid  from  the  colouring  of  fiction — has,  in  place  of  O'Ruarc,  who 
was  himself  a  usurper  of  the  dominion  of  Meath,  taken  upon  him  to  substiliute,  without  any  authority, 
O'Melachlin,  the  hereditary  chief  of  that  territory,  as  liavingbeen  the  prince  thus  robbed  of  his  kingdom  toen- 
rich  an  English  lord. — "  OMalaghlin,  prince  hfer^ditairc  de  la  Midie,  penetre  de  douleur  a  la  vue  des  hostililes 
qu'on  venoit  d'exercer  dans  son  pays  natal,"  &c. — Hist,  d' irlande,  troisieme  part.  chap.  1. 

t  No  decisive  conclusion  as  to  his  hostile  intentions  could  fairly  be  drawn  from  this  circumstance,  it  being 
the  custom  of  the  Irish,  in  those  times,  according  to  Gi  raid  us,  to  carry  an  axe  in  the  hand,  wherever  they  went, 
as  familiarly  as  a  walltingstick: — "  Semper  in  manu  quasi  pro  baculo  secnrim  baiulant."  He  then  puns,  in 
his  usual  style,  on  this  formidable  habit ; — "  A  securibus  itaque  nulla  securitas:  si  securum  t6  reputes  securine 
senties    Te  spontein  periculum'mittis:  si  securim  admittis,  et  securitatem  amittis."     Toyog.  Dist.  3.,  c  '21. 

X  "  Ob  fugae  malurationem  Hugo  de  Lacy  bis  retro  cadens."  Slanihutst,  in  his  English  zeal,  suppresses, 
altogether  De  Lacy's  endeavour  to  escape;  and  the  English  translator  of  Giraldua  thus  colours  it  over: — "  In 
wliichfikirmisliing  Hugh  de  Lacie  was  twice  felled  to  the  ground." 


272  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND'. 

the  valour  of  Fitz-Gerald,  who  opposed  his  sword  to  the  axe  of  the  Irisli  prince.  Mean 
while  Gryffyth,  with  his  troop  of  knights,  having  been  summoned  to  the  spot  by  the 
shout  of  his  gallant  kinsman,  arrived  at  the  same  moment  with  the  band  of  infantry  which 
O'Ruarc  had  c;lled  up  out  of  the  valley.  Seeing  these  well-appointed  horsemen,  and 
feari  g  that  his  infantry  would  be  unable  to  stand  their  onset,  the  Irish  prince  endea- 
voured to  escape  by  mounting  a  horse  which  some  of  his  attendants  had  brought  to  him. 
But  while  in  the  very  act  of  mounting,  both  himself  and  his  horse  were  pierced  through 
by  one  violent  thrust  of  Gryffyth's  lance,  and  fell  dead  together.  The  three  attendants 
also,  who,  in  the  face  of  such  dangers,  had  endeavoured  to  aid  his  escape,  were  cut  down 
on  the  spot;  and  the  rest  of  his  followers,  flying  dispersed  in  every  direction,  were 
most  of  them  taken  and  slaughtered. 

The  corpse  of  O'Ruarc  himself  was  beheaded,  the  body  buried  with  the  heels  upwards, 
and  the  head,  after  hanging  some  time  over  one  of  the  gates  of  Dublin  was  sent  into 
England  to  the  king.  This  insulting  treatment  of  the  remains  of  one  of  their  most  popu- 
lar princes  was  to  the  Irish  even  more  galling  than  the  wrong  previously  inflicted  upon 
him ;  as  it  showed  that  even  to  remonstrate  against  injustice  was  by  their  new  masters 
accounted  an  unpardonable  and  ignominious  crime.  In  the  chance  conflict  which  led  to 
his  death, — even  judging  from  the  account  given  of  it  by  one  of  the  most  prejudiced  of 
chroniclers, — it  would  surely  be  difficult  to  assert  that  the  blame  of  originating  the  fray 
was  not  fully  as  much  imputable  to  the  English  as  to  the  Irish.  The  great  and  sole 
crime,  therefore,  of  O'Ruarc  was  that  he,  a  native  prince,  holding  from  the  monarch  of 
his  own  country  a  large  territory  by  gift,  had  dared  to  question  the  right  of  an  intrusive 
foreign  king  to  deprive  him  of  his  territory  and  bestow  it  upon  one  of  his  own  subjects. 

On  the  departure  of  the  king  for  England,  Strongbow  took  up  his  abode  at  Ferns,  the 
ancient  residence  of  the  Lienster  kings,  and  there  celebrated  the  marriage  of  his  daughter 
with  Robert  De  Quincy,  giving  as  her  dowry  the  territory  of  the  DufFreys  in  the  county 
of  Wexford,  and,  soon  after  appointing  her  husband  to  the  high  office  of  constable  and 
standard-bearer  of  Lienster.  His  son-in-law's  tenure,  however,  of  these  civil  and  mili- 
tary honours,*  was  but  of  very  short  duration.  In  consequence  of  the  refusal  of  O'Demp- 
sey  O'Fally,  a  lord  of  Lienster,  to  attend  his  court,  Strongbow  marched  a  body  of  troops 
into  that  chieftain's  territory,  and,  finding  his  progress  unresisted,  spread  desolation  where- 
ever  he  went.  On  his  returning,  however,  laden  with  booty,  tov/ards  Kildare,  just  after 
the  vanguard  commanded  by  himself  had  passed  through  a  defile  which  lay  in  their  way, 
O'Dempsey,  who  had  hovered  for  some  time  unperceived  around  them,  fell  suddenly  upon 
their  rear,  and,  in  the  fury  oft  the  first  assa"ult,  Robert  de  Quincy  with  a  number  of  his 
knights  was  slain,  and  the  standard  of  Leinster  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  assailants. 

However  much  the  earl  may  have  mourned  for  the  loss  of  his  son-in-law,,  the  disgrace, 
for  the  first  time,  thus  brought  upon  the  English  arms,  and  the  probable  efl^ect  of  such  an 
occurrence  in  giving  encouragement  to  the  Irish,  could  hardly  have  affected  him  with 
much  less  real  concern.  But  no  time  was  left  to  repair  the  disaster;  as,  shortly  after,  he 
received  orders  from  the  king,  who  was  then  in  France,  requiring  that  he  should  join 
him  instantly  with  a  re-enforcement  in  that  country,  where  all  the  means  he  could  muster 
together  were  now  wanting  to  oppose  the  formidable  league  which  his  own  sons  had  been 
the  chief  instruments  of  arraying  against  his  power.  This  royal  mandate  the  earl  promptly 
obnyed,  though  risking,  by  his  departure  at  so  critical  a  moment,  the  safety  of  his  yet  un- 
settled possessions;  and  so  satisfied  was  Henry  with  this  proof  of  his  alacrity  and  zeal, 
that  he  gave  him,  soon  after  his  arrival,  the  custody  of  the  castle  of  Gisors,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  all  his  frontier  fortresses. 

Taught  thus  early  to  sec,  in  the  misfortunes  of  their  English  rulers,  some  opening  of 
hope  for  themselves,  the  Irish  exulted  to  hear  of  the  storm  that  was  now  gathering  around 
the  king;  and,  openly  disavowing  their  late  submissions,  seemed  to  be  bent  on  availing 
themselves  of  Strongbow's  absence  to  break  out  into  general  revolt.  A  spirit  of  discontent, 
too,  had  arisen  in  the  English  army,  which  promised  to  be  favourable  to  their  views.  Her- 
vey  of  Mount-Maurice,  the  chief  in  command,  had  rendered  himself  unpopular  among  the 
soldiers;  while  Raymond  le  Gros,  who  acted  under  him,  and  was  of  a  far  more  concilia- 
tory and  attaching  nature,  had  won  for  himself  the  favour  and  affections  of  all.  Hence  a 
jealousy  arose  in  the  mind  of  the  former,  which  disturbed  and  embittered  the  whole  of 
their  intercourse  and  prevented  their  acting  together  with  the  concert  necessary  to  suc- 
cess. The  serious  mischief  that  might  have  resulted  to  the  English  cause,  from  this  want 
of  concord  at  head-qnarters,  was  prevented  by  the  return  of  Strongbow  from  France. 

*  By  the  banner  and  ensign  of  Leinster  is  meant  the  military  government  of  it ;  as  the  constableship  was 
the  civil  authority  thereof."— JVoJe  cf  Harris  on  Regan. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  273 

Thinking  his  presence  to  be  now  more  wanting  in  Ireland,  Henry  had  dispensed  with  his 
farther  services  abroad,  and  sent  him  back  with  increased  power,  having  invested  him 
with  the  office  of  viceroy  of  the  kingdom,  and  bestowed  on  him  also  the  city  of  Water- 
ford,  together  with  a  castle  near  Wicklow.* 

Strongbow,  on  assuming  his  high  office,  found  it  beset  with  considerable  difficulties. 
The  troops  had  for  want  of  pay  and  subsistence  become  mutinous,  and  attributing  much 
of  the  hardships  they  suffered  to  his  uncle,  Hervey  of  Mount- Maurice,  they  at  length 
presented  themselves  in  a  body  before  the  earl,  desiring  that  Raymond  le  Gros  should 
be  appointed  to  command  them;  and  threatening,  if  their  request  should  not  be  granted, 
either  to  return  to  their  own  country,  or  else  join  the  forces  of  tiic  Irish,  who  were 
now,  in  every  part  of  the  island,  taking  up  arms.f     However  fatal  to  all  discipline  ii-yo* 
was  the  compliance  with  demands  thus  urged,  Strongbow  had  now  no  other  alter- 
native, and   their  favourite  officer,  Raymond,  was  again'  placed   at  the  head   of  the 
army.J 

Knowing  that  plunder  was  their  primary  object,  and  that  the  wretched  natives  must  pay 
the  price  of  his  popularity,  Raymond  led  the  troops  directly  into  the  heart  of  Ophally, 
and  there  allowed  them  to  ravage  and  plunder  at  their  pleasure.  But,  this  indulgence 
having  only  whetted  their  zest  tor  farther  spoil,  they  made  an  irruption  also  into  Mun- 
ster;  and  taking  for  granted  that  the  inhabitants  Lismore  were  opulent,  from  their  com- 
merce with  the  neighbouring  cities  of  VVatcrford  and  Cork,  they  entered  and  sacked  that 
venerable  town,5  and  extended  their  pillage  through  the  whole  district  belonging  to  it. 
Finding  some  boats  just  arrived  from  Waterford,  at  Lismore,  they  embarked  on  board  of 
them  the  greater  part  of  their  plunder,  and  sent  them,  under  tlie  conduct  of  an  officer 
named  De  Rutherford,  to  Youghal.  But  while  waiting  there  for  a  westerly  wind  to  con- 
vey them  to  Waterford,  they  were  attacked,  in  the  mouth  of  the  river,  by  a  fleet  of  two 
and  thirty  barks,  which  the  citizens  of  Cork  had  sent  out  to  intercept  them.  A  sharp 
action  between  the  two  small  fleets  ensued,  in^  which  the  Irish,  we  are  told,  made  the  onset 
with  stone-slings  and  axes,  while  the  weapon  of  the  opposite  party  was  the  cross-bow, 
and  their  defence  the  iron  corslet.||.  The  result  was  victory  on  the  side  of  the  English  ; 
the  commander  of  the  squadron  from  Cork  fell  in  the  action,  a  number  of  his  ships  were 
taken,  and  Adam  de  Rutherford,  with  his  booty  and  prizes,  sailed  triumphantly  into 
Waterford. 

In  the  mean  time,  Raymond,  informed  of  the  designs  of  the  citizens  of  Cork,  was 
hastening,  with  a  select  body  of  cavalry,  to  the  support  of  his  countrymen,  when  he 
found  himself  encountered  by  Mac  Carthy,  Prince  of  Desmond,  who  was  hurrying,  with 
equal  zeal,  to  assist  his  vassals  of  Cork.  After  a  short  action,  however,  the  Irish  were 
compelled  to  retreat,  and  Raymond  proceeded,  without  farther  interruption,  along  the  sea- 
coast  to  Waterford,  leading  along  with  him  a  booty  of  4000  cows  and  sheep,  taken  by  his 
troops  in  the  territory  of  Lismore.H  Inglorious  and  trivial  as  were  these  cnterprizes,  it 
is  clear  that  to  the  license  allowed  to  the  soldiery  in  such  expeditions  Raymond  chiefly 
owed  his  popularity,  and  the  exalted  station  in  which  it  had  placed  him.  But  farther 
views  began  now  to  open  to  him;  and  his  ambition  rising  with  bis  fortune,  he  ventured 
to  acknowledge  to  Strongbow  a  passion  which  he  had  entertained  for  some  time  towards 
that  nobleman's  sister  Basilia,  and  asked  at  once  the  double  favour  of  being  honoured 
with  the  hand  of  this  lady  in  marriage,  and  of  being  appointed  constable  and  standard-bearer 

*  Ut  viii  integerrimi  industriam  acucret.Guesfordiamei  et  castellum  Wickloense  in  perpetuum  assignavit. — 
Stanihurst. 

t  Hibern.  Eicpugnat.  I.  2:  o.  1. 

t  Ibid.  1.  2.  c.  2. 

§  If  any  reliance  may  be  placed  on  the  accounts  given  by  cnntinentalr  scholars  of  the  famous  Irish  saint 
Cathaldus,  the  school,  or  university,  for  which  Lismore  was  celebrated,  might  boast  as  early  a  date  as  the 
seventh  century,  and  was  at  that  lime,  according  to  these  authorities,  frequented  by  students  from  various 
parts  of  Europe,  all  flocking  to  hear  the  lectures  of  the  young  and  holy  Cathaldus.  Thus,  in  the  poetical  Life 
of  this  saint  by  Bonaventure  Mornio  : — 

"  Jam  videas  populos  quos  abluitadvena  Rhenus, 
Quosque  sub  occiduo  collustrat  cardine  mundi 
Phcebus,  Lesmoriam  venisse ;  iitjura  docentis 
Ediscant,  titulisque  sacrent  nielioribus  arras." 

Though  this  poem  may  be  questioned  as  historical  authority,  and  was.  therefore  not  cited  by  me  when  treat 
ing  of  the  early  schools  of  Ireland,  in  the  preceding  part  of  this  Work  (see  chapters  12,  13,  and  14  ;)  yet,  aa- 
affording  proof  of  the  celebrity  of  tlioso  schools  on  the  Continent  (more  especially  that  of  Lismore,)  and  of  the 
traditional  fame  of  the  scholars  sent  forth  by  them,  the  poem  of  Moroni  may  be  regarded  as  strong  and  inte- 
resting evidence. 

II  Dum  iste  lapidibus  et  securibus  acriter  impetunt,  illi  vero  tam  sagittis  quam  laminibus  ferreis,  quibus 
abundabant,  promptiesime  resistebant." — Hiiem.  Expugnat.  utsuprd. 

V  Ibid. 

34 


274  HISTORY  OF  IRELAfJD. 

of  Leinster.*  To  this  suit  of  the  aspiring  soldier  the  earl's  answer  was  cold  and  re- 
served, but  at  the  same  time  sufficiently  explicit,  to  show  that  with  neither  of  the  two 
requests  did  he  mean  to  comply; — a  repulse  which  so  deeply  offended  the  ambitious  Ray- 
mond, that  he  instantly  threw  up  his  commission  and  retired  into  Wales,  taking  with  him 
Meyler  and  others  of  his  followers  who  had  particularly  distinguished  themselves  in  these 
Irish  wars. 

The  command  of  the  forces  was  now  again  committed  by  Strongbow  to  his  kinsman, 
Hervey  of  Mount-Maurice,  who,  being  desirous  of  regaining  the  favour  of  the 
:^ji^  army,  advised  an  attack,  with  a  strong  force,  on  the  territories  of  Donald  O'Brian, 
^^'^'  who  had  latety  manifested  a  spirit  of  revolt.  As  if  to  confirm,  however,  Hervey's 
fame  for  ill-luck,  this  expedition,  though  commanded  jointly  by  him  and  Strongbow,  was 
unfortunate  in  almost  all  its  results.  A  re-enforcement  from  the  garrison  of  Dublin, which 
the  earl  had  ordered  to  join  him  at  Cashel,  having  rested,  for  a  night  at  Ossory  on  their 
march,  were  surprised,  sleeping  in  their  quarters,  by  a  strong  party,  under  Donald  O'Brian, 
and  the  greater  number  of  them  put,  almost  unresistingly,  to  the  sword.  Finding  his 
projects  completely  foiled  by  this  disaster,  Strongbow  hastened  to  shut  himself  up  in 
Waterford,  while,  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  the  Irish,  as  if  at  a  signal  given,  rose  up  in 
arms;  and,  even  of  the  chieftains  who  had  pledged  their  allegiance  to  Henry,  many,  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  the  descendant  of  their  great  Brian,  set  up  the  standard  of  re-- 
volt. 

Among  others  who  at  this  crisis  cast  off  their  fealty,  is  said  to  have  been  Donald 
Kavenagh,  the  son  of  the  late  king  Dermot,f  and  hitherto  faithful  to  the  race  which  had 
patronised,  his  ever  to  be  remembered  father.  Even  the  monarch  Roderic  himself,  con- 
ceiving the  moment  to  be  favourable  for  an  effort  to  recover  Meath,  made  an  irruption, 
suddenly,  with  a  large  confederate  force,  into  that  province,  from  which  Hugh  de  Lacy. 
was  then  absent,  and,  destroying  all  the  forts  built  by  that  lord,  laid  waste  the  whole 
country  to  the  very  confines  of  Dublin.  Hugh  Tirrel,  who  had  been  left  to  act  for  De 
Lacy,  finding  himself  unable  to  defend  the  castle  of  Trim,  demolished  the  fortifications 
and  burned  it  down,  as  he  did  also  the  castle  of  Duleek,  and  escaped  with  his  soldiers  to 
Dublin. 

Alarmed  by  the  spread  of  this  rebellious  spirit  among  the  natives,  and  fearing  the  pro- 
bable revival  of  mutiny  in  his  own  army,  Strongbow  was  left  no  other  resource,  however 
mortifying  the  necessity,  than  to  ask  of  Raymond  to  return  and  resume  his  command, 
assuring  him  at  the  same  time  that  the  hand  of  Basilia.  should  immediately  be  granted  to 
him  on  his  arrival.]:  Such  a  triumph,  at  once  fo  love  and  pride,  was  far  too  tempting  to 
admit  of  parley  or  hesitation.  With  a  force  hastily  collected,  consisting  of  about  30. 
knights,  all  of  his  own  kindred,  100  men-at-arms,  and  300  archers,  Raymond,  taking  with 
him  also  his  brave  kinsman,  Meyler,  embarked  in  a  fleet  of  fifteen  transports,  and  arrived  safe 
in  the  port  of  Waterford.  So  critically  was  this  relief  timed,  that,  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  ships  appeared  in  sight,  sailing  before  the  wind,  with  the  ensigns  of  England  dis- 
played, the  citizens  of  Waterford,  provoked  by  the  tyranny  and  exactions  of  the  garrison, 
were  about  to  rise  and  put  all  the  English  in  the  city  to  death.  Landing  his  troops  without 
any  opposition,  Raymond  conducted  the  earl,  with  the  whole  of  his  force  to  Wexfurd,  where, 
a  short  time  after,  his  nuptials  with  the  noble  lady  Basilia  were,  in  the  midst  of  pomp  and 
rejoicings,  celebrated.  How  imminent  had  been  the  danger  from  which  Raymond's  ar- 
rival had  rescued  Strongbow  and  his  small  army,  was  made  manifest  soon  after  their  de- 
parture, when  the  rage  of  the  citizens,  repressed  but  for  the  moment,  again  violently  broke 
forth,  and  a  general  massacre  of  all  the  English  took  place,— with  the  exception  only  of  tile 
garrison  left  in  Reginald's  tower,  which,  though  few  in  number,  succeeded  ultimately  in 
regaining  possession  of  the  town.^ 

Scarcely  had  the  nuptials  of  Raymond  and  Basilia  been  celebrated,  when,  intelligence 
arriving  of  the  advance  of  Rodoric  tov;ards  Dublin,  the  bridegroom  was  forced  to  buckle 
on  hastily  his  armour,  and  take  the  fif^ld  against  that  prince.  But  added  to  the  total  want, 
in  Roderic  himself,  of  the  qualities  fitted  for  so  trying  a  juncture,  the  very  nature  of  the 
force  under  his  command  compibtely  disqualilied  it  for  regular  or  protracted  warfare;  an 
Irish  army  being,  in  those  times,  little  better  than  a  rude,  tumultuous  assemblage,  brought 

»  Lambeth  MS.— The  office,  it  appears,  could  only  bo  enjoyed  by  him  during  the  minority  of  an  infant 
daughter,  loft  by  De  Quincy ;  or  rather,  till  tliis  daughter  should  be  married  to  some  one,  by  whom  the  duly 
of  it  could  \k  perfdrined. 

T'  Leiand,  who  quotes  as  his  authority,  Jin-nal.  lUt.  MS. 

X  The  substai\c(:  of  the  letter  addre-ssed  by  liiin  to  llayrnond  on  the  occasion,  is  thus  given  by  Giraldus: — 
"  Inspectis  Uteris  istis  nobis  in  manu  fotli  subvertire  non  difleras:  et  desiderum  tuinn  in  Basilia  sororc  inea 
tibi  legitime  copulanda,  &.C. 

§  Hibcrn.  Expugnal.  1.  2.  c.  4. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  275 

together  by  the  impulse  of  passion,  or  the  prospect  of  plunder,  and,  as  soon  as  sated  or 
thwarted  in  its  immediate  object,  dispersing^  again  as  loosely  and  lawlessly  as  it  had 
assembled.  In  this  manner  did  the  army  of  the  monarch  now  retire,  havinsr  overrun  that 
whole  province  as  far  as  the  borders  of  Dublin ;  and  there  remained  for  Raymond,  but 
the  task  of  restoring  the  disturbed  settlers  to  their  habitations,  while  to  Tyrrel  fell  the 
charge  of  repairing  and  rebuilding*  the  numerous  forts  which  iiad  been  damaged  and  de- 
molished by  the  Irish. 

With  the  hand  of  Basilia  de  Clare,  Raymond  received  from  tiie  earl,  as  her  dowry, 
the  lands  of  Idrone,  Fethard,  and  Glascarrig,  and  was  likewise  appointed  by  him  to  the 
high  office  of  constable  and  standard-bearer  of  Leinster.  It  is  said  to  have  been  also  on 
this  occasion  that  he  was  made  possessor  of  that  great  district  in  Kilkenny,  called,  after 
him,  Grace's  Country ; — the  Cognomen  of  Gros,  which  he  transmitted  to  his  descendants, 
being  changed,  in  later  times,  to  Gras,  and  at  last,  Grace. 

Conscious  that  his  fame  and  influence  with  the  soldiery  could  only  be  maintained  by 
ministering  constantly  to  their  rapacity,  Raymond  now  turned  his  eyes  to  Limerick  as 
affording  temptations  in  the  way  both  of  rapine  and  revenge.  The  achievement  of  Brian, 
the  prince  of  that  district,  the  preceding  year,  in  cutting  off  Strongbow's  e.xpected  re-en- 
forcement at  Ossory,  had  marked  him  out  as  a  special  object  of  vengeance;  and  it  was 
therefore  resolved  that  his  dominions  should  be  attacked,  and  Limerick  itself,  if  possible, 
taken  by  storm.  This  was  found,  however,  to  be  no  easy  enterprise,  as  that  town,  being 
built  on  an  island,  was  then  encompassed  round  by  the  river  Shannon.  On  approaching 
the  bank,  the  troops  hesitated,  alarmed  by  the  rapidity  of  the  current;  when  Raymond's 
cousin,  the  valiant  Meyler,  crying  out,  "Onward,  in  the  name  of  St.  David  !"  spurred  his 
horse  into  a  part  of  the  current  that  was  fordable ;  and,  followed  at  first  by  but  four  other 
knights,  he  succeeded  in  gaining  the  opposite  bank,  amidst  a  shower  of  stones  and  arrows 
from  the  walls,  which  hung  over  the  margin  of  the  river.  Taking  courage  from  this 
bold  example,  the  remainder  of  the  troops  then  forded  the  stream  with  the  loss  of  but  one 
knight  and  two  horsemen  of  inferior  rank;  while  the  citizens,  struck  with  alarm  at  such 
daring,  deserted  not  only  the  bank,  but  the  walls  and  rampart  itself,  and  fled  into  the  city. 
The  usual  excesses  of  slaughter  and  plunder  ensued;  and  Raymond,  leaving  behind  him 
a  sufficient  force  to  garrison  the  place,  returned,  with  the  remainder  of  his  army  into 
Leinster. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  Bull  of  Pope  Adrian  granting  the  kingdom  of 
Ireland  to  Henry  11.,  and  obtained  by  this  sovereign  from  the  holy  see  as  far  back  i-i'i^ri 
as  the  year  1151,  was  for  the  first  time  publicly  announced  to  his  Irish  subjects.f 
He  had,  in  the  interval,  obtained  also  a  brief  from  Alexander  III.  confirming  the  grant  made 
by  the  former  pope,  and  under  the  same  condition  of  the  payment  of  the  Peter-pence. 
His  chief  motive  for  so  long  delaying  the  promulgation  of  Adrian's  bull  is  supposed  to 
have  been  the  fear  lest  certain  aspersions  contained   in  that  instrument,  as  well  on  the 
morals  as  the  religious  doctrines  of  the  people  of  Ireland,  might  cause  irritation,  among 
both  the  clergy  and  laity,  and  prevent  that  quiet  submission  to  his  claims  which  he  then 
expected.     Tfie  present  rebellious  temper  of  the  Irish  completely  falsified  this  hope  ;  and 
the  influence  of  the  clergy  being  now  the  only  medium  through  which  he  could  act  on 
the  minds  and  affections  of  the  people,  and  endeavour  to  incline  them  to  his  government, 
the  papal  authority  was  thus  late  resorted  to  by  him  as  a  means  of  enlisting  the  great 
body  of  the  clergy  in  his  service. 

The  persons  appointed  to  carry  these  documents  to  Ireland  were,  William  Fitz-Aldelm, 
and  Nicholas,  the  prior  of  Wallingford ;  and  a  synod  of  bishops  being  assembled,  on  their 
arrival,  the  papal  grants  were  there  publicly  read.  After  performing  their  appointed 
commission,  the  prior  and  Fitz-Aldelm  repaired  to  the  king,  who  was  then  in  Normandy, 
for  the  purpose  of  reporting  to  him  the  state  of  his  kingdom  of  Ireland,  and  explaining 
the  causes  from  whence  its  increased  disorders  had  sprung.  As  from  Hervey  these  royal 
commissioners  had  chiefly  derived  their  knowledge  and  views  of  the  subject,  their  repre- 
sentations would  probably  be  tinctured  with  the  feeling  of  jealousy  which  that  officer 
entertained  towards  his  popular  rival.  They  were,  however,  not  perhaps  very  remote 
from  the  truth,  when  they  accused  Raymond  of  having  converted  the  English  army  into 
a  mere  band  of  freebooters,  whose  continued  depredations  had  driven  into  revolt  not  only 
the  natives  themselves,  but  even  the  more  friendly  disposed  population  of  the  Dano-Irish 

*  At  Castle  Knock,  in  the  neighl)ourhood  of  Dublin,  there  are  still  the  remains  of  a  castle,  said  to  have 
been  buill  by  Hugh  Tyrrel. 

t  Hibern.  Expugnat.  1.  i.  c.  G.  Ware's  Annals,  ad  ann.  1775.  Lanigan,  chap.  29.  §  7.— By  Leland,  the  pro- 
mulgation of  this  Bull,  and  all  the  transactions  connected  with  it,  are  placed  without  any  grounds  or  a«- 
thoriiy  that  I  can  discover,  so  late  as  1777. 


276  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

towns.  To  this,  on  Ilcrvey's  autliority,  they  added  the  serious  and  startling  charge, 
that  Raymond  intended,  with  the  aid  of  the  army,  to  usurp  the  dominion  of  the  whole 
island,  and  had  even  bound  his  soldiers  to  assist  him  by  secret  and  treasonable  oaths.  Giving 
full  credit,  as  it  appears,  to  this  intelligence,  Henry  resolved  to  recall  so  dangerous  a  sub- 
ject; and  with  that  view,  sent  over  two  lords  of  his  court,  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  to  Ire- 
land, ordering  them  to  bring  him  with  them  into  Normandy ;  while  at  the  same  time  two 
other  noblemen,  who  accompanied  them,  were  charged  to  remain  with  the  earl,  and  assist 
him  with  their  counsels. 

On  receiving  the  orders  of  his  sovereign,  Raymond  lost  not  a  moment  in  preparing  to 
obey  them ;  and  there  was  now  wanting  only  a  fair  wind  for  his  departure,  when  intelli- 
gence arrived  that  O'Brian  of  Thomond,  the  ever  active  enemy  of  the  English  power, 
had  surrounded  Limerick  with  a  large  force,  and  that,  all  the  provisions  laid  in  for  the  gar- 
rison having  been  exhausted,  they  were  reduced  to  .the  last  extremity.  Strongbow,  con- 
scious of  the  critical  position  in  which  this  event  placed  him,  ordered  his  forces  to  be 
immediately  mustered,  and  prepared  to  march,  at  their  head,  for  the  succour  of  the  town. 
But  a  new  triumph  awaited  the  popular  general.  The  troops  refused  to  march  under  any 
other  leader;  and  the  earl,  after  consulting  with  the  king's  commissioners  and  receiving 
their  sanction,  in  consideration  of  the  emergency  of  the  occasion,  requested  of  Raymond 
to  take  the  command  of  tiie  expedition.  To  this  the  general,  with  well-feigned  reluc- 
tance, consented ;  the  troops  saw  in  his  power  the  triumph  of  their  own;  and  he  was  now 
again  at  the  head  of  an  army  in  whose  minds  good  fortune  was  identified  with  his  name. 
The  force  he  at  present  had  under  iiis  command  consisted  of  four-score  heavy  armed 
cavalry,  200  horse,  and  300  archers;  and  the  already  too  common  spectacle  of  Irishmen 
fighting  in  the  ranks  of  foreigners  against  their  own  countrymen  was  exhibited  on  this 
occasion; — the  detachment  being  jouved,  on  its  march,  by  some  bands  of  Irish  infantry, 
under  the  chiefs  of  Ossory  and  Kinsale,  whom  family  feuds  had  rendered  inveterate 
against  O'Brian. 

Before  the  arrival  of  this  force  at  Cashel,  they  learned  that  the  Irish,  on  hearing  of 
their  approach,  had  raised  the  sieiL;c  of  Limerick,  and,  taking  up  their  position  in  adetile, 
near  Cashel,  through  which  the  English  army  must  pass,  had  there  strongly  entrenched 
themselves.  Raymond,  on  learning  this  intelligence,  pushed  forward  ;  and  when,  upon 
arriving  in  sight  of  the  enemy's  position,  he  proceeded  coolly  and  deliberately  to  pre- 
pare for  liie  attack,  the  prince  of  Ossory,  who,  having  been  accustomed  to  the  impetuous 
onsets  of  his  own  countrymen,  mistook  this  quiet  for  irresolution  or  fear,  addressed  an 
encouraging  speech  to  the  English  troops,  exhorting  them  to  behave,  on  that  day,  in  a 
manner  worthy  of  their  former  exploits,  and  adding  this  extraordinary  menace — "If  you 
conquer,  our  axes  shall  co-operate  with  your  swords,  in  sharply  pursuing  and  slaying 
the  fugitive  enemy.  But  should  you  be  vanquished,  then  shall  these  same  weapons  of  ours, 
which  never  strike  but  on  the  conquering  side,  be  as  certainly,  turned  against  you." 
The  assault,  however,  proved  as  siKx;essful  as  the  preparation  for  it  had  been  cool  and 
determined  ;*  Meyler  Fitz-Henr3',  who  led  the  vanguard  into  the  pass,  having  broken,  at 
a  single  charge,  through  all  the  defences  opposed  to  him. 

The  results  of  this  victory,  which  was  attended  with  great  slaughter  of  the  Irish, 
proved  also  in  other  respects  important;  as  not  only  had  Limerick  been  relieved  by  it,  but 
llie  brave  O'Brian,  at  length  exhausted  by  his  long  and  fruitless  struggle,  was  now 
induced  to  ask  for  peace;  and,  with  that  view,  proposed  a  conference  with  the  English 
general.  At  the  same  time,  Roderic  also,  repentant,  as  it  would  seem,  of  his  late  inroads 
into  Menth,  solicited  an  interview,  with  the  like  object;  and  the  precautions  used  in 
arranging  the  parley,  showed  iiow  little  the  parties  engaged  in  it  were  disposed  to  place 
confidence  in  each  other  ; — ihc  monarch,  Roderic,  who  had  come  for  the  purpose  with  an 
escort  of  bo:its  down  the  Shannon,  having  taken  up  his  station  on  the  western  shore  of 
Lough  Dearg,  while  the  prince  of  Thcrmond  and  his  train  fixed  themselves  in  a  wood  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  lake;  and  the  place  ciiosen  by  the  English  general  was  near 
Killuioc,  at  un  e(iual  distance  fiom  both.  Th-e  result  of  the  parley,  so  cautiously  con- 
ducted, was,  that  llie  two  princes  renewed  their  fealty  to  Henry,  and  gave  hostages  for 
-  more  faithful  observance  of  their  respective  engagements  in  future. 

►Scarcely  iiad  Raymond  thus  signalized  his  military  administration,  by  receiving  on 
one  day  the  submission  of  the  king  of  Connaught  and  the  prince  of  Tliomond,  when  he 
found  himself  called  upon  to  assist  M'Arthur,  prince  of  Desmond,  whose  son  had  rebel- 
led against  him,  and  nearly  succeeded  in  effecting  his  expulsion  from  his  dominions. 


*  "  I  presn 
places,  thH  E 
such  ujteratiuii 


ime,"  says  Lord  LytleHon,  "That  in  this  and  other  assaults  of  enlrenclimeiits,  or  any  fortified 
nt'lish  norsemeii  diMiiouulod,  and  fought  on  foot,  sword  in  hand;  cavalry  not  being  proper  for 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  277 

This  request  being  accompanied  by  offers,  as  tempting  to  the  general  himself  as  to  his 
followers,  of  rich  gifts,  abundant  plunder,  and  liberal  pay.,  the  required  aid  was  promptly 
given,  and  the  prince  of  Desmond,  released  from  the  prison  into  which  his  own  son  had 
cast  him,  took  ample  revenge,  by  depriving  the  son  of  his  head.  In  return  for  the  im- 
portant service  thus  conferred  upon  him,  M'Arthy  bestowed  upon  his  gallant  deliverer  a 
large  territorial  possession  in  that  part  of  Desmond  called  Kerry.*  After  so  full  a  flow 
of  success,  no  farther  thoughts  were,  of  course,  entertained  of  removing  Raymond  from 
the  countiy,  or  depriving  him  of  a  post  whicli  there  appeared  no  other  so  eminently 
qualified  to  fill. 

An  important  event  occurred  at  this  period,  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  between 
Henry  and  the  Irish  monarch,  which  owes  its  importance,  however,  far  less  to  ^i.^' 
any  practical  consequences  tliat  have  ever  resulted  from  it,  than  to  its  bearing  on  ■'■'■'''• 
the  question  once  so  warmly  and  uselessly  agitated,  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  right 
of  dominion  which  the  King  of  England  at  that  time  acquired  over  Ireland.  Even  had  Ro- 
deric  been  a  prince  capable  of  grappling  with  adverse  fortune,  the  nature  of  the  armies 
he  had  to  depend  upon,  and  the  eonstant  defection  of  his  subordinate  princes,  must  have 
left  him  hopeless  of  ultimate  success  in  a  prolonged  struggle  against  the  English,  how- 
ever a  desperate  spirit  of  patriotism  might  have  urged  him  still  to  persevere.  But  the 
Irish  monarch  was  of  no  such  heroic  mould.  To  preserve  his  province  from  farther 
ravage,  and  secure,  by  timely  submission,  favourable  terms  from  the  English  king,  were 
now  the  great  and  sole  objects  of  his  policy.  Accordingly,  in  the  course  of  this  year,  he 
sent  over  to  England  an  embassy,  empowered  to  negotiate,  in  his  name,  with  Henry, 
consisting  of  Catholicus,  archbishop  of  Tuani,  Concors,  abbot  of  St.  Brendan's  and  "  Mas- 
ter" Laurence  (as  the  excellent  archbishop  is  styled,)  chancellor  of  the  Irish  king.  These 
plenipotentiaries  having,  about  Michaelmas,  waited  on  Henry  at  Windsor,  a  grand  council 
was  there  held  by  extraordinary  summons,  and  a  solemn  convention  ratified,  of  which  the 
terms  were  as  follows: — f 

Henry  granted  to  his  liegeman,  Roderic,  that,  as  long  as  he  continued  faithfully  to 
serve  him,  he  should  be  a  king  under  him,  ready  to  do  him  service,  as  his  vassal,  and 
that  he  should  hold  bis  hereditary  territories  as  firmly  and  peaceably  as  he  had  held  them 
before  the  coming  of  Henry  into  Ireland.  He  was  likewise  to  have  under  his  dominion 
and  jurisdiction  all  the  rest  of  the  island,  and  the  inhabitants  thereof,  kings  and  princes  in- 
cluded, and  was  bound  to  oblige  them  to  pay  tribute,  through  his  hands,  to  the  king  o^" 
England,  preserving  to  that  monarch  his  other  rights.  These  kings,  princes,  &c.,  were 
likewise  to  hold  peaceable  possession  of  their  principalities^  as  long  as  they  remained 
faithful  to  the  king  of  England,  and  paid  him  their  tribute,  and  all  other  rights,  through 
the  kingofConnaught's  hands, — saving  in  all  things  the  honour  and  prerogative  of  both 
these  kings.  And,  in  case  that  any  of  them  should  rebel  against  the  king  of  England,  or 
against  Roderic,  and  refuse  to  pay  their  tribute  or  other  duties,  in  the  manner  before 
prescribed,  or  should  depart  from  their  fealty  to  the  king  of  England,  the  king  of  Con- 
naught  was  then  authorized  to  judge  them,  and,  if  requisite,  remove  them  from  their 
governments  or  possessions;  and,  should  his  own  power  not  be  sufficient  for  that  purpose, 
he  was  to  be  assisted  by  the  English  king's  constable  and  his  household. 5  The  annual 
tribute  demanded  of  Roderic,  and  the  Irish  at  large,  was  a  merchantable  hide  for  every 
tenth  head  of  cattle  killed  in  Ireland. 

It  will  be  seen  by  these  articles,  that  the  amount  of  power  and  jurisdiction  still  left  in 
the  hands  of  Roderic  was  considerable;  but  with  respect  to  the  territories  within  which 
he  could  exercise  these  powers,  strict  limits  were  laid  down ;  nor  in  any  of  those  districts 
immediately  under  the  dominion  of  the  King  of  England  and  his  barons,  was  Roderic 
allowed  to  interfere,  or  to  claim  any  authority  whatsoever.  In  this  exempted  territory, 
which  formed  what  was  afterwards  called  the  Pale,  were  comprised  Dublin  and  all  its 
appurtenances,  the  whole  of  Meath  and  Lcinster,  besides  Waterford,  and  the  country 
from  thence  to  Dungarvon  included. 

And  if  any  of  the  Irish  (continued  the  treaty,)  who  had  fled  from  the  territories  of  the 

*  This  property  Raymond  settled  upon  his  younger  son  Maurice,  who  became  in  right  of  it.  Lord  of  Lixna  w ; 
and  was  the  ancestor  and  founder  of  the  Fitz  Maurice  family,  of  which  the  marquis  of  Lansdowne  as  earl  of 
Kerry,  is  now  the  representative.  ' 

t  The  exceptions  will  be  found  specified  afterwards. 

1  At  the  time  of  the  invasion  of  Ireland  by  the  English,  that  country  was  subdivided  into  several  indepen- 
dent provinces,  of  which  the  following  seven  were  the  principal :— Desmond,  under  the  Mac  Carthys-  Tho- 
mond,  subject  to  the  O'Brians ;  Hy-Kinselagh,  or  Leinster,  under  the  Hy-Kinselagh  line  of  Mahons;  the  south 
Hy-Niall,  or  Meath.  under  the  Clan  Colmans,  otherwise  the  O'Malachlins;  the  north  Hy-Niall,  under  the 
O'Neills  and  O'Donalls;  and  Hy-Brune,  together  with  Ily-Fiacra,  otherwise  Connaught  under  the  O'Con- 
nors."—Z)tsseria£.,  Sect.  13. 

§  Both  Leland  and  Lyltleton  mention  "  soldiers"  here  ;  but  witliout  any  authority  from  the  original. 


278  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

king's  barons  should  desire  to  return  thither,  they  might  do  so  in  peace,  paying  the 
tribute  above  mentioned,  as  others  did,  or  performing  the  services  they  were  anciently 
accustomed  to  perform  for  their  lands,  according  as  their  lords  should  think  best;  and  if 
any  of  the  Irish  who  were  subjects  of  the  king  of  Connaught  should  refuse  to  return  to 
him,  he  might  compel  them  to  do  so,  in  order  that  they  might  quietly  remain  in  his  land.* 
The  said  king  of  Connaught  was,  moreover,  empowered  to  take  hostages  from  all  those 
whom  the  king  of  England  had  committed  to  him,  at  his  own  and  the  king  of  England's 
choice,  and  was  to  give  the  said  hostages  to  the  king  of  England,  or  others,  at  the  king's 
choice;  and  all  those  from  whom  these  securities  were  demanded  were  to  perform  certain 
annual  services  to  the  king  of  England,  by  presents  of  Irish  dogs  and  hawks,t  and  were 
not  to  detain  any  person  whatsoever,  belonging  to  any  land  or  territory  of  that  prince, 
against  his  will  and  commandment. 

Such  were  the  articles  of  this  singular  treaty,  agreed  upon  and  ratified  in  a  council  of 
prelates  and  barons,  the  names  of  eight  of  whom  are  affixed  to  the  document:  and  among 
these  subscribing  witnesses  is  found  the  pious  and  patriotic  Laurence  O'Toole,  then  arch- 
bisohop  of  Dublin;  By  this  compact,  it  was  solemnly  determined  that  the  kings  of  England 
should,  in  all  future  time,  be  lords  paramount  of  Ireland;  that  the  fee  of  the  soil  should  be 
in  them,  and  that  all  future  monarchs  of  Ireland  should  hold  their  dominion  but  as  tenants 
m  capite,  or  vassals  of  the  English  crown. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 


False  notions  respecting  the  conquest  of  Ireland — First  appointment  of  an  Irish  bishop,  by 
Henry. — Death  of  Strongbow. — Raymond  summoned  to  Dublin. — Entrusts  the  custody  of 
Limerick  to  O'Brian. — Dishonourable  act  of  O'Brian. — Fitz-Aldelm  appointed  chief  gover- 
nor.— Jealously  entertained  of  the  Geraldines. — Death  of  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald. — Illiberal 
conduct  of  Fitz-Aldelm  towards  his  sons. — Success  of  the  Irish  in  Meath. — Character  of  Fitz- 
Aldelm's  administration. — Expedition  of  De  Courcy  into  Ulster. — Council  convoked  by  the 
Pope's  legate. — Dissensions  in  the  family  of  Roderic. — Unsuccessful  expedition  of  the 
English  into  Connaught. — Henry  constitutes  his  son  John,  Lord  of  Ireland. — Grants  of  land 
to  FitzStephen  and  others. — Fitz-Aldelm  recalled  from  the  government. — Cogan  succeeded 
by  Hugh  de  Lacy. 

The  reciprocal  relations  of  chief  and  vassal,  which  arose  naturally  out  of  military  ser- 
vice, and  furnished  one  of  the  two  great  principles  on  which  the  feudal  system  was 
founded,  had  already,  with  its  exactions  of  homage  and  fealty,  formed  a  part,  as  we  have 
seen,  of  the  polity  of  the  Irish.  Familiarized,  therefore,  as  had  been  their  princes  and 
chieftains  to  the  custom  of  holding  their  territories  from  superior  lords,  on  conditions  of 
allegiance  and  homage,  there  was  to  them  nothing  novel  or  startling  in  the  mere  forms, 
as  they  deemed  them,  of  submission  by  which  Roderic  now  laid  the  lordship  of  Ireland 
at  the  feet  of  an  English  prince.  But  though  thus  acquainted  (as  were,  indeed,  most  of 
what  are  called  the  barbarous  nationsl)  with  that  part  of  the  policy  of  the  feudal  system 

*  "  Et,  si  Hyberniens  qui  anfugenint  rediro  voluerint  a<l  teiram  Bnronum  Regis  Angliar,  reiieant  in  pace 
reddendo  tribiitiitn  prirdictum  sicuf  aliireadiint.vel  faciendo  antiqua  servitia  qause  faere  sololiant  pro  terris 
suis:  el  hue  sit  in  arbilrio  et  volunlatedominoruni  suorum.  Et  si  aliqiii  redire  noluerint  ad  dominiim  eorum 
regem  ConactiE,  sipse  cogat  eos  redire  ad  terrain  siiain,  ut  ibi  maneant  et  pacein  liabeant." — Benedict.  Mbas. 
Thus  translated  by  Leland,  who  has  entirely,  it  will  be  perceived,  mistaken  tlie  meaning  of  the  whole  pas- 
sage:— "The  Irish  who  had  fled  from  hence  (the  English  districts)  were  to  return,  and  either  to  pay  Iheir 
tribute,  or  to  perform  the  services  required  by  their  tenures,  at  the  option  of  their  imniediatelords;  and  if  re- 
fractory, Roderic,  at  the  requisition  of  their  lords  was  to  compel  them  to  return." 

\  The  Irish  wolf-dogs  were  at  a  very  early  period  famous;  there  being  little  doubt  that  the  Scotici  canes 
mentioned  by  Syminachus,  as  having  been  exhibited  at  the  Circensian  games,  were  of  that  peculiar  species  of 
wolf-dog  for  which  Ireland  was  once  celebrated,  but  which,  after  the  extinction  of  wolves  in  that  country, 
come  to  be  neglected,  and  of  course  degenerated.  (See  Harris  on  Ware,  chap.  22  )  The  dogs  in^ilioned,  how- 
ever, among  the  aimiial  services  required  of  Roderic,  were  evidently  of  the  greyhound  kind;  and  how  great 
was  the  value  set  upon  Irisli  greyhounds  and  hawks  in  the  time  of  Henry  Vlll.  may  be  judged  from  a  grant 
made  by  that  king  to  a  foreign  nobleman,  at  "  the  instant  suit,"  as  it  is  said  of  the  duke  of  Albuquerque,  of 
"two  goshawkes  and  four  greyhounds,  out  of  Ireland,  yearly." 

To  Robert  Harry  is  attributed  by  Carve  {Lyra  sive  Miiacephal.,)  the  credit  of  having  first  introditced  the 
diversion  of  hawking  into  Ireland;— "Fuit  hic  primus  qui  accipitrcs  cicuravit  atque  venandi  seu  accipitrani 
USUI  nssuefecit." 

t  Meaning,  in  genera),  all  such  as  were  beyond  the  bounds  of  tlic  Roman  empire. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  '279 

which  regulated  the  military  relations  between  chief  and  vassal,  they  were  wholly  igno- 
rant of  its  other  more  important  principle,  which  made  property  the  foundation  of  this 
mutual  tie,  and  bound  together  lord  and  tenant  by  reciprocal  oblii;ations  of  protection  and 
service.  It  is  not  improbable,  therefore,  tliat  the  general  readiness  of  the  Irish  princes 
to  tender  their  alleoiance  to  Henry*  arose  from  their  habit  of  viewing  this  ceremony  but 
as  a  pledge  of  military  service,  and  their  entire  ignorance  of  tbe  important  and  perma- 
nent change  which,  in  the  eyes  of  Henry's  lawyers,  v.'ould  be  effected  in  their  right  and 
title  to  their  respective  territories  by  that  ceremony. 

But  though,  by  the  treaty  between  the  two  kings  acknowledging  Henry  to  be  lord 
paramount  of  Ireland,  the  sovereignty  over  that  island  was  transferred  to  the  English 
crown,  yet,  in  point  of  real  power,  the  king  of  England  was  no  farther  advanced  by  it 
than  when,  a  few  years  before,  he  had  set  sail  from  the  Irish  shore;  and,  at  that  period, 
as  a  great  law  authority,  Sir  J.  Davies,  has  declared,  he  left  behind  him  not  one  more 
true  subject  than  he  had  found  on  his  arrival.  Within  the  same  limited  sphere  of  dominion, 
extending  to  not  more  than  one  third  of  the  kingdom,  did  the  power  and  jurisdiction  of 
the  English  crown  continue  to  be  circumscribed  tor  many  centuries  after,  making  no  im- 
pression whatever  on  the  laws,  language,  or  customs  of  the  great  mass  of  the  natives, 
but  remaining  an  isolated  colony,  in  the  midst  of  a  hostile  and  ever  resisting  people.  And 
yet  to  a  footing  on  tiie  soil  thus  limited  and  precarious,  the  first  advances  of  which  were, 
indeed,  amicably  yielded  to,  but  its  every  farther  inroad  contested  at  every  step,  almost 
all  of  the  historians  of  these  islands,  from,  Giraldusf  down  to  Hume,  have  strangely 
assigned  the  name  and  attributes  of  a  regular  "conquest."  How  much,  in  the  reign  of 
James  I.,  this  crude  and  short  sighted  notion  stood  in  the  way  of  the  sounder  views  then 
beginning  to  gain  ground  with  respect  to  the  relations  between  the  two  countries,  ap- 
pears from,  the  arguments  employed  by  the  king's  attorney-general,  at  that  period,  to 
disabuse  the  p'>iblic  mind  of  so  vain  and  misleading  a  notion. 

Had  Ireland  resisted,  from  the  first,  her  invaders  with  a  spirit  worthy  of  her  ancient 
name,  and  had  she,  yielding  only  to  superior  force,  been  at  last  effectually  brought  under, 
then,  indeed,  might  tbe  history  of  the  two  countries  have  had  to  record  a  conquest  ho- 
nourable to  both  ;  while  both  alike  would  have  been  spared  that  long  train  of  demoralizing 
consequences  which  arose  out  of  the  means,  as  rash  and  violent  as  they  were  inefficient, 
employed  to  bring  Ireland  under  subjection.  Hence,  the  confused  and  discordant  rela- 
tions in  which  the  two  races  inhabiting  her  shores  necessarily  stood  towards  each  other, — 
the  one  assuming  the  rights  of  conquest,  without  any  power  to  enforce  them  ;  the  other 
pretending  to  independence,  with  a  foreign  intruder  in  the  very  heart  of  the  land ;  while, 
to  add  to  ail  this  confusion,  there  prevailed  in  the  country  two  different  codes  of  laws, 
between  whose  constantly  conflicting  ordinances  the  wretched  people  were  kept  dis- 
tracted, while  their  unprincipled  rulers  had  recourse  indifferently  to  one  or  the  other, 
according  as  it  suited  the  temporary  purposes  of  spoliation  or  revenge. 

It  is  said  of  the  Norman  followers  of  William  the  Conqueror,  that  they  despised  the 
English  for  submitting  to  them  so  easily  ;  and  such  was  evidently  the  feeling  awakened 
in  their  Anglo-Norman  descendants  by  the  facility  v/ith  which  the  Irish  gave  way  to 
their  first  encroachments.  But  as  soon  as  these  intruders  began  to  discover  that,  how- 
ever feebly  opposed  in  their  acquisition  of  the  spoil,  they  were  left  not  a  moment  of 
peace  or  security  for  the  enjoyment  of  it;  when  they  found  that  the  Irish  ''  enemy,"  as  if 
to  atone  for  the  weak  submission  of  their  forefathers,  never  once  slumbered  in  the  task  of 
harassing  the  despoiler,  and  rendering  the  throne  of  their  ruler  a  seat  of  thorns  ;  then 
was  there  added  to  the  haughty  contempt  tliey  had  before  felt  for  the  natives  a  deep  and 
inveterate  hatred;  and  how  far  both  these  feelings  were  allowed  to  operate,  will  be  seen 
in  the  History  of  the  Parliament  of  the  English  Pale,  whose  successive  enactments 
against  the  "  mere  Irish,"  exhibit  almost  every  form  of  insult  and  injury  that  the  com- 
bined bitterness  of  hatred  and  contempt  could,  in  their  most  venomous  conjunction,  be 
expected  to  engender. 

With  respect  to  Henry's  alleged  "  conquest"  of  this  country,  how  far  that  able  monarch 
himself  was  from  laying  any  claim  to  the  rights  of  a  conqueror,  appears  from  the  spirit 
and  terms  of  his  treaty  with  Roderic ;  according  to  which  but  two  of  the  five  kingdoms 
of  which  Ireland  consisted,  and  three  principal  cities,  were  exempted  from  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  native  monarch,  while  in  all  the  other  parts  of  the  country,  the  ancient  authorities 

*  The  English  chronicler,  William  of  Neubridge,  attributes,  naturally  enough,  the  readiness  of  their  sub- 
mission to  fear :— "  Adventu  ejus  pavefactos,  sine  sanguine  subjugavit." — L.  2.  c.  26. 

t  Giraldus  himself,  however,  though  styling  his  history  of  these  wars  "  The  Conquest  of  Ireland,"  is  forced 
to  admit,  on  considering  the  result  of  the  struggle  commemorated  by  him,  that  it  was  a  drawn  battle  between 
the  two  nations;—"  Ut  nee  ille  ad  plenum  victor  in  Palladis  haotenus  arcem  vicloriosus  ascenderit,  nee  istej 
victus  omnino  plense  servitutis  jugo  colla  subraiserit." — Hibem.  Expugnat.  1.  2.  c.  33. 


280  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and  laws  remained  in  full  force:  the  princes  appointed  their  own  magistrates  and  officers, 
retained  the  power  of  pardoning  and  punishing  malefactors,  and  made  war  or  peace  with 
each  other,  according  to  their  pleasure. 

In  the  same  council  which  ratified  this  singular  treaty,  Henry  exercised  his  first  act 
of  authority  over  the  Irish  Church.  As,  in  the  subjection  of  England  to  the  Normans, 
the  native  clergy  were  found  to  be  useful  instruments,  so  in  those  parts  of  Ireland,  beyond 
the  English  boundary,  the  influence  of  the  clergy  was  Henry's  chief  support.  Desirous 
of  strengthening  this  interest,  he  now  appointed  a  native  of  Ireland,  named  Augustin,  to 
the  bishopric  of  Waterford,  and,  recognising  the  primatial  rights  of  Cashel,  sent  him  to 
be  consecrated  by  the  archbishop  of  that  see. 

About  this  time,  the  venerable  St.  Laurence,  being  at  Canterbury,  in  attendance 
^\^k  on  the  king,  escaped  narrowly  a  frantic  attempt  upon  his  life.  Having  been 
requested  by  the  monks  to  celebrate  mass,  he  was  proceeding  to  the  altar,  dressed 
in  his  pontificals,  when  a  man  of  deranged  mind,  who  had  heard  of  his  fame  for  holiness, 
and  thought  it  would  be  a  meritorious  act  to  confer  on  him  the  crown  of  martyrdom, 
rushed  forth  upon  him  from  the  crowd  with  a  large  club,  and  laid  him  prostrate  before 
the  altar.  On  recovering  from  the  effects  of  the  outrage,  the  good  archbishop,  finding 
that  the  king  had  condemned  his  assailant  to  death,  begged  earnestly  for  his  pardon,  and 
with  some  difficulty  obtained  it. 

In  the  year  1176,  the  English  colony  was  deprived,  by  death,  of  one  of  its  most 
,l'-^'  distinguished  and  successful  founders,  Richard  de  Clare,  earl  of  Pembroke,  who 
'  died  in  Dublin  about  the  end  of  May,  of  a  cancerous  sore  in  his  leg.  His  sister 
Basalia,  who  was  with  him  in  his  last  moments,  despatched  secretly  a  messenger  to  Ray- 
mond, who  was  then  in  Desmond  with  a  letter  enigmatically  conveying  intelligence  of  the 
event.  Her  great  tooth,  she  told  him,  which  had  ached  so  long,  was  now  at  last  fallen 
out,  and  she  therefore  earnestly  besought  of  him  to  return  to  Dublin  with  all  possible 
speed.  Feeling  how  necessary,  at  such  a  juncture,  was  the  immediate  departure  of 
himself  and  his  army  for  Leinster,  yet  unwilling  to  abandon  Limerick,  a  conquest 
redounding  so  much  to  his  interest  and  fame,  Raymond  saw,  at  length,  that  he  had  no 
other  alternative  than  to  deliver  up  that  city  to  Donald  O'Brian,  to  affect  reliance  on 
his  faith  as  one  of  the  barons  of  the  king,  and  to  exact  from  him  a  new  oath  of  fealty, 
taking  his  chance  for  the  lord  of  Thomond's  observance  of  it. 

The  result  was  precisely  such  as,  without  any  great  stretch  of  foresight,  might  have 
been  anticipated.  Force  alone  having  procured  the  submission  of  O'Brian,  no  sooner  had 
the  English  troops  passed  over  one  end  of  the  bridge  than  they  saw  the  other  broken 
down  by  the  Irish,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  city,  in  all  its  four  quarters,  was  in  flames, — 
having  been  set  fire  to  by  command  of  O'Brian,  in  order  that  Limerick,  as  he  remarked, 
might  never  again  he  made  a  nest  of  foreigners.*  It  is  said,  that  when  Henry  was  told 
of  Raymond's  conduct  respecting  Limerick,  he  pronounced  the  following  generous  and 
soldierly  judgment  upon  it: — "  Great  courage  was  shown  in  the  taking  of  the  town; 
greater  in  the  recovery  of  it;  but  wisdom  only  in  the  abandonment  of  it."+ 

On  the  arrival  of  Raymond  in  Dublin,  the  earl's  remains  were  interred  with  the  pomp 
becoming  his  station,  in  the  Cathedral  Church,  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  now  Christ  Church, 
in  that  city  ; — the  archbishop  Laurence  presiding  over  the  ceremony. 

The  political  position  occupied  by  Strongbow,  in  relation  to  Ireland,  renders  it  diffi- 
cult to  sum  up,  impartially,  any  general  estimate  of  liis  character;  the  very  same  qualities 
and  achievements  which  won  for  him  the  eulogies  of  one  party,  having  drawn  down  on  his 
memory,  from  the  other,  the  most  bitter  censure  and  hate.  What  his  own  countrymen 
have  lauded  as  vigour  and  public  spirit,  those  who  were  the  victims  of  his  stern  policy 
have  pronounced  to  be  the  grossest  exaction  and  tyranny.  Full  allowance,  of  course,  is 
to  be  made  for  the  difficulties  and  odium  of  such  a  position  ;  and  where  there  are  great 
or  shining  qualities  to  divert  censure  from  the  almost  unavoidable  wrongs  which  a  mili- 
tary adventurer  in  a  foreign  land  is,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  mission,  led  to  inflict,  the 
historian,  in  such  cases,  may  fairly  suffer  his  judgment  to  relax  into  some  degree  of 
leniency  in  its  verdict. 

The  splendid  results,  as  far  as  regarded  his  own  personal  power  and  enrichment, 

*  The  Abb6  O'Geoghegan,  in  the  fullness  of  his  Irish  zeal,  thus  endeavours  to  defend  this  unchivalrous  act 
of  O'Brian  :— "  Cettc  action  d'O'Brien,  que  les  Anglois  ont  traitiie  dc  perfldie  insigne,  n'esl  pas  auFsi  noire 
qu'elle  le  paroit  d'ahord.  II  faiit  obsserver  que  c'litoit  le  dofaiil  de  tout  autre  dt^fcnscur  qui  avoit  engagii  les 
Anglois  a  confier  cett  place  a  O'Brien.  Celui-ci  ne  seinbloit-il  pas  dispcns6  de  reconnoissance  pour  une  confi- 
ance  .-i  laquelle  forcnit  la  necessitci  ?  D'ailleurs  O'Brien  tUoit  naturellement  le  maitre  dc  cette  contr6e  ;  ne 
semblet  il  pas  juste  qu'il  usat  de  I'uniqe  moyen  qu'il  avoit  pour  I'arracher  a  d'injustes  usurpateurs,  et  qui 
fctoit  de  detruire  leurs  places  ?" 

t  "  Magnus  fiiit  ausus  in  aggrediendo;  major  in  subveniendo  ;  sed  sapientia  solum  in  deserendo."  Jhbern. 
Expugnat.  1.  2.  c.  15. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  281 

which  arose  out  of  Strongbow's  Irish  expedition,  threw  round  his  career  that  sort  of  spuri- 
ous lustre,  which  great  success,  however  attained,  is  almost  always  sure  to  impart ;  and 
that  this  success,  as  well  as  the  courage  by  which  it  was  achieved,  recommended  h  im  to 
Henry's  favour,  appears  from  that  prince  having  called  in  his  aid  when  pressed  by  the 
dangers  he  was  exposed  to  by  the  rebellion  of  his  two  sons.  But  here  all  the  grounds  on 
which  we  can  rest  any  favourable  opinion  of  Strongbow's  character  are  exhausted  ;  nor 
does  he  appear  to  have  possessed  any  one  great  or  elevating  quality,  by  which  the  views 
that  tirst  prompted  his  enterprize  could  be  ennobled,  or  the  means  which  he  adopted  for 
their  accomplishment  can  be  palliated.  Even  in  warfare — the  walk  where  his  talents 
most  shone — it  is  evident  that  he  was  wanting  in  one  of  the  chief  requisites  of  a  general, 
the  power  of  originating  plans  of  military  operations;  as  we  learn,  from  a  most  flattering 
painter  of  iiis  character,  Gerald  of  Cambria,  that  all  his  enterprizes  were  advised  and 
planned  for  him  by  others,  and  tliat  he  never  of  himself  ventured  upon  any  movement  in 
tUe  field. 

How  strong  was  the  traditional  impression  of  the  cruelty  of  his  character,  appears 
from  the  tale  told — whether  truly  or  not  appears  more  than  doubtful — of  his  inhuman 
Conduct  towards  his  son.  This  youth,  as  already  has  been  stated,  having  been  alarmed 
by  the  war-cry  of  the  Irish,*  at  the  battle  of  the  Pass,  in  Idrone,  fled  in  a  panic  to  Dublin, 
and  there  announced  that  Strongbow  and  his  army  had  all  been  destroyed.  When  assured 
however  of  his  mistake,  he  hastened  to  join  the  earl  in  his  camp,  and  was  cheerfully  con- 
gratulating iiim  on  his  victory,'  when  the  inhuman  father  drew  his  sword,  and,  as  the 
tradition  runs,  cut  the  ill-fated  youth  in  two.f 

The  taste  for  founding  and  endowing  religious  establishments,  which  prevailed  at  this 
time  among  the  chiefs  of  both  nations,  presented  a  painful  contrast  to  the  scenes  of  blood 
and  havoc  in  which  they  were  almost  daily  engaged;  more  especially  as  the  wealth  cm- 
ployed  for  such  pious  uses  was,  in  general,  the  unholy  produce  of  spoliation  and  wrong. 
We  have  already  seen  that  the  traitor,  Dermot,  was  most  liberal  in  his  endowment  of 
religious  houses;  and  his  son-in-law,  Strongbow,  follov\7iiig  in  his  footsteps,  founded  at 
Kilmainham,  near  Dublin,  a  priory  for  knights  of  the  order  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem.^ 
But  how  little  even  this  lord's  munificence  to  the  church  could  conciliate  respect  for  his 
memory,  appears  from  the  terms  in  which  an  English  chronicler,  of  his  own  times,  speaks 
of  his  death  :  "He  carried  to  tiie  grave  with  him,"  says  William  of  Neubridge,  "  no  part 
of  those  Irish  spoils  he  had  coveted  so  eagerly  after  in  life,  putting  to  risk  even  his  eter- 
nal salvation  to  amass  them  ;  but  at  last,  leaving  to  unthankful  heirs  all  he  had  acquired 
through  so  much  toil  and  danger,  he  afforded  by  iiis  fate  a  salutary  lesson  to  mankmd."5 
Strongbow  left  by  his  wife  Eva,  the  daughter  of  Dermot,  king  of  Leinster,  an  only  child, |i 
named  Isabel,  heiress  of  all  his  vast  possessions,  and  afterwards  married  to  William 
Mareschall,  earl  of  Pembroke. 

*  See  Harris  on  Ware,  Mniiq.  chap.  21.  sect.  3.  Harris,  hy  the  way,  has  done  injustice  here  to  Staniliurst,  in 
numbering  him  among  those  who  subscribed  to  the  Gadelian,  or  Milesian  legend  ;  that  writer's  views  on  the 
subject  being,  as  the  foUowing  passage  will  show,  such  as  most  men  of  any  sense,  if  they  give  but  fair  play 
to  their  understanding,  must  take  :— "  Habuerint  Scoti,  sicut  et  pluriniie  quondam  nationes,  que  jam  nunc 
oelebritate  famae  in  magno  nomine  sunt,  sua  quasi  cunabula,  aliqua  barbarie  infuscata.  Et  hoc  prudentius 
esset  confiteri,  quam  commentitia  hac  rerum  gestarum  gloria,  seipsos  apud  imperitos  venditare." — De  Reb. 
Uibern.  1.  1. 

The  misrepresentation  wliich  Harris  has  given  of  Stanihnrst's  opinions  he  took  upon  trust  from  Spenser 
(FicM  of  the  Slate  of  Ireland,)  who  has  hiinself  hazarded  an  explanation  of  the  cry  "  Farrah,"  which  is 
hardly  less  absurd  than  the  other.  "  Here  also,"  he  says,  "  lyeth  open  another  manifest  proofe  that  the  Irish 
bee  Scythes,  or  Scots,  for  in  all  their  encounters  they  use  one  very  common  word,  crying  Ferragh,  Ferragh, 
which  is  a  Scottish  word,  to  wit,  the  flame  of  one  of  the  first  kings  of  Scotland  called  Feragus,  or  Fer- 
gus." 

t  "  This  tradition,"  says  Leiand,  "  receives  some  countenance  from  the  ancient  monument  in  the  cathedral 
of  Dublin,  in  which  the  statue  of  the  son  of  Strongijow  is  continued  only  to  the  middle,  with  the  bowels  open 
and  supported  by  tlie  hands.  But  as  this  monument  was  erected  some  centuries  after  the  death  of  Strongbow, 
it  is  of  the  less  authority.  The  Irish  annals,"  lie  adds,  "repeatedly  mention  the  carl's  sou  as  engaged  iR 
several  actions  posterior  to  this  period." 

Stanihurst  mentions  that,  by  the  falling  in  of  a  part  of  the  cathedral  in  the  year  1563,  this  monument  was 
very  much  injured,  but  through  the  care  of  Sir  Henry  Sidney  was  afterwards  repaired  and  restored.—"  Co- 
aclis  fabris  marmoreum  parentis  et  nati  tynibon  singulari  opre  artificioque  interpolandum  curavit." 

I  "The  noble  founder,"  says  Archdall,  "had  eiifeofted  the  prior  in  the  whole  lands  ef  Kilmaiiiham." 
Monast.  Hibern.  He  adds  that  "king  Henry  II.  having  enfeotfed  Hugh  Tirrell  the  elder  in  the  lands  of  Kihna- 
halloch,  with  the  appurtenances,  together  with  the  moiety  of  the  river  Liffey  as  far  as  the  water-course  near 
the  gallows,  Hugh  bestowed  the  said  lands  on  the  prior  of  this  hospital. 

§  Ex  Hibernicis  raanuhils  quibus  multum  inhiaverat  et  pro  quibus  tam  multiim  cum  periculo  sudaverat 
salutis,nihll  secum.hinc  abiens  bomoille  poi-tavit;sed  laboriose  p^riculoeequequassita  ingratis  relinquens  here- 
dibus;   saltibrem  quoque  multis  ex  suo  occasu  doctrinain  reliquit.— TJcr.  ,^ngl.  1.  2.  c.  26. 

J  There  is  some  confusion  in  the  accounts  given  by  different  historians  of  the  number  and  sex  of  the  chil- 
dren Strongbow  left  behind  him.  The  chronicler  Dicelo  states,  in  opposition  to  all  the  known  facts  that  a  boy, 
by  the  princess  Eva,  scarce  three  years  old,  was  his  heir:—"  Pilium  vix  plone  iriennem,  ex  filia  memorati 
regis  sullalum  relinquens  liEPredem."  According  to  Lord  Lyttelton,  he  left  a  son  and  a  daughter,  both  infants. 
But  a  male  child  by  Eva  would  have  inherited,  of  course,  the  Irish  possessions;  and  any  sons  the  earl  might 
have  had  by  a  former  wife  were  no  longer  infants. 

35 


282  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

On  Strongbow's  death,  the  two  English  noblemen  who  had  been  sent  by  Henry  to 
assist  him  in  his  government  returned  to  that  prince,  leaving  in  Raymond's  hands  all  the 
authority  of  the  state  till  the  will  of  the  sovereign  should  be  known.  As  no  opportunity, 
however,  had  yet  been  afforded  for  a  refutation  of  the  charges  advanced  against  Raymond, 
the  king's  jealousy  of  the  influence  of  that  officer  still  remained  unabated.  Accordingly, 
he  sent  into  Ireland,  as  his  justiciary,  or  viceroy,  William  Fitz-Aldelm,  attended  by  a 
guard  often  knights  of  his  own  household,  and  having  under  his  order,  with  each  a  simi- 
lar train,  John  de  Courcy,  Robert  Fitz-iStephen,  and  Milo  de  Cogan  ;  all  of  whom  had 
served  the  king  gallantly,  both  in  England  and  France.  On  being  apprised  of  their 
arrival,  Raymond  hastened  tn  meet  them,  on  the  borders  of  Wexford,  with  a  cliosen  body 
of  cavalry ;  and  having  received  them  with  all  due  marks  of  respect,  went  through  the 
ceremony  of  delivering  up  to  the  deputy  all  the  cities  and  castles  held  by  the  English,  as 
well  as  the  hostages  of  the  princes  or  cliieftains  of  Ireland  committed  to  his  keeping. 

A  proof  of  the  jealousy  already  entertained  of  the  Geraldine  family,  of  which  Raymond 
was  one  of  the  earliest  and  noblest  ornaments,  is  mentioned  by  the  clironicler  as  having 
occurred  during  this  ceremonial.  On  seeing  him  approach  at  the  head  of  so  fine  a  troop 
of  young  men,  all  of  their  leader's  own  kindred,  bearing  the  same  coat  of  arms  embla- 
zoned on  tiieir  shields,  and  all  mounted  on  beautiful  horses,  which  they  coursed  playfully 
over  the  field,  Fitz-Aldelm  said,  in  a  low  voice,  to  some  of  his  attendants,  "  I  will  shortly 
check  this  pride,  and  disperse  these  shields  ;"*  and  from  that  iiour,  adds  the  chronicler, 
such  was  the  policy  pursued,  not  only  by  Fitz-Aldelm  himself  but  by  every  deputy  who 
succeeded  him.  Nor  was  it  long  before  an  opportunity  fur  the  display  of  this  feeling  was 
furnished  by  the  death  of  JMaurice  Fitz-Gerald,  the  original  stock  from  whence,  by  the 
three  sons  he  left  behind,  have  descended  all  the  noble  and  illustrious  families  of  this 
name  in  Ireland.  Scarcely  had  the  bre:ith  left  his  frame,  when  Fjtz-Aldelm  seized  on 
the  castle  of  Wicklow,  which  strongbow  had  granted  to  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald  for  his 
services;  and,  by  way  of  atonement  for  this  injustice,  gave  to  the  three  sons  the  small 
city  of  Ferns;  where,  however,  from  the  want  of  strongholds,  they  were  much  exposed 
to  the  incursions  of  the  neighbouring  inhabitants.  They  had  built,  for  the  security  of 
their  territory,  a  rude  fortress  ;  but  this,  by  order  of  Walter  Aleman,  Fitz-Aldelm's 
nephew,  in  consequence,  it  is  said,  of  bribes  received  from  the  natives,  was  maliciously 
razed  to  t!ie  ground. 

How  unavailing,  sometimes,  were  even  such  defences  against  sudden  attacks,  had 
been  seen  on  a  late  occasion,  when  the  castle  of  Slane,  in  Meath,  which  had  been  granted 
by  De  Lacy  to  Richard  le  Fleming,  having  been  surprised  by  the  Irish  chief  to  whom 
that  principality  legitimately  belonged,  the  whole  garrison  and  inmates  of  the  castle 
were  put  to  the  sword,  ^nd  Le  Fleming  himself  slain.  Such  alarm  did  this  event  spread 
throughout  Meath,  that  the  garrisons  of  three  other  castles,  built  by  the  same  lord,  all 
quitted  them  the  following  day. 

The  unpopularity  which  attended  Fitz-Aldelm's  administration  may  be  sufficiently  ac- 
counted for  from  its  general  character,  without  laying  much  stress  on  the  particular 
charges  which  have  been  brought  against  it  by  the  chroniclers  ;  and  the  simple  fact,  that 
he  was  actuated  in  his  government  more  by  political  than  by  military  considerations, 
abundantly  explains  the  contemptuous  impatience  with  which  he  was  submitted  to  by  the 
colonists,  who,  being  for  the  most  part  armed  and  rapacious  adventurers,  had  hitherto 
prospered,  and  expected  still  farther  to  prosper,  by  the  trenchant  policy  of  the  sword. 
Among  those  most  impatient  of  such  inaction  was  .Tohn  de  Courcy,  a  baron  second  in 
command  toFitz-Aldclm,  and  gifted  with  extraordinary  prowess  and  daring.  Having 
looked  to  Ireland  as  a  field  of  spoil  and  adventure,  De  Courcy  was  determined  not  to  be 
baulked  in  his  anticipations:  so,  choosing  out  of  the  troops  under  his  command  a  body 
of  two-and-tvventy  knights,  and  about  three  hundred  other  soldiers,  he  proposed  to  lead 
them  into  the  heart  of  Ulster, — a  region  unvisited  yet  by  the  English  arms,  and  there- 
fore opening  to  his  fierce  ambition  a  fresh  source  of  aggrandizement  and  military  fame. 

At  the  beginning  of  tlie  year  1177,  in  defiance  of  a  peremptory  order  from  the  deputy, 
De  Courcy  sot  out  from  Dublin  with  this  small  Ibrce,  and  arrived  in  four  days,  by  a  rapid 
march  at  Downpatrick,  the  metropolis  of  Ulidia.f  or  Down,  and  the  residence  of  the  king 
of  that  territory,  Roderic  Mac  Dunlevy.  The  alarm  caused  by  this  inroad  of  foreigners 
into  a  country  where  they  had  hitherto  been  known  but  by  rumour,  and  where,  trusting  to 
their  distance  from  the  seat  of  conflict,  the  inhabitants  were  unprepared  with  the  means 
of  defence,  was  at  first  so  general  and   overwhelming,  that  scarce   any  resistance  was 

*  "  All  suos  so  vprtens,  ilemissa  voce,  suporbiain  Iianc,  intiuit,  in  brevi  coniprimam  et  clypeos  istos  dispej- 
gam." — Ilibcrn.  Kxpngiiat   I.  3.  c.  15. 

t  Ulidia  or  Ullah,  comprised  at  the  most  tlie  now  county  of  Down,  and  some  parts  of  Antrim. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  283 

made;  and  the  people  of  the  town,  unapprised  of  the  approach  of  an  enemy  till  they  heard, 
at  day  break,  the  clangour  of  the  English  bugles  sounding*'  in  their  streets,  became  helpless 
victims  of  the  rage  and  rapacity  of  the  soldiery.  It  happened  that  the  pope's  legate, 
cardinal  Vivian,  was  then  at  Downpalrick,  having  arrived  there  a  short  time  before 
from  Scotland;!  and,  struck  with  horror  at  this  unprovoked  aggression,  he  endeavoured 
to  mediate  terms  of  peace  between  the  two  parties;  proposing  that  De  Courcy  should 
withdraw  his  army  from  Ulidia,  on  condition  of  the  prince  of  that  country  paying  tribute 
to  Henry. 

This  offer  De  Courcy  sternly  refused  ;  and  Vivian,  provoked  by  such  gross  injustice,  now 
strenuously  advised  the  Ulidian  Prince,  and  even  besought  him,  as  he  valued  his  blessing, 
to  stand  up  manfully  in  defence  of  his  violated  territories.^  The  panic  into  wiiich  the 
natives  had  at  first  been  thrown  having  by  this  time  subsided,  a  large  tumultuary  force 
was  collected,  consisting  of  no  less,  it  is  said  than  ten  thousand  men ;  at  the  head  of 
which  the  king  marched  to  drive  the  enemy  from  his  capital.  De  Courcy,  however, 
advanced  from  the  town  to  meet  them,  and  a  hard-fought  battle  ensued,  in  which  this 
lord  himself  and  some  of  his  knights  performed  prodigies  of  valour,  and  which  ended  in 
the  total  defeat  and  rout  of  the  Irish.J  In  the  course  of  the  action,  Malachy,  the  bishop 
of  Down,  was  taken  prisoner ;  but,  through  the  intercession  of  the  cardinal  was  again 
set  at  liberty,  and  restored  to  his  see. 

With  the  superstition  common  to  most  of  the  heroes  of  tliat  period,  De  Courcy  per- 
suaded himself  that  he  had,  by  this  expedition  fulfilled  a  prophecy  of  Mirlin,  which  had 
declared,  that  a  white  knight,  sitting  on  a  white  horse,  and  bearing  birds  on  his  shield, 
would  be  the  first  that  with  force  of  arms  would  enter  and  invade  Ulster.  The  impor- 
tant battle,  also,  which  he  had  now  gained,  was  the  same  predicted,  as  he  fancied,  in 
one  of  St.  Columba's  prophecies ;  where  it  was  foretold,  that  so  great  would  be  the 
carnage  of  the  Irish,  that  the  enemy  would  wade  up  to  the  knees  in  their  blood.  So 
strongly  had  the  predictions  of  this  saint  affected  De  Courcy's  imatriiiation||,  that  he 
always  carried  about  with  him  a  book, IT  in  the  Irish  language,  wherein  they  were 
written,  and  slept  with  it  under  his  pillow;  regarding  these  prophecies  as  a  sort  of 
"  mirror"  of  the  wondrous  achievements  he  was  himself  destined  to  perform.  In  the 
month  of  June  following,  De  Courcy  again  defeated  an  army  of  the  Ultonians;  and 
among  the  English  wounded  in  this  second  conflict,  was  Armoric  of  St.  Laurence, 
ancestor  of  the  barons  of  Howth. 

While  John  de  Courcy  was  thus  overrunning  Ulster,  where  his  small  force  had  ex- 
tended  their  incursions  into  Dalriada  and  Tyrone,  the  legate,  whose  mission,  notwithstand- 
ing his  generous  effort  in  favour  of  the  Ultonians,  hnd  for  its  object  to  forward  Henry's 
designs  upon  Ireland,  proceeded  to  Dublin,  and  there  convoked  a  general  council  of 
bishops  and  abbots;  in  which  setting  forth  the  right  of  dominion  over  that  country  con- 
ferred by  the  pope  upon  Henry,  he  impressed  on  them  the  necessity  of  paying  obedience 
to  such  high  authority  under  pain  of  excommunication.  He  also,  among  other  regula- 
tions, promulgated  at  this  council,  gave  leave  to  the  English  soldiers  to  provide  themselves 
with  victuals  for  their  expeditions  out  o^  the  churches,  into  which,  as  inviolable  sanctu- 
aries, they  used  to  be  removed  by  the  natives; — merely  ordering,  that,  for  the  provisions 
thus  taken,  a  reasonable  price  should  be  paid  to  the  rectors  of  the  churches. 

Soon  after  the  dissolution  of  this  council,  we  find  another  expedition  undertaken  by 
the  English,  and  under  circumstances  peculiarly  disgraceful  to  most  of  the  parties  concerned 
in  it.     Some  bitter  quarrel  having  for  a  long  time  existed  between  Roderic  O'Connor  and 

*  "  Adeo  inexpectatus  penetravit,  ut  cives,  metu  vacui,  Britannicas  copias  in  Ultoniam  influere  minime 
Eomniarint,  usque  eo  dum,  in  variis  parlibus  urbis  distuibalis,  buccinarum  clangor  prima  luce  intonuit." 
Stanihurst,  I.  4. 

t  Hibern-  Expugnat.  1.  2.  c.  16.  Gulielin.  Neubrig.  1.  3.,  c- 9.  Leland  mistakenly  represents  Vivian  as 
having  come  to  Ireland  in  the  train  of  FitzAldelm,  the  new  justiciary. 

J  "Qui  pugnandum  pro  patria  esse  dixit,  et  pugnaturis  cum  obsecrationibus  benedixit."  Oulielm.  JVeuirig. 
ut  svprd. 

§  Adopting  the  improbable  statement  of  GiraUius  respecting  this  battle  that  the  number  of  Irish  engaged  in 
it  was  ten  thousand,  while  their  victors,  the  English,  were  not  quite  four  hundred,  Stanihurst  yet  falls  into 
the  gross  absurdity  of  praising  the  military  valour  on  both  sides  as  equal.  Thus,  for  the  mere  pleasure,  as  it 
would  seen),  of  turning  a  turgid  sentence,  he  says,  "Nulli  parti  niilitaris  virtus  deest  sed  victoriio  elargitor, 
Deus,"  &c.  &.C.  Again,  "  Ultonienses,  ut  est  hominum  genus  natura.  et  usu  valde  bellicosum,  nam  conducti 
in  armis  jevum  agunt,  visis  Brilaanis,  non  timide  ac  diffidenter,  sed  ordinate  et  audacter  processum  effi- 
ciunt." 

II  According  to  Stanihurst,  John  de  Courcy,  in  his  anxiety  to  adapt  these  prophecies  to  himself,  took  the  not 
unskilful  mode  of  adapting  himself  to  the  prophecies;  and,  with  ihat  view,  provided  for  his  own  equipment, 
in  proceeding  to  Ulster,  a  white  horse,  a  shield  with  bnes  on  it,  and  all  the  other  foretold  appendages  of  the 
destined  conqueror  of  Ulidia;  so  tluit,  as  Stanihurst  expresses  it,  "  he  sallied  forth  like  an  actor,  dressed  to 
perform  a  part :"— ut  in  Ultoniam,  tanquam  porsonatus  comcedus,  advolarit." 

ir  "  Ip.se  vero  Joannes  librum  nunc  proiihetlcum  Habernice  scriptum  tanquam  operum  suorum  speculum  pr<e 
manibus  dicitur  habuisse." — Girald.  "  Ad  doruiieudum  proliciscens,  eundeni  sub  cubicularis  lecli  pulviuo  col- 
locaret."— 5£a(u/jM»-»f. 


284  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

his  eldest  son  Murtawh,  the  young  prince  had  in  consequence  of  these  differences  fled  to 
Dublin,  and  invited  Fitz-Aldelm  to  make  war  upon  his  father,  offering  himself  to  conduct 
into  Connaught  tlie  army  destined  to  this  service.  It  does  not  appear  that  there  had 
been  on  the  part  of  Roderic  any  violation  of  the  treaty  entered  into  with  Henry,  or  that, 
by  any  offensive  step  whatsoever,  he  had  given  provocation  to  the  English  government. 
The  hope  of  being  able,  however,  to  profit  by  this  family  feud,  to  render  it  the  means  of 
dividing  and  distracting  the  strength  of  Connaught,  and  thereby  facilitate  the  acquisition 
of  that  province  for  Henry,  was  far  too  tempting  to  be  easily  resisted.  Accordingly  Fitz- 
Aldelm,  though  drained  already  of  a  part  of  his  army  by  the  detachment  led  into  Ulster 
by  De  Courcy,  was  yet  able  to  send,  under  Milo  de  Cogan,  in  aid  of  the  unnatural  son's 
treason,  a  force  of  horsemen  and  archers,  amounting  to  more  than  500  men. 

Crossing  the  Shannon,  these  troops  advanced  as  far  as  Tuam,  unresisted,  finding  neither 
people  nor  provisions  throughout  the  whole  of  the  way.  The  inhabitants  had  retired, 
with  their  families  and  cattle,  to  the  fastnesses  of  the  hills,  or  into  inaccessible  woods, 
first  destroying  all  such  stores  of  provisions  as  were  not  concealed  in  subterranean  gran- 
aries; and,  when  they  had  not  time  to  remove  them  from  the  houses  and  churches,  setting 
fire  to  the  towns  themselves  in  which  these  structures  stood,  and  thus  consuming  all  to- 
gether. So  completely  did  this  mode  of  proceeding  distress  and  baffle  their  invaders, 
that  at  the  end  of  eight  days  they  were  compelled  to  return,  and  without  having  gained  a 
single  advantage.  On  approaching  the  Shannon,  they  were  suddenly  attacked  by  Ro- 
deric O'Connor,  who  had  waited  their  coming,  with  a  large  force,  in  a  wood  not  far  from 
that  river;  and,  after  suffering  considerable  loss,  they  at  length  forced  their  way,  and 
succeeded  in  reaching  Dublin.  Rodefic's  son,  the  traitor  Murtagh,  was  taken  prisoner 
in  this  action;  and  the  men  of  Connaught, — not  one  of  whom,  it  appears,  had  followed 
his  example  in  joining  the  foreigners, — delivered  him  up  into  the  hands  of  his  father,  who 
punished  his  treason,  according  to  the  barbarous  fashion  of  those  times,  by  depriving  him 
of  his  eyes. 

To  a  mind  acute  as  was  that  of  Henry,  it  must  have  become,  at  this  time,  sufficiently 
manifest,  that  out  of  such  crude  and  discordant  elements  as  were  now  conflicting  in  Ire- 
land, neither  peace  nor  order  were  likely  soon  to  rise;  and  that  the  grasp  of  one  strong 
and  steady  hand,  acting  with  immediate,  not  deputed,  power,  and  coercmg  all  parties 
alike  into  obedience  and  observance  of  justice,  presented  the  sole  means  or  hope  that 
human  policy  could  suggest  for  the  reduction  of  so  crude  and  complicated  a  chaos 
into  order.  Fated  as  Ireland  was  by  her  position,  and  even  still  more  by  the  feuds 
prevailing  among  her  own  people,  to  become  subject  to  foreign  dominion,  the  presence, 
for  a  few  years,  of  a  ruler  like  Henry  in  the  land,  with  an  army  large  enough  to 
render  resistance  hopeless,  would,  by  lending  to  the  new  institutions  introduced  by 
him  at  once  enforcement  and  superintendence,  have  secured  both  their  reception  by  the 
country,  and  their  adaptation  to  its  peculiar  habits  and  wants;  and  in  this  manner,  per- 
haps, tlie  euthanasia  of  Ireland's  independence  might,  with  advantage  and  honour  to  both 
countries,  have  been  effected.  At  all  events,  the  world  would,  in  that  case,  have  been 
spared  the  anomalous  spectacle  that  has  been  ever  since  presented  by  the  two  nations; — 
the  one  subjected,  without  being  subdued;  the  other  rulers,  but  not  masters;  the  one 
doomed  to  all  that  is  tumultuous  in  independence,  without  its  freedom;  the  other  endued 
with  every  attribute  of  despotism,  except  its  power. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  Henry  was  sufficiently  aware  of  the  value  of  Ireland,  to 
have  taken  more  pains  in  laying  the  foundations  of  the  English  power  in  that  kingdom, 
had  the  cares  attendant  on  so  vast  an  extent  of  dominion,  and  the  anxieties  caused  by  his 
domestic  troubles,  allowed  him  the  leisure  and  thought  requisite  for  such  a  task.  The 
plan  which  occurred  to  him  about  this  time,  of  investing  his  youngest  son  John  with  the 
lordship  of  Ireland,  is  supposed  to  have  been  suggested  by  the  wish  to  supply,  as  far  as 
was  practicable,  the  want  of  the  royal  presence  and  sanction,  in  the  administration  of 
that  country's  affairs.*  He  might  also,  in  taking  this  step,  have  been  somewhat  in- 
fluenced by  the  general  rage  for  subinfudations  which  naturally  prevailed  in  an  age 
when  land  was  regarded  as  a  source  more  of  power  than  of  revenue,  and  which,  at 
this  period,  had  converted  France  into  a  vast  assemblage  of  fiefs.  As  his  claim  to  the 
kingdom  of  Ireland  had  originally  been  founded   on  a  grant  from  the  see  of  Rome,t 

*  "Some  method  to  supply,  so  far  as  it  could  be  supplied,  tlie  want  of  liis  presence,  was  therefore  to  be 
sought ;  and  he  judged,  very  truly,  that  the  Irish  nation,  accustomed  through  the  course  of  many  ages  to  be 
governed  by  princes  of  as  ancient  nival  blood  as  any  in  Europe,  would  not  easily  be  kept  patient  under  the 
rule  of  his  servants."— iorrf  LyltcUon,  Book  5. 

t  An  anonymous  writer  thus  puts  the  dilemma  in  which  those  kings  of  England  were  involved,  who  set 
forth  the  authority  of  Adrian's  IJull  as  the  ground  of  their  claims  to  the  dominion  of  Ireland:—"  Deindc 
interrogo  Anglos  an  Ilenricus  ille  secundus  accepcrit  Hiberniani  sibi  et  successoribus  a  Romano  Pontitke  jure 
feudal!  necne  ?  Si  regant,  ad  quid  pro  se  cilant  liullam  illiin?  Si  atlirment,  ergo  Reges  Anglia;  sunt  feudatarii  el 
vassalli.  Summi  I'ontificis,  cujus  potestatem  ad  compriniendum  regnuin  agnoscunt,  et  iu  cateris  reganl." 
JMspulal.    ^pologetica  de  Jure  rcgni  Hiheniia:.    Francfourt,  1645. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  285 

to  the  same  source  he  now  thoug;ht  it  right  to  apply  for  approval  of  the  intended  en- 
feoffment.* Permission  was  accordingly  granted  to  him  by  Alexander  III.,  to  bestow 
that  sovereignty  either  upon  John,  or  any  other  of  his  sons  he  might  choose;  and,  also,  to 
reduce  to  complete  obedience  such  chiefs  of  Ireland  as  might  prove  refractory. 

In  prosecution  of  this  object,  Henry,  about  the  middle  of  May  in  the  year  1177,  assem- 
bled a  council  of  prelates  and  barons  at  Oxford,  and,  in  their  presence,  constituted  his 
son  John  king  of  Ireland. f  Notwithstanding,  however,  this  solemn  announcement  of 
his  title,  the  young  prince  was  never  afterwards,  in  any  document  that  has  came  down  to 
us,  styled  otherwise  than  lord  of  Ireland,  and  earl  of  Moreton.  In  conformity  with  this 
change  in  the  tenure  by  which  that  realm  was  held,  Henry  confirmed  his  grant  of 
Meath  to  Hugh  de  Lacy,  by  a  new  charter,  wherein  it  was  set  down  that  this 
lord  for  the  future,  was  to  hold  that  province  under  him  and  his  son;  and  by  the  i^'.^^ 
service,  not,  as  before,  of  fifty  only,  but  of  a  hundred  knights.  He  also  granted, 
at  this  time,  to  Robert  Fitz-Stephen  and  Milo  de  Cogan,  the  kingdom  of  Cork,  or,  aa 
it  was  otherwise  called,  Desmond ;  to  be  held  of  him  and  his  son  John,  and  their  heirs, — 
with  the  exception  of  the  city  of  Cork,  and  the  adjoining  cantreds,];  which  Henry  re- 
tained in  his  own  hands,  but  of  which  Fitz-Stephen  and  Cogan  were  to  have  the  custody 
for  him.  It  appears,  however,  that  notwithstanding  this  grant,  ihey  acquired  possession  of 
but  a  small  part  of  that  territory;  and  that,  two  years  after,  tiiey  were  obliged  to  content 
themselves  with  but  seven  cantreds  near  the  city  between  them  both,  while  no  less  than 
twenty-four  cantreds  remained  still  out  of  their  power,  as  well  as  of  the  king's, — not  having 
yet  been  brought  under  subjection. 

A  grant  which  proved,  in  the  same  manner,  to  be  rather  nominal  than  real,  was  that 
which  Henry  made,  some  time  after,  of  the  kingdom  of  Limerick,  or  North  Munster,  to 
the  two  brothers  of  the  earl  of  Cornwall,  and  Josselin  de  Pumerai,  their  nephew.  As 
the  granted  territory  was  still  in  the  possession  of  its  rightful  ruler,  Donald  O'Brien, 
who  had  shown  both  the  will  and  the  power  to  defend  it  to  the  last,  these  English  lords 
deemed  it  most  prudent  to  decline  so  precarious  a  gift.J  The  same  principality,  however, 
was  again  made  the  subject  of  a  grant  by  Henry,  who  bestowed  it  as  a  fief,  to  be  held  of 
him  and  his  son,  on  Philip  de  Braosa ;  and  this  baron,  aided  by  De  Cogan,  and  Fitz-Ste- 
phen, marched  an  army  towards  the  Shannon,  with  the  view  of  seizing  upon  Limerick. 
But  the  inhabitants  had  determined  to  sacrifice  the  city  rather  than  suffer  it  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  English;  and  when  he  advanced  to  the  margin  of  the  river,  he  beheld 
Limerick  all  in  flames.  Struck  by  the  determined  resolution  whicli  this  act  of  despair 
implied,  De  Braosa,  though  naturally,  as  we  are  told,  not  wanting  in  courage,  hesitated 
to  advance.  In  vain  did  his  confederates,  De  Cogan  and  Fitz-Stephen,  who  were  well 
accustomed  to  such  scenes,  urge  him  to  accompany  them  across  the  river,  and  offered 
to  build  for  him  a  fort,  on  the  other  side,  from  whence  he  could  command  the  city. 
Between  his  own  fears||  and  those  of  his  followers— who  were  the  very  refuse,  it  appears, 
of  the  population  of  South  Wales — a  general  panic  sprung  up  among  them;  and  ex- 
hibiting a  rare  instance,  it  must  be  owned,  of  want  of  courage  among  the  English 


*  Perquisiverat  enim  ab  Alexandro  summo  Pontifice  quod  liceret  ei  filiuni  suum  quem  veTlet  regem  Hi&er- 
ni.-c  facere  et  similitex"  coronare  ac  regis  potentes  ejusdem  terrai  qui  subjectioneiu  ei  facere  nollent  detellare. 
Bro7nton. 

t  "  Oxoniam  profectus  est,  &c.    Johannem  filium  totius  Hibeinioe  reffulum  facit." — Pohjdore  Virgil. 

X  According  to  Giraldus,  a  cantred  was  such  a  portion  of  land  as  usually  contains  a  hundred  towns;  so 
that,  says  Ware,  "  the  quantity  of  a  cantred  or  century,  which  is  the  same  with  the  Saxon  hundred,  is  no  way 
ascertained  by  any  fixed  measure;  and,  as  the  quantity  of  a  cantred  is  variable  and  uncertain,  so  also  is 
the  quantity  of  a  carucale,  or  plow-land,  which  is  greater  or  less  according  to  the  nature  or  quality  of  the 
soil;  though  it  is  commonly  reported  to  be  such  a  portion  of  land  as  can  give  employment  to  one  plow  through 
the  year."    In  a  registry  of  the  Abbey  of  DuisU,  Coiinaught  is  said  to  contain  only  26  cantreds. 

The  Welsh  had  anciently  the  territorial  division  of  cantrefs,  every  cantref  containing  a  hundred  towns,  or 
25,600  acres. — Leges  Wallicce,  quoted  by  Turner,  book  15.  c.  3. 

The  division  of  the  people  into  hundreds  appears  to  have  been  a  custom  of  the  ancient  Germans  (Oerman, 
Tacit.,)  though  Murphy,  in  his  difluse  translation  of  the  words  "  centeni  ex  singulis  pagis  sunt,"  has  taken 
for  granted  nmch  more  than  the  passage  implies.  "Each  canton,"  he  makes  Tacitus  say, " sends  a  Iiundred ; 
— from  that  circumstance  called  hundredors  by  the  army." 

The  following  remarks  of  Mr.  Monk  Mason,  on  the  subject  of  the  Irish  cantreds,  are  curious:—"  There  are 
strong  presumptions,  arising  from  the  Irish  Topography  of  Girald.  Cambrens.,  written  about  1185,  and  from 
other  incontrovertible  evidences,  that  a  rude  survey  of  Ireland  was  made  by  Henry  II.,  in  imitation  of 
Doomsday-Book.  Girald.,  speaking  of  the  ancient  regal  divisions  of  Ireland  into  five  portions,  observes,  that 
each  part  contains  32  cantreds.  When  wo  reflect  on  the  technical  word  he  uses,  we  may  be  sure  that  some 
degree  of  accuracy  was  attended  to;  for  every  cantred  contained  32  townlands,  and  every  townland,  eight 
carucates."    Parochal  Survey. 

§  "  Et  ideo  maxime  pra:fati  inilites  regnum  illud  do  Limeric  habere  noluerent,  quia  non  dum  erat  adquisi- 
turn,  nee  subjectum  dominio  domini  regis."    Benedict.  Abbas. 

II  "Their  opinion  might  be  prudent,"  says  Lord  Lyttellon,  "  yet  it  was  not  in  the  spirit  of  the  English  chivalry, 
which  had  enabled  a  few  adventurers  of  that  nation,  with  intinite  odds  against  them,  to  make,  and  keep  such 
great  conquests,  in  different  parts  of  Ireland." 


286  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

adventurers,  they  returned,  disheartened  and  in  so  far  disgraced,  to  rejoin  their  coun- 
trymen at  Cork. 

Besides  the  above  mentioned  grants  proceeding  immediately  from  the  crown,  there 
were  also  lands  parcelled  out,  by  subinfeudation,  from  these  several  territories,  by 
which  a  number  of  the  other  lords  engaged  in  tliese  wars  were  amply  enriched  and 
aggrandized.  Thus,  to  Gilbert  de  Nogent,  the  founder  of  the  noble  family  of  West- 
meath,  Hugh  de  Lacy  conveyed,  by  charter,  the  land,  or,  as  afterwards  called,  barony 
of  Delvin,  containing  about  20,000  acres;  while,  at  the  same  time,  Robert  Filz-Stephen, 
out  of  the  lands  which  had  been  granted  to  him  in  Cork,  conveyed  to  his  nephew, 
Philip  de  Barry,  three  cantreds,  called  Olethan,  besides  two  other  cantreds  elsewhere; 
in  right  of  which  baronies,  the  family  of  De  Barry  always  ranked  as  parliamentary  peers, 
and  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  was  elevated  to  an  earldom. 

Being  found  deficient  in  the  military  talents  which  the  office  of  deputy  required, 
William  Fitz-Aldelm  was,  in  the  year  1178,  removed  from  the  post,  and  Hugh  de 
1  -J~q'  Lacy  appointed  his  successor.  Besides  the  causes  already  assigned  for  the  unpopu- 
larity  of  his  administration,  there  are  grounds  for  suspecting  that  his  having  adopted 
a  somewhat  more  just  and  conciliatory  policy  towards  the  Irish,  was  not  among  the  least 
of  those  offences  by  which  he  forfeited  the  good  will  of  the  colonists;  and  that,  even 
thus  early,  any  show  of  consideration  for  the  rights  and  comforts  of  the  natives  was  be- 
ginning to  be  regarded  with  fear  and  jealousy,  as  a  species  of  treason  towards  their  mas- 
ters. "He  was  the  flatterer,"  says  Giraldus,  "of  rebels,  and  full  of  courtesy  towards  the 
foe."*  "  He  was  a  friend,"  says  another,  "to  the  enemies  of  the  state,  and  a  foe  to  his 
friends."t  The  charge  advanced  against  him  of  having  been  ia  the  habit  of  receiving 
bribes  from  the  Irish,  may  have  had  its  origin  probably  in  some  acts  of  kindness  which  he 
is  said  to  have  performed  towards  the  natives,  and  which  his  less  liberal  countrymen  en- 
deavoured to  tarnish  by  assigning  such  unworthy  motives  for  them. 

It  is  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that,  in  the  peculiar  view  here  taken  of  Fitz-Al- 
delm's  policy,  I  have  been  led  solely  by  my  own  conjectures,  and  by  the  deductions  which, 
as  it  appears  to  me,  may  fairly  be  drawn  from  the  very  nature  and  terms  of  the  charges 
brought  against  him.  That  he  had  not  forfeited  much  of  the  royal  favour  by  his  admi- 
nistration, appears  from  his  appointment,  at  this  time,  to  the  custody  of  Leinster;  that  pro- 
vince having,  on  the  decease  of  Earl  Strongbow,  fallen  to  the  king,  as  supreme  lord  of  the 
fief,  during  the  infancy  of  the  heir.  In  like  manner,  Wexford,  which  had  originally  been 
given  to  Fitz-Aldelm,  and  then  afterwards  transferred  to  Strongbow,  was  now  restored  to 
the  former  lord  ;  while  at  the  same  time  Waterford,  with  its  dependencies,  was  entrusted 
by  the  king  to  Robert  Peer. 

The  event,  during  Fitz-Aldelm's  administration,  to  which  the  natives  attached  most 
importance,  was  the  removal,  by  his  orders,  of  the  celebrated  Staff  of  Jesus  from  Ar- 
magh to  Dublin.  This  staff  or  crosier,  which  was  said  to  have  belonged  to  St.  Patrick,^ 
and  which  St.  Bernard  describes  as  being,  in  his  time,  covered  over  with  gold  and  set 
with  precious  gems,  had  been  for  many  ages  an  object  of  veneration  with  people; 
and  its  removal  now,  from  the  cathedral  of  Armagh  to  that  of  Dublin,  was  but  a 
part  of  the  policy  pursued  afterwards  by  the  English,  of  concentrating,  as  much  as 
was  possible,  the  power  and  wealth  of  the  Church  in  Dublin,  and  diverting  it,  in  propor- 
tion, from  the  see  of  Armagh.  Fitz-Aldelm  was  also  the  founder,  by  order  of  king  Henry, 
of  the  famous  abbey  of  St.  Thomas  the  martyr  (i.  e.  Becket,)  near  Dublin,  on  the  site 
now  called  Thomas  Court. 

*  "Rebellium  blanditor hosti  suavissinius."    Hib.  Expug.  1.2.  c.  16. 

t  "  Reipiiblicffi  inimicis  amicus,  reipubliccP  ainicis  inimiciis. — Stanihurst,  de  Reb.  Hib.  1.  4. 

X  One  of  the  usurpers  of  the  see  of  Armagh,  Nigel  M'Aid,  carried  otfwith  him,  on  being  removed,  both  this 
Staff,  as  we  are  told  by  St.  Bernard,  and  the  text  of  the  Gospels  which  had  belonged  to  St.  Patrick ;  and  such 
was  the  reverence  in  which  these  two  relics  were  regarded  by  the  people,  that  whoever  had  them  in  his  pos- 
session was  regarded  as  tlie  rightful  claimant  to  the  see. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  287 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

John  De  Courcy  defeated  in  Ulster. — De  Lacy  again  entrusted  with  the  government. — 
Death  of  St.  Laurence. — Succeeded  in  the  See  of  Dublin  by  John  Gumming;. — Murder  of 
Milo  de  Cogan  and  Fitz-Stephen's  son. — Arrival  of  Philip  Barry  and  his  brother  Gerald. — 
Hervey  of  Mount-Maurice  retires  into  a  monastery. — Dissensions  in  the  family  of  Roderic 
O'Connor. — Philip  of  Worcester  appointed  deputy. — Prince  John  sent  to  Ireland  with  a 
large  army. — Insolence  of  his  followers  to  the  Irish  Chiefs. — A  spirit  of  Insurrection  raised 
throughout  Ireland. — Forts  built  by  the  English. — Successfully  attacked  by  the  Irish  and 
several  barons  slain. — John  loses  almost  the  whole  of  his  army, — Is  recalled  by  Henry. 

John  De  Courcv,  who  still  continued  his  warfare  in  Ulster,  met,  in  the  course  of 
this  year,  with  a  severe  check.  He  had  taken,  in  a  predatory  incursion  into  Louth,  a 
vast  number  of  cattle,  and  was  driving  them  from  thence  to  his  own  quarters,  when  he 
found  himself  attacked  by  the  two  princes  of  Oriel  and  of  Uila  ;  and  after  a  sharp  conflict, 
in  which  the  greater  number  of  his  troops  were  cut  off,  he  was  obliged  to  fly,  attended  by 
only  eleven  horsemen,  and  continued  his  retreat  for  two  days  and  two  nights,  without 
either  food  or  rest,  till  he  reached  his  own  castle  near  Downpatrick.  He  was  likewise 
unsuccessful  in  another  incursion  which  he  made  the  same  year  into  Dalaradia. 

How  invidious  and  difficult  was  the  task  of  administering  the  country's  aflliirs,  may  be 
judged  from  the  short  period  during  which  each  of  the  deputies  was  allowed  to  remain 
in  office.  The  odium  excited,  as  we  have  seen,  by  Fitz-Aldelm's  measures,  had  induced 
the  king  to  recall  him;  and  now  the  popularity  of  his  successor  awakening  in  a  like 
degree  the  royal  jealousy,  led  to  a  similar  result.  Hugh  de  Lacy  was,  this  year,  removed 
from  the  government,  and  the  office  of  deputy  committed  to  the  joint  care  of  John, 
constable  of  Cheshire,  and  Richard,  bishop  of  Coventry. 

Among  those  acts  of  De  Lacy  which  had  aroused  in  the  king  suspicions  of  his  harbour- 
ing high  and  ambitious  views,  was  the  marriage  he  had  lately  contracted,  and  without 
asking  the  royal  permission,  with  the  daughter  of  Roderic,  king  ofConnaught.  But  the 
exclusion  of  this  lord  from  the  favour  of  his  sovereign,  was  for  the  present,  but  of  short 
duration.  The  ready  submission  with  which  he  had  yielded  to  his  unjust  dismissal  from 
office,  and  the  clear  explanations  he  was  able  to  give  of  the  whole  of  his  conduct, 
completely  dissipated  the  king's  suspicions,  and  after  but  three  months'  deprivation  of 
office,  he  was  reinstated  in  the  government; — Robert  of  Shrewsbury  being  sent  with  him, 
on  the  part  of  the  king,  to  act  as  his  counsellor  and  assistant,  and  be  the  witness,  or,  in 
plain  language,  spy,  of  his  proceedings.* 

During  the  remainder  of  his  administration,  De  Lacy  was  chiefly  employed  in  building 
castles  for  the  protection  of  Leinster,  having  already  sufficiently  fortified  his  own  terri- 
tory of  Meath;  and  more  than  a  dozen  names  of  places,  where  he  now  erected  castles, 
will  be  found  enumerated  by  the  chronicler.  To  this  baron's  government,  at  the 
different  periods  of  his  office,  has  been  attributed  the  singular  good  fortune  of  having 
been  popular  alike  with  the  English  settlers  and  the  natives;  and  his  kind  and  liberal 
treatment  of  the  latter  is  assigned  by  Giraldus  as  one  of  the  reasons  of  the  suspicion 
entertained  of  his  harbouring  ambitious  designs  upon  the  country  : — so  difficult  was  it  to 
depart  with  impunity  from  that  general  system  offeree  and  rapine  upon  which  the  settle- 
ment was,  from  the  first,  founded,  and  by  which  alone,  it  was  thought,  its  safety  and 
interests  could  be  upheld.  Even  De  Lacy  himself,  who  was,  perhaps,  praiseworthy  only 
as  compared  with  his  associates,  is  allowed  by  the  same  favourable  painter  of  his  cha- 
racter to  have  been  guilty,  occasionally,  of  injustice  and  tyranny  as  well  as  the  rest. 
"By  oppressing  others  with  a  strong  hand,"  says  Giraldus,!  "  he  amply  enriched  his 
own  followers." 

In  this  year,  the  saint  and  patriot,  Laurence  O'Toole,  died  at  the  monastery  of  Augum, 
now  Eu,  on  the  borders  of  Normandy.     He  had  been,  in  the  preceding  year,  one  of  the 

*  "  Qui  Reeis  exparte  coadjutor  ei  et  consiliarius,  operumr|iie  suorum  tesis  existeret."  Hihern.  Expugnat. 
1.  2.  c.  i;2.  Leland  adds,  that  it  was  at  Lacy's  own  request  this  "  inspector"  was  sent  with  him,  i"  order 
"  that  tlie  Iting  might  be  thus  authentically  informed  of  all  his  conduct,"  &c.  &c.  Leland,  who  abounds  in 
this  sort  of  secret  information  refers,  in  the  present  instance,  to  Stanihurst  as  his  authority  ;  but  Stanihurst 
says  nothing  whatever  of  any  such  request  liaving  been  made. 

t  "  Tarn  ampla  manu  alios  opprimendo  suos  ubique  ditavit."  Hooker  entirely  omits,  in  his  translation, 
this  single  dark  shade  thrown  into  De  Lacy's  character  by  the  chronicler. 


28S  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

six  Irish  prelates  who  attended  the  great  council  of  Lateran,*  and  had  then  received 
from  the  pope,  Alexander  III.,  who  had  treated  him  with  ihe  distinction  and  kindness 
due  to  his  high  character,  a  bull  confirming  the  rights  and  jurisdiction  of  the  church  of 
Dublin,  over  the  sees  of  Glendaloch,  Kildare,  Ferns,  Leighlin  and  Ossory.  Some  pecu- 
liar privileges  which,  in  his  zeal  for  Ireland,  he  had  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  that 
council,  were  resented,  it  seems,  by  Henry,  as  derogatory  to  his  royal  dignity;  but  there 
do  not  appear  to  be  any  grounds  for  the  statement,  advanced  by  some  writers,  that,  in 
consequence  of  this  offence,  he  was  forbidden  by  the  king  to  return  to  Ireland ;  as  we  find 
him,  after  that  period,  employed  a-ctively  in  the  care  of  hisdiocess  and  province,  and  dis- 
pensing tiiose  charities  and  hospitalities  around  him,  which  appear  to  have  been  as  princely 
in  their  extent  as  they  were  evidently  pure  and  unostentatious  in  their  motive.  In 
1  IRf)'  ^'^*^  course  of  this  year  he  had  accompanied  to  England  a  son  of  Roderic  O'Connor 
■  who  had  been  sent  as  a  hostage  to  Henry  for  the  payment  of  the  tribute  stipulated 
between  his  father  and  that  prince.f  Passing  afterwards  into  France,  he  was  seized  with 
a  fever,  when  arrived  on  the  frontiers  of  Normandy,  and  expired  the  14th  of  November, 
1180. 

This  pious  and  eminent  prelate,  who  was  styled,  as  St.  Bernard  tells  us,  "  the  Father 
of  his  country,"!  was  of  the  illustrious  house  of  the  O'Tuathals,  being  the  youngest  soa 
of  Murchertach  O'Tuathal,  prince  of  Imaile,^  or,  as  usually  called,  the  glen  of  Imaile,  in 
the  now  county  of  Wicklow.  While  yet  a  boy,  he  was,  by  his  own  desire,  dedicated  to 
the  ecclesiastical  state  ;  and,  under  the  care  of  the  bishop  of  Glendalough,  made  consi- 
derable progress  in  learning  and  piety.  When  twenty-five  years  of  age,  he  was  elected 
abbot  of  the  monastery  of  that  place,  which  was  distinct  from  the  episcopal  see,  and 
became,  within  a  few  years,  successively  bishop  of  Glendalough  and  archbishop  of  Dub- 
lin. The  holy  seclusion  of  the  Valley  of  the  Lakes,  where  so  large  a  portion  of  his 
earlier  days  had  been  passed,  still  contmued  to  retain  a  charm  for  him  through  life;  and 
it  was  his  delight,  when  engaged  in  the  cares  of  his  archbishopric,  to  retire  occasionally 
to  Glendalough,  and  there,  in  a  cave  which  had  been  used  as  an  oratory  by  St.  Kevin,  to 
pass  whole  weeks  in  lonely  prayer  and  contemplation. || 

The  share  taken  by  him  in  all  the  most  important  transactions  connected  with  Ireland 
which  occurred  during  his  public  life,  has  already,  from  time  to  time,  been  noticed  in  the 
preceding  pages  ;  and  it  redounds  scarcely  less  to  the  credit  of  the  English  authorities, 
than  to  the  honour  of  his  own  high  character,  that,  notwithstanding  his  proclaimed  zeal 
for  the  independence  of  his  native  land,  and  the  efforts  made  by  him  to  awaken  in  his 
countrymen  a  spirit  of  resistance  to  the  foreigner,  he  should  yet  have  been  selected  for 
60  many  important  and  delicate  missions  to  the  English  court;  and,  though  naturally 
regarded  with  jealous  suspicion  by  the  king,  should  have  remained  to  the  last   in  un- 

*  The  other  five  were,  Calholicus,  of  Tuam  ;  Constantine  O' Brian,  of  Killaloe;  Felix,  of  Lismore;  Augus- 
tus, of  Waterford  ;  and  Brictius,  of  Limerick.  Theibull  granted  on  this  occasion,  whicli  is  curious,  as  show- 
ing how  richly  endowed  the  see  of  Dublin  was  at  that  jieriod,  may  be  found  in  Usher's  Sylloge,  No.  xlviii. 
Fluery  mentions  {Hist.  Ecclesiast,  1.  78.  §  24.,)  that  one  of  the  Irish  bishops  present  at  this  council  had  for 
his  sole  means  of  subsistence  the  milk  of  three  cows.  It  appears,  from  Hoveden,  that  there  were  present  at 
the  council  several  other  Irish  bishops,  besides  the  six  just  mentioned;  and  it  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  those  that 
the  above  improbable  tale  is  related.    See  Lanigan.  chap.  29.,  §  14.  note  96. 

t  "Item,  eodem,  anno  1180,  Laurencius  Duvelinensis  Archiep.  qui  ad  Dominum  regem  in  Norraanniam 
transfrelaverat,  adducens  secum  filium  Roderici  Ileg.  Connact.  quern  idem  lies  miserat  Domin.  sue  Reg. 
Angelin;,  rcmansurum  sibi  in  obsidem  super  pactis  inter  eos  contraclis  de  tributo  Ilibernia:  solvendo."  Bene- 
dict. .Hbbas. 

%  "  Patre  patira;  dictus." 

§  In  the  very  scarce  work  of  Thomas  Carve,  of  Tipperary,  entitled  Lyra,  Sivc  Anacephalaosia  Hibernica, 
I  find,  in  allusion  to  St.  Laurance's  royal  descent,  the  following  lines: — 

Regius  hoc  auget  patrum  Laurentius  agmen, 
iElernum  sedis  Dubliniensis  honos. 


Non  favor  regum,  neque  te  tumultus 
Plebis  insanae,  tua  sed  tot  annis 
Nola,  Laurenli,  Pietas  ad  altos 
Vesit  honores. 

It  has  been  my  object,  in  this  note,  to  collect  together  a  few  of  the  proofs  of  this  eminent  Irishman's  cele- 
brity, which  have  escaj)ed  the  notice  of  Dr.  Lanigan  and  oliiers.  To  the  forthcoming  "  Memoirs  of  the  Arch- 
bishops of  Dublin,"  by  Mr.  D'Altou,  we  may  look  with  the  confidence  which  that  gentleman's  knowledge  of 
Our  liistory  and  antiquities  inspires,  for  a  fuller  and  more  interesting  account  of  the  affairs  of  the  IrishChurch 
than  has  yet  appeared. 

ir  Vit.  Laurent,  n;;  J\Icssingliam. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  289 

disturbed  possession  both  of  his  popularity  and  his  honours.  Even  by  the  slanderer  of  all 
other  persons  and  thinjrs  belonging  to  Ireland,  Laurence  is  pronounced  to  have  been  a 
"just and  a  good  man."*  An  ardent  lover  of  his  ill-fated  country,  he  felt  but  the  more 
poignantly  those  wretched  feuds  and  unnatural  treacheries  of  her  own  sons,  which  were 
now  co-operating  so  fatally  with  the  enemy,  in  reducing  her  to  complete  degradation 
and  ruin;  and,  a  short  time  before  his  death  he  is  said  to  have  exclaimed,  in  the  Irish 
language,  "  Ah,  foolish  and  senseless  people,  what  is  now  to  become  of  you  1  Who  will 
now  cure  your  misfortunes'!  Who  will  heal  you?"  When  reminded  on  his  death-bed 
of  the  propriety  of  making  his  will,  he  answered,  "God  knows,  I  have  not  at  this 
moment  so  much  as  a  penny  under  the  sun."t  His  remains  were  deposited  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  church  of  Augum,  where  they  lay  till  the  year  of  his  canonization,  by  Hono- 
rious  III.,  A.  D.  1226,  when  with  great  solemnity,  they  were  placed  over  the  high  altar, 
and  preserved  in  a  silver  shrine ;  some  of  his  relics|  having  been  sent  to  Christ 
Church,  in  Dublin,  and  some  to  different  places  in  France. 

Immediately  on  receiving  the  intelligence  of  Laurence's  death,  Henry,  in  exercise  of 
the  rights  which  he  held  over  Ireland,  as  a  realm  annexed  to  the  English  crown,  took 
the  vacant  archbishopric  into  his  own  custody,  and  despatched  Jeffrey  de  la  Hay,  his  chap- 
lain to  Dublin,  for  the  purpose  of  seizing  on  the  revenuesof  the  see,  and  collecting  them  into 
the  Exchequer.  He  likewise  called  together  at  Evesham,  in  Worcester,  an  assembly  of 
the  clergy  of  Dublin,  by  whom,  on  his  recommendation,  a  learned  Englishman,  John 
Gumming,  who  had  served  him  in  a  clerical  capacity,  was  elected  archbishop  of  Dublin. 
Still  more  to  strengthen  the  English  influence  in  that  country,  a  bull  was  procured  in  the 
following  year  from  pope  Lucius  III.,  exempting  the  diocess  of  Dublin  from  a  great 
part  of  the  jurisdiction  hitherto  exercised  over  it  by  the  see  of  armagh.  This  memora- 
ble bull,  the  immediate  purpose  of  which  was  to  curtail  the  privileges  of  the  archbishop 
of  Armagh,  but  which  had  also,  probably,  in  view  the  object  of  transferring,  at  some 
future  time,  the  primacy  to  the  seat  of  the  English  power,  Dublin,  became,  in  after  ages, 
a  subject  of  fierce  and  voluminous  controversy  between  the  two  sees. 

One  of  the  earliest,  and  not  least  chivalrous,  of  the  English  adventurers,  Milo  de  Co- 
gan,  who  had  remained,  jointly  with  his  brother  in  arms,  Robert  Fitz-Stephen,  in  quiet 
possession  of  the  territory  granted  to  them  in  Desmond,  fell  a  victim  at  this  time  to  an 
act  of  the  most  foul  and  revolting  treachery.  Accompanied  by  a  young  and  valiant  son 
of  Fitz-Stephen,  who  had  lately  married  his  daughter,  De  Cogan  was  on  his  way  to  a 
conference  with  some  citizens  of  Waterford,  which  was  to  be  held  on  a  plain  near  Lis- 
more,  when  he  was  suddenly  attacked  by  a  band  of  Irisli,  armed  with  axes,  under  a  chief- 
tain of  the  district,  named  Mac  Tyre,  by  whom  he  had  been  invited  to  pass  that  night 
under  his  roof.  Whether  from  some  sudden  cause  of  anger,  or,  as  would  seem  by  the 
sequel,  from  a  preconcerted  design,  this  chief  came,  unawares  upon  De  Cogan,  as  he 
was  sitting  carelessly  with  the  young  Fitz-Stephen  and  four  other  knights  upon  the 
grass,  and  barbarously  murdered  the  whole  party. 

Scarcely  had  the  news  of  this  event  reached  Robert  Fitz-Stephen,  who  was  then 
in  Cork,  when,  as  if  the  murder  had  been  meant  as  a  signal  for  general   revolt,  ii'co 
almost  all  the  chieftains  of  Munster  rose  up  in  arms,  and  a  vast  multitude  of  the 
people  of  Desmond,  under  their  king,  Dermod  Macarthy,  laid  siege  to  the  town  of  Cork. 
In  this  emergency,  Raymond  le  Gros,  apprised  of  the  danger  of  his  kinsman,  embarked 
from  Wexford  with  a  band  of  twenty  select  knights,  and  about  a  hundred  other  soldiers, 
partly  horsemen,  partly  archers,  and  sailing  along  the  coast  to  Cork,  the  Irish  having  no 
fleet  to  guard  their  shores,  arrived  but  just  in  time  to  succour  Fitz-Stephen,  to  enable 
him  to  repel  his  assailants,  and  force  them  to  raise  the  sieue. 

As  soon  as  intelligence  of  these  events  reached  Henry,  he  sent  over  Richard  de  Cogan, 
the  brother  of  the  deceased  Milo,  to  take  his  place  as  the  associate  of  Fitz-Stephen  in 
the  government,  and  with  this  officer  was  sent  a  chosen  body  of  troops  for  the  re-enforcement 
of  the  garrison.     Shortly  after,  a  still  farther  addition  was  made  to  the  military  strength 

*  "  Laurentius  Dubliniensis  Episcopus;  vir  bonus  et  Justus." — Girald  Cambrens.  Hihern.  Ezpugnat. 
1.2.  c.  23. 

The  Author  of  his  life,  published  in  Messingham's  Flerilegium,  speaks  of  his  munificence  in  entertaining 
the  rich,  as  well  as  of  his  charity  in  foe<ling  ami  succouring  ilie  poor.  Every  day  he  took  care  to  see  fed  in 
his  own  presence  from  thirty  to  sixty  poor  porsmis  .  and,  during  a  famine  which  lasted  (or  three  year?,  hi; 
gave  daily  alms  to  500  people,  besides  supplying  300  more  throughout  his  diocess  with  clothes,  provisions,  and 
other  necessasies.  It  is  adiled,  that  during  this  severe  time,  200  children  were  left  at  the  door  of  his  residence, 
all  of  whom  were  protected  and  provided  for  by  his  care. 

t  Vit.  S.  Laurent. 

t  In  the  OtRce  quoted  by  Harris,  containing  a  description  of  these  relics,  it  is  said  that  "  the  head  is  kept 
in  a  silver  case,  with  a  crystal  over  it,  through  which  may  be  seen  the  mark  of  the  wound  given  him  by  the 
madman  at  Canterbury." — Ware's  Bishops. 

36 


290  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

of  the  province,  by  the  landing  of  Philip  Barry,  a  nephew  of  Fitz-Stephen,  with  a  con- 
siderable force,  from  Wales.  Besides  the  object  of  assisting  his  relative,  Barry  had  also 
in  view  the  securing  to  himself  some  lands  which  Fitz-Stephen  had  granted  to  him  in 
Olethan,  a  tract  lying  between  Cork  and  Youghal.  He  was  accompanied  on  this  occa- 
sion by  his  brother  Gerald  Barry,  a  personage  better  known  to  fame  as  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  having  connected  his  name  inseparably  with  this  period  of  our  history, 
notwithstanding  the  strange  heap  of  garrulous  fiction  and  slander  which  he  has  mixed  up 
with  his  otherwise  useful,  and  in  general  trustworthy,  records  of  the  first  transactions 
and  adventures  of  the  English  settlers  in  this  country.* 

While  of  the  earliest  of  these  adventurers  one  "or  two,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been 
carried  off  by  death,  and  most  of  the  others  still  passed  their  lives  in  perpetual  warfare, 
Hervy  of  Mount  Maurice,  vvlio  had  once  been  as  stirring  on  the  scene  as  any,  now  with- 
drew from  the  turmoils  of  war  to  a  life  of  religious  seclusion;  and,  after  having,  in  the 
year  1182,  founded  and  endowed  the  abbey  of  Dunbrody,  one  of  the  finest  ecclesiastical 
edifices  in  the  country,  he  about  this  time  assumed  the  monk's  habit,  and  entered  into 
the  monastery  of  Christ  Church,  in  Canterbury.!  The  zeal  for  founding  religious  houses 
had  begun  to  prevail  at  this  time  extensively  among  the  great  English  lords;  who,  while 
with  one  hand  they  oppressed  and  plundered  the  miserable  clergy,  and  despoiled  the 
cathedrals  of  their  possessions,  made,  with  the  other,  as  they  thought  full  atonement  for 
these  sacrilegious  spoliations,  by  calling  into  existence  endowments  and  structures  on 
which  their  own  names  were  to  be  imprinted,  and  in  which  vanity  had,  at  least  as  much 
share  as  any  real  religious  feeling.  About  the  same  time  with  Dunbrody  abbey,  were 
erected  in  Meath,  by  Hugh  de  Lacy,  two  monasteries  for  Augustin  canons;  one  at  Du- 
leek,  and  the  other  at  Colp,  called  anciently  Invercolpa,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Boyne.]: 

Among  the  devout  soldiers  who  thus  employed  themselves  in  alternately  plundering 
and  founding  religious  houses,  John  de  Courcy  was  one  of  the  most  conspicuous;  having 
founded  the  Benedictine  priory  of  the  island  of  Neddrum,  somewhere  off  the  coast  of 
Down ;  and  also  the  priory  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  in  that  county,  for  a  branch  of  the 
Augustin  canons,  called  Cruciferi.  This  lord  also  turned  the  secular  canons  out  of  the 
cathedral  of  Down,  and  introduced  in  their  place  Benedictine  monks,  from  St.  Werburgh's, 
in  Chester  ;  while,  at  tiio  same  time,  he  got  the  dedication  title  of  the  cathedral  changed 
from  that  of  the  Holy  Trinity  to  that  of  St.  Patrick, — a  step  superstitiously  believed  to 
be  the  cause  of  all  the  misfortunes  that  afterwards  happened  to  De  Courcy. 

The  disgraceful  feuds  which  had  so  long  distracted  the  domestic  relations  of  Roderic 
O'Conner  siill  continued  to  rage  as  violently  as  ever;  but,  in  order  to  understand  clearly 
their  origin,  some  brief  explanation  is  necessary.  According  to  the  ancient  constitution 
of  Ireland,  Vvhenever  a  provincial  king  was  elected  to  the  supreme  throne,  he  resigned 
the  crown  of  the  province  to  one  of  his  sons,  or  else  to  some  other  of  his  kin  who  was 
entitled  as  well  as  qualified  to  govern.  So  tottering,  however,  was  the  state  of  the 
monarchy  at  the  time  when  Roderic  succeeded  to  the  supreme  power,  that  fearing  he 
should  be  left, — as  would  have  been  actually,  indeed,  his  fate, — without  either  territory 
or  throne,  he  conceived  it  most  prudent  still  to  retain  his  own  hereditary  dominions. 
Hence  the  continued  efforts  of  his  two  sons,  Connor  and  Murchard,  to  force  him  to  sur- 
render to  them  the  sovereignty  of  Connaught.  One  of  these  sons  he  had  already 
punished,  by  inhumanly  putting  out  his  eyes;  and  now  the  other  was  in  open  insurrec- 
tion against  his  authority.  About  the  year  1182,  such  indignation  did  the  unnatural 
rebellion  of  these  princes  excite,  that  Flaherty  O'Meldory,  chief  of  Tyrconnel,  marched 
an  army  into  Connaught  to  put  down  their  revolt,  and  gained  a  complete  victory  over 
them  and  their  allies.     The  slaughter,  in  this  battle,  is  said  to  have  been  immense,  and 

*  Ware,  Annals,  at  the  year  1183.--Some  writers,  and  among  others  Prynne,  erroneously  suppose  Giraldus 
to  have  accompanied  Henry  into  Ireland.  In  speaking  of  the  synod  of  Cashi^I,  Prynne  says,  "to  which 
(deirus)  they  all  promised  conformity,  and  to  observe  them  for  time  to  come,  as  Giraldus  Canibrensis  there 
present  and  other  historians  relate."— Om  the  Institutes,  c.  7G. 

t  WiirQ,jiiiiiq.  chap.  2G.— Archdall,  Monast.  Hib.  at  Dunbrody.  On  giving  up  his  commission  in  the  army, 
says  Mr.  Shaw  Mason,  Hervey  "  parcelled  out  the  portion  of  land  allotted  to  liim  from  the  water  of  Wexford 
to  Kempul  (Cainpile)  Pill  along  the  seacoast,  for  a  certain  short  space  in  the  country,  amongst  liis  followers, 
retaining  to  himself  that  portion  of  it  now  called  the  Union  of  St.  James's;  and  on  this  he  founded  the  abhey, 
dedicated  it  to  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  established  there  the  order  of  Cistertian  or  Bernardine  monks." 
Mr.  M.ison  adds,  that  Hervey  became  himself  the  lirtt  abbot  of  Dunbrody;  but  I  do  not  find  this  fact  staled  by 
either  Ware,  Arclidall,  or  Lanigau.  For  a  description  of  the  present  remains  of  this  noble  abbey,  see  Brewer's 
Beauties  of  Ireland. 

"Les  domaines  du  connetable  Herve  de  Montmorency  en  Irlnnde,  si  I'onen  e.vcnpta  ses  donations  a  I'abhaye 
de  Dunbrody,  out  tons  passu  a  son  neveu  et  hoir  Geoffroi,  seigneur  de  Mariscis,  viceroi'd'Irlande  en  1215."— 
Les  Muntmunncii  dc  h'riuicc  ci  d' Irlnnde. 

X  "  The  walls  of  the  church  here,"  says  Soward,  '•  in  ruins,  are  still  to  be  seen,  the  arches  of  which  are  both 
in  the  Riaxon  and  Gothic  style  ;  and  the  east  window,  which  appears  older  than  the  rest,  is  supposed  to  have 
made  a  part  of  the  abbey.  On  the  north  side  is  a  small  chapel,  and  to  the  south  two  other  chapels,  one  of 
which  IS  at  present  the  burial  place  of  the  fiinily  o<i  GtWaw."— Topograph.  Ilibarn.,  1795. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  291 

no  less  than  sixteen  of  the  royal  race  of  Connaught  were  among  the  slain  on  that  day. 
At  length,  in  the  year  at  which  we  are  now  arrived,  the  wretched  Roderic,  wearied  out 
with  the  unnatural  conflict,  agreed,  as  the  only  means  of  bringing  it  to  an  end,  to  sur- 
render the  kingdom  to  his  eldest  son,  Connor  Manmoy,  and  retire  into  a  monastery. 

However  the  transfer  by  king  Henry  to  his  son  of  a  dominion  which  he  himself  but 
partially  possessed,  might,  as  a  mere  matter  of  form,  be  considered  harmless,  the  mea- 
sure adopted  by  him  of  actually  sending  this  youth,  who  was  now  not  more  than  twelve 
years  of  age,  to  rule  over  a  kingdom  requiring,  at  this  crisis,  the  maturest  counsels  for 
its  direction,  was  an  act  savouring,  it  must  be  owned,  far  more  of  the  whim  and  wanton- 
ness of  uncontrolled  power,  than  of  that  deep  and  deliberate  policy  by  which  all  the 
actions  of  tliis  great  king,  even  his  least  temperate,  were  in  general  regulated.  His 
suspicious  nature,  it  is  true,  had  been  kept  in  continual  alarm  by  the  increasing  popu- 
larity of  Hugh  de  Lacy;  and  being,  for  the  third  time,  about  to  remove  that  lord  from 
the  government,  he  looked  forward,  doubtless,  with  hope  to  the  effects  of  the  presence  of 
a  prince  of  his  blood  in  that  country,  as  being  likely  to  counteract  the  dangerous  influ- 
ence now  exercised,  and  help  to  rally  around  its  legitimate  centre,  the  throne,  that 
popular  favour  which  had  been  hitherto  intercepted  by  a  bold  and  ambitious  subject. 

But,  whatever  may  have  been  his  immediate  motives  for  this  step,  it  is  clear, 
from  the  precautionary  measures  with  which  he  guarded  and  fenced  it  round,  ^\oa 
that  he  was  by  no  means  unconscious  of  the  dangers  contingent  on  such  an  ex-  ■'■■'■"'*• 
periment.  In  order  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  reception  of  the  young  prince,  he  sent 
over  to  Dublin,  in  the  month  of  August,  the  new  English  archbishop  of  that  see,  John 
Cuming;  and,  in  the  following  month,  Philip  of  Worcester  proceeded  thither,  attended 
by  a  guard  of  forty  knights,  to  take  possession  of  his  government,  having  orders  from 
Henry  to  send  De  Lacy  over  into  England,  and  to  await  himself  in  Ireland  the  coming 
of  prince  John.  The  royal  youth  was  to  be  accompanied  by  Ranulph  de  Glanville,  the 
great  justiciary  of  England,  and  highly  distinguished  both  as  a  lawyer  and  a  soldier ; 
while  the  historian,  Gerald  of  Cambria,  who  had  been  sojourning  for  some  time  in 
Ireland,  was  appointed  to  attend  John,  as  his  secretary  and  tutor.  If  the  notions  im- 
pressed by  the  learned  Welshman  upon  his  pupil  were  at  all  similar  to  those  he  has 
recorded  in  his  own  writings,  it  is  little  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  prince  and  his  com- 
panions should  have  been  so  much  prepossessed  against  the  country  they  were  about  to 
visit,  and  prepared  to  treat  the  unfortunate  natives  with  indecent  mockery  and  disdain. 

On  the  last  day  of  March,  John,  earl  of  Moreton  and  lord  of  Ireland,  having 
been  previously  knighted  by  his  father  at  Windsor,*  embarked  with  his  attendants  ■j'Vqc" 
at  Milford  Haven,  where  a  fleet  of  sixty  ships  had  been  prepared  to  transport  a  ^^°^' 
large  body  of  cavalry,  of  which  400  were  knights,  together  with  a  considerable  force  of 
infantry,  chiefly,  as  it  appears,  archers;  and  on  the  following  day,  about  noon,  the  royal  fleet 
arrived  in  the  harbour  of  Waterford. 

With  such  an  army,  added  to  the  forces  already  in  Ireland,  a  skilful  leader,  mixino- 
conciliation  with  firmness,  might  have  established  the  English  power  over  the  whole 
island.  But  the  conduct  of  the  new  deputy,  Philip  of  Worcester,  had  not  been  such  as 
to  inspire  any  confidence  in  the  order  of  things  of  which  he  was  the  precursor.  One  of 
the  first  acts  of  his  government — an  act  which,  whatever  might  be  its  strict  justice,  was 
far  from  being  calculated  to  render  him  popular — was  to  resume  all  the  lands  of  the  royal 
demesne,  which  De  Lacy  had  parcelled  out  among  his  own  friends  and  followers,  and  to 
appropriate  them  to  the  use  of  the  king's  household.  The  next  measure  of  the  lord 
deputy  was  to  march  an  army  into  Ulster,  a  region  of  adventure  hitherto  occupied  by 
John  De  Courcy  alone,  and  where,  ever  since  a  victory  gained  by  him,  in  the  year  1182, 
over  Donald  O'Lochlin,  the  spirit  of  the  Irish  had  been  considerably  broken.  The  leader 
of  the  present  enterprise  had  evidently  no  object  but  plunder  and  extortion;  and  from  the 
clergy,  more  especially,  so  grinding  were  his  exactions,  that  even  Giraldus,  so  lenient  in 
general  to  all  misdeeds  against  the  Irish,  brands  the  spoiler  with  his  reprobation.  "  Even 
in  the  holy  time  of  Lent,"  says  this  chronicler,  "he  extorted  from  the  sacred  order  his 
execrable  tribute  of  gold."t  From  Armagh,  where,  chiefly,  these  enormities  were  com- 
mitted, Philip  proceeded  to  Downpatrick;  and  a  violent  fit  or  pano^  which  seized  him 

*  Uadulf.  dp,  Z)icc<o.— According  to  tfie  Annals  of  Margara,  it  was  at  Gloucester  John  was  knighted:— 
"  Prius  tamcn  a  patre  apud  Gloucestriam  miles  effectiis  " 

Diceto,  in  remarking  on  the  fortunes  and  situations  of  the  different  cliildren  of  Henry,  says,  that  "  John, 
being  secured  by  the  promise  and  provision  of  his  father,  will  reduce  different  parts  of  Irelarid  into  a  mo- 
narchy, if  it  shall  hereafter  be  granted  to  him  ;" — that  is,  adds  Sayer,  he  shall  have  a  kingdom,  if  he  can 
win  it. — Hist,  of  Bristol,  chap.  x. 

t  "A  sacro  clero  auri  tributum  execrabile  tarn  exigens  cuam  extorquens."— T/iiern.  Eipugnat.i.  2.  c.  fii. 
Thus  gently  rendered  by  the  English  translator  :— "  Being  well  laden  with  gold,  silver,  and  money,  which  he 
had  exacted  in  every  place  where  he  came,  for  other  good  he  did  none." 


292  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

in  the  course  of  his  journey,  is  regarded  by  the  writers  of  the  time  as  a  judgment  upon 
him  for  the  wrongs  he  had  just  been  committing. 

From  this  expedition  he  was  returned  but  a  few  days  before  the  arrival  of  prince  John 
at  VVatertbrd,  whither  the  archbishop  of  Dublin  and  other  English  lords  had  gone  to 
receive  tiie  illustrious  visiter  on  his  landing.  Tiiere  came  likewise,  soon  after,  to  wait 
upon  him,  many  of  those  Irish  chiefs  of  Leinster  who  had  ever  since  the  time  of  their 
first  submission  been  living  quietly  under  the  English  government,  and  now  hastened  to 
welcome  the  young  prince,  and  acknowledge  him  loyally  as  their  lord.  But  the  kind  of 
reception  these  chieftains  experienced  showed  at  the  outset  how  weak  and  infatuated'was 
the  policy  of  sending  a  stripling,  a  mere  boy,  attended  by  a  train  of  idle  and  insolent 
courtiers,  upon  a  mission  involving  interests  of  so  grave  and  momentous  a  description. 
Unaccustomed  to  the  peculiar  manners  and  dress  of  the  Irish,  their  long  bushy  beards, 
their  hair  hanging  in  glibbes,  or  locks,  down  their  backs,*  the  young  Norman  nobles, 
who  formed  the  court  of  John,  and  who  were  themselves,  to  an  unmanly  degree,  attentive 
to  their  dress,!  broke  out  in  open  derision  of  their  visiters ;  and  when  the  chiefs  advancing 
towards  the  prince  were  about  to  give  him,  according  to  the  manner  of  their  country, 
the  Kiss  of  Peace,|  they  found  themselves  rudely  and  mockingly  repulsed  by  his 
attendants,  some  of  whom  even  proceeded  to  such  insolence  aa  to  pluck  these  proud 
chiefs  by  their  beards. 

To  a  race  and  class  such  as  were  these  princes  at  tliis  period, — the  fading  remains  of 
the  ancient  royalty  of  the  land,  and  become  but  the  more  watchful  and  exacting  in  their 
claims  to  personal  respect,  in  proportion  as  the  foundation  of  those  claims  had  grown 
more  unreal  and  nominal, — to  men  thus  circumstanced,  thus  proudly  alive  to  the  least 
passing  shade  of  disrespect,  it  may  easily  be  imagined  how  far  transcending  all  ordinary 
modes  of  provocation  was  the  kind  of  insult  this  contemptuous  treatment  conveyed.  Re- 
solved on  deadly  revenge,  they  returned  immediately  to  their  own  homes,  withdrew  their 
families  and  septs  from  the  English  territory,  and  repairing,  some  to  Donald  O'Brian,  the 
still  untamed  foe  of  the  foreigners,  others  to  the  chiefs  of  Desmond  and  of  Connaught, 
represented  the  indignities  which,  in  their  persons,  had  been  offered  to  all  Ireland ;  asking, 
"  when  such  was  the  manner  in  which  even  loyal  submission  was  received,  what  farther 
hope  remained  for  the  country  but  in  general  and  determined  resistance  1" 

Some  of  the  chieftains,  thus  addressed,  had  been  on  their  way  to  offer  their  homage  at 
Waterford;  but  this  news  checked  at  once  their  purpose.  Instead  of  loyalty,  they  now 
breathed  only  revenge;  and,  the  flame  rapidly  catching  from  one  to  another,  a  spirit  of 
hostility  to  the  sway  of  the  English  sprung  up,  such  as  had  never  been  before  witnessed 
since  the  time  of  their  coming  into  the  country.  Agreeing  to  merge  in  the  common 
cause  all  local  and  personal  differences,  the  chiefs  pledged  themselves  by  the  most  sacred 
oaths  to  each  other,  to  stake  their  lives  upon  the  issue,  and  "  stand  to  the  defence  of  their 
country 'and  I  iberty."  While  sucli  was  the  feeling  of  resistance  awakened  by  the  insolent 
bearing  of  the  young  prince's  courtiers,  the  policy  in  other  respects  pursued  by  his  go- 
vernment was  calculated  to  aggravate,  far  more  than  to  soften,  this  first  impression.  Nor 
were  the  Welsh  settlers  treated  with  much  less  harshness  than  the  native  Irish  them- 
selves, as  they  removed  these  people  from  the  garrison  towns  in  which  they  had  been 
hitherto  stationed,  and  forced  them  to  serve  in  the  marches.  With  a  severity,  too,  even 
more  impolitic  than  it  was  unjust,  they  drove  from  their  settlements  within  the  English 
territory  some  Irisli  septs  that  had  long  held  peaceably  those  possessions,  and  divided  their 
lands  among  some  of  the  newly  arrived  foreigners.  The  consecjuence  was,  that  the 
septs  thus  unwisely  ejected,  joined  the  ranks  of  their  now  arming  fellow-countrymen, 
and  took  with  them  not  only  a  strong  accession  of  revengeful  feeling,  but  also  a  know- 
ledge of  the  plans  and  policy  of  the  enemy,  an  acquaintance  with  his  strong  and  weak 
points  of  defence,  and  every  requisite,  in  short,  that  could  render  them  useful,  as  informers 
and  guides,  in  the  momentous  struggle  about  to  be  hazarded. 

While  thus  threatening  was  the  aspect  of  the  public  mind,  the  advisers  of  the  prince 
pursued  unchecked  their  heedless  career.  Whether  trusting  to  the  people's  divisions 
among  themselves,  as  likely  to  avert  the  danger  threatened  by  the  league  of  their  chiefs, 
or  unable  to  awaken  in  John  nnd  his  dissolute  Normans  any  thought  but  of  their  own 

*  "Ttifi  Trisli,"  says  Ware,  "  woro  iheir  liair  (by  the  moderns  called  glibs)  hanging  down  tlieir  bacljg." 
•'  Proud  ttiey  are  (siiys  (tampion)  of  Ions;  crisped  glihbes,  and  do  nouristi  tlie  same  witli  all  their  cunning  ;  to 
crop  the  front  thereof  they  take  it  for  a  notable  piece  of  villany." 

t  In  Camden's  Remains  we  find  them  described  as  '•  all  gallant,  with  coats  to  the  midknee,  head  shorn, 
beard  shaved,  arms  laden  with  bracelets,  and  faces  painted."  Lingard,  in  ihe  same  manner  represents  the 
Norman's  as  "  ostentationsly  fond  of  dress,''  but  describes  their  hair  as  worn  long  and  curled. 

t  This  ceremimy  of  the  Kiss  of  Peace  was  observed  also  in  Richard  ll.'s  reign,  when  that  monarch  received, 
by  his  commissioner,  the  earl  marshal,  the  homage  and  fealty  of  the  leinster  chieftains. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  293 

reckless  indulgence,—-*  whatsoever  was  the  cause,  the  attention  of  the  government  ap- 
pears to  have  been  but  little  directed  to  the  gathering  storm  ;t  and  the  erection  of  three 
forts  or  castles  at  Tipperary,  Ardfinnan,  and  Lismore,  was  the  only  measure  for  the 
security  of  their  power,  which  the  incapable  advisers  of  the  prince  had  yet  adopted. 
Even  these  castles,  however,  were  not  left  long  unassailed.  That  of  Ardfinnan,  built 
upon  a  rock  overlooking  the  Suir,  was  attacked  by  Donald  O'Brian,  prince  of  Limerick, 
and  its  small  garrison  put  to  the  sword.  In  Ossory,  Roger  de  Peer,  a  young  officer  of 
brilliant  promise,  was  cut  off:  while,  in  an  assault  upon  Lismore,  the  Brave  Robert  Barry, 
one  of  those  who  had  accompanied  Fitz-Stephen  into  Ireland,  was  taken  and  slain.  In 
various  other  quarters,  the  incursions  of  the  natives  were  attended  with  equal  success; 
and  two  other  English  leaders,  Raymond  Fitz-Hugh,  who  fell  at  Olechan,  and  Raymond 
Canton,  slain  at  Odrone,  were  added  to  the  victims,  which  the  outraged  feelings  of  the 
people  now  offered  up  in  bitter  revenge  for  their  wrongs.J 

On  the  other  hand,  an  attack  upon  Cork,  by  Mac  Carthy  of  Desmond,  was  so  vigorously 
resisted  by  Theobald  Walter,  the  chief  butler,  who  had  accompanied  John  into  Ireland, 
that  the  Irish  prince  and  the  whole  of  his  party  were  slain  in  the  encounter.  A  like  suc- 
cess awaited  the  arms  of  the  English  in  Meath,  into  which  district,  defying  the  measures 
for  its  defence  adopted  by  Hugh  de  Lacy,  the  septs  on  its  western  borders  made  now  a 
desperate  inroad ;  but  were  repulsed  with  immense  slaughter  by  William  Petit,  a  feuda- 
tory of  De  Lacy,  who  sent  100  heads  of  the  slain,  as  a  trophy  of  his  victory,  to  Dublin. 
Notwithstanding  these  occasional  successes  on  the  part  of  the  invaders,  the  general  for- 
tune of  the  war  was  decidedly  in  favour  of  the  natives;  and  according  to  the  chronicles 
of  the  English  themselves,  John  lost,  in  the  different  conflicts  with  the  Irish,  almost  his 
whole  army. 5  At  length,  informed  of  the  imminent  danger  with  which  the  very  ex- 
istence of  his  power  in  that  realm  was  threatened,  Henry  sent  over  orders  instantly,  re- 
calling the  prince  and  his  headlong  advisers  to  England,  and  placing  the  whole  power  of 
the  government,  both  civil  and  military,  in  the  hands  of  De  Courcy. 

Though  a  liegeman  of  De  Lacy  had  in  the  late  warfare,  acted  so  loyally,  complaints 
of  that  lord  himself  were  forwarded  to  England  by  John  and  his  ministers,  representing 
him  as  actuated  by  feelings  of  jealousy  towards  their  government  for  having  superseded 
his  own,  and  as  exerting  the  whole  of  his  great  talent  and  influence  for  the  purpose  of 
thwarting  and  bringing  disgrace  on  their  measures.  It  was  believed,  also,  that  this  baron 
had,  among  his  own  vassals  and  partisans,  assumed  the  title  of  king  of  Meath,  receiving 
tribute  in  that  character  from  Connaugbt;  and  had  even  proceeded  so  far  in  this  assump- 
tion as  to  order  a  regal  crown  to  be  made  for  his  own  head.]!  But,  whatever  grounds 
there  may  have  been  for  these  charges,  De  Lacy  did  not  live  to  be  called  upon  to  answer 
to  them, — having  met  his  death  this  year  from  a  hand  so  obscure,  that  not  even  a  name 
remains  associated  with  the  deed.H 

He  had  been  engaged  for  some  time  in  erecting  a  castle  at  a  place  called  Dar- 
maigh,  in  the  southern  part  of  ancient  Meath,  upon  a  spot  hallowed  in  the  eyes  of  -liof}* 
the  natives,  as  being  the  site  of  a  monastery  founded  by  their  great  saint,  Colum- 
ba.     Being  in  the  habit  of  attending  personally  to  the  building,  De  Lacy  had  gone  forth 
to  inspect  the  outworks,  attended  but  by  three  English  soldiers  and  an  Irish  labourer  ;  and 
just  as  he  was  in  the  act,  we  are  told,  of  stooping  down  to  mark  out  the  line  of  some 
wall  or  trench,  the  Irish  workman  drew  forth  a  battle-axe  which  he  had  brought,  con- 
cealed beneath  his  mantle  for  the  purpose,  and  at  one  blow  smote  ofl^  the  baron's  head. 
The  assassin  escaped  into  a  neighbouring  wood,  and  being  doubtless  favoured  in  his  flight 
by  the  country  people,  contrived  to  elude  all  persuit.** 

On  hearing  of  this  event,  at  which  he  is  said  to  have  openly  rejoiced,  the  first  step  of 

*  "All  that  authority,"  says  lord  Lyltelton,"  over  the  minds  of  the  Irisli,  which  the  courtesy,  gravity, 
and  prudence  of  Henry,  during  his  abode  in  their  island,  had  happily  gained,  was  lost  in  a  few  days  by  tlie 
petulent  levity  of  Johii  and  his  courtiers;  the  good  will  of  that  people,  on  which  Henry  had  desirej  to  establish 
his  dominion,  being  instantly  turned  into  a  national  hatred." 

t  The  abbot  of  Peterborough  attributes  a  great  part  of  the  failure  of  John's  enterprise  to  the  desertions  of 
the  soldiers  of  his  army  to  the  ranks  of  the  Irish,  in  consequence  of  their  pay  having  been  withheld  from 
them,  and  embezzled  : — "  Sed  ipse  Johannes  parum  ibi  profecit,  quia  pro  defectu  indigenarum  qui  cum  eo 
tenere  debebant  et  pro  eo  quod  stipendia  militibus  et  solidariis  suis  dare  noluit." 

I  Hiborn.  Expugnat.  1.  2.  c.  34. 

§  "  Fere  amisii  totum  exercitum  suum  in  pluribus  conflictibus  quo  sui  fecerant  contra  Hybernienses." — 
Benedict  Abbas. 

li  "  Videbaturque  sibi  jam  magis  quam  regi  Anglorum  regnum  Hybernicuin  iemulari,  in  tantum  ut  dia- 
dema  sibi  regium  parasse  diceretur." — Oulielm.  M'eubrig.  1.  3.  c.  9. 

^\  Gulielm.  Neubrig.  af  supra.  Several  names  have  been  assigned  to  the  perpetrator  of  this  act,  but  all 
diftering  so  much  from  each  other,  as  to  show  that  the  real  name  was  unknown.  Geoflry  Keating,  with  that 
love  of  dull  invention  which  distinguished  him,  describes  the  assassin  as  a  young  gentleman  in  disguise. 

**  Gulielm.  Neubrig.  ut  supra.    Ware's  Annals,  ad  ann.  1186. 


294  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  kino-  was  to  order  John  to  return  into  Ireland,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  possession  of 
De  Lacy's  castles  and  lands,  during  the  nonage  of  that  baron's  eldest  son  Walter.  But 
the  death  of  Geoffry,  duke  of  Bretagne,  the  third  son  of  the  king,  who  was  carried  off 
at  this  time  by  a  fever,  prevented  an  experiment  which  would  have  most  probably  ended 
but  in  a  repetition  of  the  former  failure  and  disgrace. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 


Review  of  the  steps  taken  by  Henry  for  the  transfer  of  Ireland  to  John. — Translation  of  the 
relics  of  the  three  great  Irish  Saints. — Exploits  of  De  Courcy  in  Ulster. — Death  of  Henry 
the  second. — Remarks  on  the  arguments  of  Molyneux  and  others  respecting  the  transfer  of 
the  dominion  of  Ireland  to  John. — De  Courcy  resents  the  appointment  of  De  Lacy  as 
deputy. — Cathal  of  the  bloody  hand  gains  the  kingdom  of  Connaught. — Is  joined  by  the 
princes  of  Thomond  and  Desmond. — Accession  of  Richard  I. — Hugh  De  Lacy,  son  of  the 
first  lord  of  Meath,  appointed  deputy. — Affairs  of  Connaught. — Defeat  of  the  English  by 
Donald  O'Brian. — Perfidy  of  O'Brian. — His  death. — Rapid  change  of  Deputies. — Insurrec- 
tion of  the  Irish. — Successes  of  Mac  Carty  of  Desmond. — Death  of  Roderic  O'Connor. — 
Low  state  of  Irish  Literature  at  this  period. — Remarks  on  Giraldus. 

On  the  subject  of  Henry's  grant  of  the  realm  of  Ireland  to  his  son  John,  and  the  sup- 
posed effects  of  that  measure,  as  regarded  the  political  relations  between  the  two  countries, 
a  question  has  been  more  than  once  raised,  among  constitutional  lawyers,  upon  which 
it  may  be  expected  that  I  should  here  offer  some  remarks.     But  a  more  direct  opportunity 
will  occur  for  considering  this  controversy  when  we  come  to  notice  the  events  of  the 
subsequent  reign.     Mean  while,  a  brief  review  of  the  steps  taken,  at  different  times,  by 
Henry,  towards  such  a  transfer  of  his  Irish  dominion,  may  put  the  reader  more  clearly  in 
possession  of  the  bearings  of  the  question  that  has  since  arisen  out  of  that  measure ;  and 
will  also  show  that  Henry  himself  was  not  without  doubts  as  to  the  safety  and  policy  of 
the  step.      His  relinquishment,  indeed,  of  the  design  originally  entertained  by  him  of 
bestowing  upon  John  the  title  of  king,  arose,  most  probably,  from  the  apprehension  that 
the  establishment  of  a  separate  sovereignty  over  that  country  might,  at  some  future  time, 
be  assumed  as  a  ground  lor  questioning  the  dependence  of  Ireland  on  the  English  crown. 
On  no  other  supposition  is  it  easy  to  account  for  the  great  uncertainty  of  purpose  exhibited 
by  him  on  this  point.     Thus,  though,  in  the  year  1177,  he  actually  intended  to  make  this 
boy  king  of  Ireland,  and  caused  him,  with  the  pope's  permission,  to  be  so  declared  by  a 
council  or  parliament  at  Oxford,  it  is  yet  clear,  fiom  numerous  records,  that  John  took  no 
other  title  than  that  of  lord  of  Hibernia.     Notwithstanding  this,  when  he  was  about  to 
proceed  to  that  country,  in  II85,  application  was  made  by  his  father  to  pope  Lucius  III., 
requesting  that  he  would  allow  the  young  prince  to  be  crowned  ;  but  the  pope,  for  what 
reason  is  not  known,  refused  his  consent.     On  the  accession,  however,  of  Urban  III.,  the 
same  request,  it  appears,  was  renewed ;  for  that  pontiff,  shortly  after  his  election,  granted 
permission  to  Henry  to  crown  anyone  of  his  sons  whom  he  should  clioose  king  of  Ireland, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  sent  him,  as  a  mark  of  his  peculiar  favour,  a  crown  made  of  pea- 
cock's feathers  interwoven  with  gold.     In  reply  to  this  gracious  communication,  Henry 
named  to  the  pope  his  youngest  son  John,  and  requested  that  a  legate  should  be  sent  to 
assist  at  his  coronation.     On  the  arrival,  however,  of  the  cardinal  Octavian  for  that  pur- 
pose, the  king,  who  in  the  mean  time  had  given  up  his  project  of  sending  John  again 
into  Ireland,  abandoned  likewise  all  intention  of  crowning  him. 

The  year  1186  was  rendered  memorable  in  our  ecclesiastical  annals,  by  the 

llRfi'  translation  of  the  remains  of  the  three  great  national  stints,  Patrick,  Columba, 
and  Brigid,  which  had  been  discovered  in  Down  in  the  preceding  year.  The 
pious  bishop  of  that  see,  Malachy,  used  frequently,  we  are  told,  to  implore  of  God,  in  his  de- 
votions, that  he  would  vouchsafe  to  point  out  to  him  the  particular  place  or  places  in 
which  the  bodies  of  these  saints  lay  concealed.  While  thus  employed,  one  night,  in  the 
cathedral  of  Down,  he  saw  a  light,  like  a  sunbeam,  traversing  the  church,  and  at  length 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  295 

resting  at  a  spot  where,  upon  digging,  the  bones  of  the  three  bodies  were  found.*  This 
discovery  having  been  reported  to  John  de  Courcy,  then  lord  of  Down,  it  was  determined 
that  messengers  should  be  despatched  to  pope  Urban  III.,  for  the  purpose  of  procuring 
his  permission  to  remove  or  translate  these  relics  to  some  part  of  the  cliurch  more  worthy 
to  receive  them.  The  pope  accordingly  sent  over  as  his  legate  on  the  occasion  cardinal 
Vivian,  who  was  already  well  acquainted  with  Down  and  its  clergy;  and,  on  the  9th  of 
June,  the  relics  of  the  three  saints,  having  been  put  into  distinct  boxes,  or  coffins,  were 
removed,  with  the  usual  solemnities,  to  a  more  distinguished  part  of  the  church,  and 
there  deposited  in  one  monument.f 

John  de  Courcy,  now  left  to  encounter  the  whole  brunt  of  the  Irish  struggle  almost 
alone,  owed  the  success  which  in  general  attended  his  arms  far  less  to  his  own  and  his 
small  army's  prowess,  than  to  the  wretched  feuds  and  divisions  which  distracted  the  mul- 
titudes opposed  to  him ;  who,  instead  of  following  the  rare  example  set  by  the  chieftains 
of  the  south,  and  reserving,  by  a  truce  among  themselves,  their  combined  hostility  for 
the  oppressor,  still  continued  their  mutual  broils  and  feuds,  and,  in  the  very  face  of  the 
common  enemy,  thought  only  of  flying  upon  each  other.  In  the  year  1187.  O'Loghlin, 
prince  of  Tirone,  was,  after  a  sanguinary  struggle,  deposed  from  his  throne  ;  but  the  prince 
who  succeeded  him,  Roderic  O'Lachertair,  had  but  a  brief  tenure  of  his  ill-got  power,  as, 
in  a  few  months  after  his  accession,  when  in  the  act  of  ravaging  and  despoiling  the  county 
of  Tirconnel,  this  usurper  was  put  to  death,  and  the  rightful  ruler  restored.  Nor  was  it 
long  before  O'Loghlin  himself  fell  on  the  field,  but  in  a  cause  far  more  worthy  of  an 
ancient  national  ciiief.  Having  been  attacked  at  Cavan-ne-cran,  by  the  English  ^ 
garrison  of  the  castle  of  Mogcava,  he  gained,  after  a  desperately  fought  action,  a  i  igy 
complete  victory  over  them,  but  was  himself  killed  by  an  English  arrow  in  the 
moment  of  triumph.  About  the  same  time  O'Cavenan,  king  of  Tirconnel,  attacked  by 
surprise  when  on  a  journey,  by  Flahertach  O'Medory,  another  of  these  petty  princes,  was, 
together  with  his  brother  and  a  number  of  servants,  treacherously  murdered. f 

Those  who  thus  recklessly  made  war  upon  their  own  countrymen  would  not  scruple,  of 
course,  to  aid  the  enemy  in  the  same  cause;  and  we  find,  in  the  same  year,  a  native 
chieftain,  Cornelius  O'Dermot,  leagued  with  De  Courcy  in  an  invasion  of  Connaught, 
whither  that  lord  had  been  invited  by  a  faction  within  the  province,  for  the  purpose  of 
deposing  from  the  sovereignty  Connor  Manmoy,  to  whom  his  father,  the  feeble  Roderic, 
had,  some  few  years  before,  surrendered  the  reins  of  power.  The  province  of  Con- 
naught  had  been  active  in  the  revolt  against  John,  and  this  treacherous  invitation  now 
opened  to  De  Courcy  a  means  of  reducing  it  to  obedience.  The  son  of  Boderic,  how- 
ever, had  secured  the  aid  of  the  brave  and  indefatigable  Donald  O'Brian,  and  their 
united  armies  engaging  De  Courcy,  who  bad  not  counted  on  so  formidable  a  resistance, 
forced  him  to  retreat  precipitately  from  Connaught.  5  Then,  putting  down  the  rebellious 
faction  he  had  come  to  assist,  they  re-established  the  authority  of  Connor  on  apparently 
secure  grounds. 

The  very  next  year,  however,  some  of  the  nearest  friends  of  this  prince,  having 
joined  in  a  conspiracy  against  him  with  the  late  vanquished  party,  he  was,  be-  -i  jgo" 
tween  both  factions,  basely  murdered.      Nor  even  then  did  the  curse  of  discord 
cease  to  hang  around  that  ill-fated  house;  as,  for  many  a  year  after,  Connaught  continued 
to  be  torn  and  convulsed  by  the  remains  of  this  unnatural  strife  ;  while  the  fallen  monarch, 
Roderic  O'Connor,  still  lived  to  witness,  from  his  melancholy  retreat  at  Cong,  the  merited 
judgments  which  a  long  course  of  crime  and  dissention  was  now  bringing  down  on  his 
ill-starred  realm  and  race. 

Whatever  hope  might  still  have  been  cherished,  by  those  who  looked  to  Ireland,  with 
other  views  than  of  mere  plunder,  that  Henry  might  yet  find  leisure  to  apply  himself  to 
the  peaceful  settlement  of  a  country,  which,  according  to  the  policy  now  pursued  towards 
it,  was  to  become  either  the  prop  and  ornament,  or  the  disgrace  and  burden,  of  England, 
such  slight  opening  of  hope  was  now  closed  for  ever  by  the  death  of  this  powerful  king, 
which  took  place  in  the  month  of  July  1189,  at  the  castle  of  Chinon,  in  Normandy ; — 
the  event  being  embittered,  if  not  accelerated,  by  his  discovery  of  the  base  treachery, 
and  ingratitude  towards  him,  of  his  favourite  son,  John.  He  died,  say  the  historians, 
cursing  his  children. 

The  period  of  Anglo-Irish  history — for  of  this  mixed  character  has  my  task  now  be- 

*  Officium  Translationis,  S:c.,  of  which  a  portion  is  given  by  Usher,  Primord.  Eccles.  889. — "  Et  cum  nocte 
quadaiii  instantissime  in  Ecclesia  Dunensi  sic  oraret,  vidit  quasi  radium  solis  per  ecclesiam,  et  usque  ad 
locum  sepulturte  dictorum  sanctorum  corporum  perluslrantem." 

t  Lanigan,  ch.  xxx.  §  8. 

X  Ware's  Annals,  ad.  ann.  1188. 

§  Ware's  Annals,  ut  supra.    Vallancey's  Laics  of  Tanistry,. 


296  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

come — upon  the  borders  of  wliich  we  are  arrived,  may  safely  be  hurried  over  both  by  the 
historian  and  his  readers,  through  more  than  one  century  of  its  course,  without  losing 
much  that  either  the  pen  or  the  memory  can  find  any  inducement  to  linger  upon  or 
record.  However  wanting  in  distinctness  and  interest  may  have  been  the  details  of  Ire- 
land's struggle  with  the  Danes,  and  however  confused,  occasionally,  from  factious  alliances, 
may  have  been  the  relations  between  the  two  parties,  it  is  certain  that  each  is,  in  general, 
found  in  its  own  natural  sphere  of  action,  and  pursuing  the  course  that  might  be  expected 
from  it,  whether  of  aggression  or  resistance;  while  the  ultimate  result  was  such  as  reason, 
humanity,  justice,  must  all  approve — namely,  the  triumph  of  the  people  of  the  land,  in 
defence  of  their  own  soils,  and  the  utter  rout  and  expulsion  of  their  insolent  invaders. 

In  the  course,  of  affairs  however,  which  we  are  now  about  to  contemplate,  all  is  reversed, 
preposterous,  and  unnatural, — wholly  at  variance,  not  only  with  right,  but  even  with  the 
ordinary  course  of  injustice  and  wrong.  The  people  of  Ireland,  the  legitimate  masters 
of  the  soil,  disapi>ear  almost  entirely  from  the  foreground  of  their  country's  history,  while 
a  small  colony  of  rapacious  foreigners  stand  forth  usurpingly  in  their  place.  Expelled, 
on  the  one  hand,  as  enemies  and  rebels,  from  their  rightful  possessions,  by  the  English, 
and  repulsed,  on  the  other,  as  intruders,  by  the  native  septs,  into  whose  lands  they  were 
driven,*  a  large  proportion  of  the  wretched  people,  thus  rendered  homeless  and  despe- 
rate, were  forced  to  fight  for  a  sprat  to  exist  upon,  even  in  their  own  land.  Compared  with 
the  fate,  indeed,  of  the  miserable  multitudes  whom  we  shall  find  from  time  to  time  dis- 
possessed by  the  English  extermination  would  have  been  mercy. 

To  second  the  sword  in  this  mode  of  governing,  the  weapon  of  the  legislator  was  also 
resorted  to,  and  proved  a  still  more  inhuman  because  nEwre  lingering,  visitation.  Giving  a 
name  to  its  own  work,  the  Law  called  "enemies"  those  whom  its  injustice  had  made  so; 
and,  for  the  first  time  in  the  annals  of  legislation,  a  state  of  mutual  hostility  was  recognised 
as  the  established  relationship  between  the  governing  and  the  governed.  While  such  was 
the  sad  history  of  the  people  themselves,  through  many  a  dark  age  of  suffering  and  strife, 
the  acts  of  the  rulers  by  whom  so  rampant  a  system  of  tyranny  was  administered  will  be 
found  no  less  odious  to  remember,  no  less  painful  to  record;  though  in  so  far  pregnant 
with  lessons  of  warning,  as  showing  what  penalties  wait  upon  wanton  misrule,  and  how 
sure  a  retribution  tyranny  provides  for  itself  in  the  rebound  of  its  own  wrong. 

The  kindly  feelings  of  Richard  I.  towards  his  unworthy  brother,  John,  were  shown  not 
more  in  the  favours  and  dignities  so  prodigally  lavished  upon  him  both  in  Normandy  and 
England,  than  in  the  easy  and  generous  confidence  with  which  he  still  left  him  in  unre- 
stricted possession  of  the  grant  of  the  lordship  over  Ireland,  which  had  been  bestowed  on 
him  by  the  late  king.  With  the  slight  exception,  indeed,  of  the  mention  of  Ireland 
among  those  parts  of  the  British  dominions  for  which  he  requested  a  legate  to  be  appointed 
by  Pope  Clement  III.,  Richard  appears  not  to  have  at  all  interfered  with  that  country 
during  his  short,  chivalrous  reign.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that,  in  the  pope's 
rescript  complying  with  this  request,  the  range  of  the  legate's  authority  in  Ireland  is 
limited  strictly  to  those  parts  of  the  country  "  in  which  John,  earl  of  Mortagne,  the 
brother  of  the  king,  has  power  or  dominion."  We  find  the  same  terms  employed  in  a 
charter  of  franchises  granted  at  this  period  by  John  himself.  While,  in  other  instru- 
ments conferring  immunities  and  privileges,  he  acknowledges,  in  like  manner,  the  subor- 
dinacy of  his  own  power,  by  annexing  exceptions  and  reservations  of  all  that  belonged  or 
related  to  the  English  crown. 

Allusion  has  been  made,  in  the  preceding  chapter,  to  a  question  raised  in  later  times, 
respecting  the  consequences  of  Henry's  grant  of  the  kingdom  of  Ireland  to  his  son  John, — 
a  question  which,  at  more  than  one  crisis  of  our  history,  has  been  agitated  with  a  warmth 
and  earnestness  which  could  be  infused  into  it  only  by  the  political  spirit  and  ferment 
of  the  moment.f  By  one  of  the  parties  in  this  controversy  it  has  been  contended  that 
the  act  of  Henry,  in  making  his  son  king  of  Ireland,  produced  a  great  and  fundamental 

*  "The  septs  that  were  thus  expelled  from  their  habitatrons  in  vain  sought  an  asylum  in  the  more  inac- 
cessible parts  of  the  country,  since  hostile  septs,  to  which  they  were  as  invaders,  opposed  their  inroads." — 
Brodie,  History  of  the  British  Empire.    Introduction. 

t  The  first  instance,  I  believe,  of  any  decided  difference  of  opinion  on  this  point,  occurs  in  the  decisions  of 
the  judges  of  England,  on  the  precedent  of  the  Staple  Act  (2  Hen.  VI.,)  vk-hen  to  the  question,  "  Whether  the 
Staple  Act  binds  Ireland  ?"  two  directly  opposite  opinions  were  given,  on  the  two  several  occasions  when  the 
case  was  brought  under  their  consideration.  The  opinion  pronounced,  however,  by  the  chief  justice  Hussey 
on  the  last  of  these  two  occasions,  and  to  which  all  the  other  judges  assented,  was,  that  "  the  statutes  made 
in  England  did  bind  those  of  Ireland  ;" — a  view  of  the  case  confirmed,  in  later  times,  by  the  high  authority 
of  chief  justice  Cook,  and  likewise  of  sir  John  Davies. 

The  first  public  controversy  to  which  the  question  gave  rise,  was  that  which  took  place  on  the  passing  of 
the  Act  of  Adventurers,  17  Car.  I.,  between  sir  Richard  Bolton  (or,  rather,  Patrick  Darcy,  assuming  that  name) 
and  sergeant  Maynart,  whose  respective  pamphlets  on  the  subject  may  be  found  in  Harris's  Hibcmica.  At  the 
close  of  the  same  century,  the  question  was  again  called  into  lile  by  Molyneu.x,  in  behalf  of  the  Irish  woollen 
manufacture,  and  received  new  grace  and  popularity  from  his  manner  of  treating  it.    About  Oily  years  later 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  297 

change  in  the  relations  between  the  two  kingdoms;  that,  by  this  transfer,  he  had  super- 
seded or  voided  whatever  claim  he  could  pretend  to,  from  conquest,  over  Ireland,  leaving 
it  to  all  intents  a  separate  and  independent  kingdom;*  while,  by  the  introduction  among 
that  people,  as  well  in  his  own  reign  as  in  that  of  his  son  John,  of  the  laws  and  institu- 
tions of  England,  they  were  provided  with  the  means  of  internal  government,  and  thereby 
exempted  from  all  dependence  on  the  English  legislature. 

This  vievv  of  the  question,  though  leading  to  conclusions  which  cannot  but  be  welcome 
to  all  advocates  of  Ireland's  independence,  is,  unluckily,  destitute  of  foundation  in  histo- 
rical fact.  The  title  of  king  of  Ireland,  bestowed  on  the  young  prince,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  withdrawn  almost  as  soon  as  announced  ;  and  though  Henry  afterwards  again 
contemplated  the  same  step,  and  had  even  a  legate  sent  over  from  Rome  to  assist  at  his 
son's  coronation,  the  same  misgivings  again  came  over  him,  and  he  abandoned  the 
project;!  apprehending,  perhaps,  from  the  actual  possession  of  the  title  by  John,  those 
very  pretentions  which  afterwards  arose  from  the  mere  presumption  of  his  having  been 
invested  with  that  title.J 

It  may  be  said  that,  though  John  was  styled  only  "  Lord  of  Hibernia,"  none  of  the 
succeeding  kings  of  England  took  any  higher  title,  and  yet  were  not  the  less  invested 
with  regal  authority  over  that  country.  But,  to  put  his  son  independently  in  posses- 
sion of  that  power,  Henry  must  have  surrendered  all  hold  of  it  himself;  and  that  he  did 
not  do  so,  is  abundantly  proved  by  all  the  subsequent  acts  and  instrmnents  of  his  reign, 
by  his  appointment  of  all  the  ministers  and  officers  of  the  government  in  Ireland,  by  his 
recalling  from  that  country  the  young  Lord  of  Hibernia  himself,  and  committing  the 
charge  and  command  of  the  kingdom  to  John  de  Courcy  in  his  stead.  He  also  made 
numerous  grants  of  lands  in  that  realm,  some  to  be  held  of  himself  alone  and  his  heirs, 
others  by  tenure  of  him  and  John  and  their  heirs ;  still  reserving,  in  all  these  grants,  certain 
services  to  himself,  and  thus  clearly  establishing  that  in  him  the  right  and  title  of  the 
property  lay. 

While  thus  weak  are  the  grounds  derived  from  the  supposed  kingship  of  John,  for 
regarding  Ireland  at  this  time  as  a  distinct  and  independent  kingdom,  the  inferences 
drawn  from  the  alleged  introduction  into  that  realm,  of  the  laws  and  institutions  of  Eng- 
land,— thereby  enabling,  as  it  is  said,  the  Irish  people  to  legislate  for  themselves, — are 
no  less  fallacious  and  unsubstantial. 

In  order  to  give  dignity  to  this  supposed  dawn  of  English  legislation  in  Ireland,  the 
Curia  Regis,  or  Common  Council,  held  by  Henry  at  Lismore,  is  styled,  prematurely,  a 
Parliament, — that  term  not  occurring  even  in  English  records  till  towards  the  middle  of 
the  13th  century;  while,  in  order  to  instruct  his  new  subjects  in  the  art  of  law  making, 
a  sort  of  Formulary,  still  extant,  containing  rules  and  directions  for  the  holding  of  par- 
liaments, is  pretended  to  have  been  transmitted  by  him  to  Ireland  for  that  purpose. 5 

The  claims  of  this  document  to  so  high  an  antiquity,  though  sustained  by  no  less  an  au- 
thority than  sir  Edward  Coke,  were  shown  satisfactorily  by  Prynne,  Selden,||  and  others, 
to  be  wholly  without  grounds.  Notwithstanding  which,  it  was  again,  at  a  later  period, 
appealed  to  by  Molyneux  in  proof  of  the  antiquity  of  Irish  parliaments  ;  and  again,  with 
equal  ease  and  success,  was  set  aside  by  his  various  opponents  in  the  controversy.     The 

the  Irish  demagogue,  Lucas,  revived  the  topic,  in  his  own  coarse  but  popular  strain.  Nor  has  the  subject, 
even  in  our  own  times,  been  permitted  to  slumber;  as  a  learned  argument  in  favour  of  Darcy 'sand  Molyneux's 
view  of  the  question  has  appeared,  not  long  since,  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Monck  Mason. 

*  "  We  shall  observe  that  by  this  donation  of  the  kingdom  of  Ireland  to  king  John,  Ireland  was  most  emi- 
nently set  apart  again  as  a  separate  and  distinct  kingdom  by  itself  from  the  kingdom  of  England." — JHohj' 
neux. 

It  is  not  a  little  curious  that  chief  justice  Coke  should  have  been  of  the  very  same  opinion  with  Molyneu.x, 
as  to  Ireland  being  "a  distinct  dominion  separate  from  the  kingdom  of  England,"  though  drawing  so  per- 
fectly different  a  conclusion  from  it : — adding,  "Yet  the  title  thereof  being  hy  conquest,  tlie  same  by  judgment 
of  law  might,  by  express  words,  be  bound  by  the  parliaments  of  England  "  Sir  John  Davies,  with  far  more 
consistency,  in  asserting  the  power  of  the  Euglish  parliament  to  bind  this  country,  so  far  from  considering 
Ireland  as  a  distinct,  separate  kingdom,  pronounces  her  to  be  but  "  a  member  appendant  and  belonginge.  or 
unyted  and  annexed  to  the  imperial  crowne  of  England.''  See  his  speech,  in  1(J13,  as  speaker  of  the  Irish 
house  of  commons,  first  published  by  Leland,  in  the  Appendix  to  his  second  volume. 

t  In  the  face  of  this  historical  fact,  Molyneux  persists,  for  the  sake  of  his  argument,  in  giving  to  John  the 
title  of  king  throughout. — See  preceding  note.  In  a  similar  manner,  he  says  elsewhere,  "  During  which  space 
of  twenty-two  years,  both  whilst  his  father  Henry  II.,  and  his  brother  Richard  I ,  were  living  and  reigning, 
king  John  made  divers  grants  and  charters  to  his  subjects,"  &c.  &:c. 

X  On  John's  own  seal,  of  which  Speed  has  given  an  encraving,  no  higher  title  is  assumed  thjui  that  of  Lord 
of  Hibernia;  "  Sigillum  Johannis  filli  Regis,  Domini  Hiberniffi."  It  is  strange  that  Prynne,  with  all  these 
facts  before  liis  eyes,  should  have  coniuiitted  the  mistake  of  asserting  that  John,  created  king  of  Ireland  by 
his  father  at  Oxford,  "enjoyed  that  title  till  his  death. "—0«  the  Institutes,  c.  76. 

§  "  Modus  tenendi  Parliamciaum,"  Sec.    This  record  is  given,  at  length,  in  Harris's  Ware,  chap.  13. 

H  Selden  pronounces  it  to  be  "  a  lale  imposture  of  a  bold  fancy,  not  exceeding  the  reign  of  Edward  III." 
{Titles  of  Honour.)  See  Prynne  (on  the  Fourth  Part  of  the  [nstilutes)  for  the  numerous  proofs  he  brings 
against  the  antiquity  and  autboriiv  of  this  document. 

37 


298  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

original  roll  of  this  record,  which  was  in  the  possession  of  Molyneux  himself,  and  which 
he  had  before  liim,  as  he  states,  while  writing  his  "  Case  of  Ireland,"  is  now  lost;  and 
how  far  even  the  exemplification  of  this  roll,  said  to  have  been  made  in  the  6th  year 
of  Henry  V.,  may  be  received  as  authentic,  is  yet  a  farther  question.  But  enough  of 
incongruities  and  anachronisms  have  been  pointed  out  in  the  substance  of  the  "  Modus" 
itself,  to  disqualify  it  totally  as  authentic  evidence  respecting  the  limes  to  which  its  pre- 
tended date  refers. 

The  great  and  leading  mistake,  however,  of  those  now  obsolete  champions  of  Ireland's 
independence,  who  appealed  in  its  behalf  to  the  Anglo-Norman  code,  was  their  over- 
looking the  fact,  that,  from  all  this  boasted  system  of  law  and  polity  introduced  by  the 
invaders  into  the  country,  the  natives  tiiemselves  were  entirely  excluded  ;  that  neither  at 
the  period  where  we  are  now  arrived,  nor  for  many  centuries  after,  were  the  people  of 
Ireland,  properly  speaking,  the  native  inhabitants  of  the  land,  admitted  to  any  share 
whatever  in  the  enjoyment  of  those  foreign  institutions  and  privileges  which  yet  have 
been  claimed,  in  their  most  unrestricted  form,  for  the  Ireland  of  modern  days,  on  the  sole 
presumption  of  their  having  been  at  that  period  her  own.  It  will  be  found,  as  we  proceed, 
that  within  the  narrow  circle  of  the  Pale  alone  were  confined,  for  many  centuries,  all  the 
advantages  resulting  from  English  laws;*  and  the  few  instances  that  occur,  from  time  to 
time,  of  the  admission,  at  their  own  request,  of  some  natives  of  Ireland  to  this  privilege, 
only  show,  by  the  fewness  and  formality  of  the  exceptions,  how  very  general  and  strict 
was  the  exclusion.! 

At  what  period  parliaments,  properly  so  called,  began  to  be  held  by  the  English  in  Ire- 
land, there  appear  no  means  of  ascertaining;  but  it  is  the  opinion  of  sir  J.  Davies,J  tliat 
for  140  years  after  the  time  of  Henry  II.,  there  was  but  one  parliament  for  both  king- 
doms, and  that  the  councils  held  occasionally,  by  the  Lords  of  the  Pale,  during  that  in- 
terval, were,  as  he  expresses  it,  rather  Parlies  than  Parliaments.  Neither  were  the 
interests  of  the  English  settlement  left  wholly  unrepresented  during  that  period,  as  we 
learn  from  the  records  of  the  reigns  of  the  first  three  Edwards  that  Ireland  sent  repre- 
sentatives to  the  English  parliament  under  all  those  kings.J 

It  has  been  naturally  an  object  with  those  who  have  adopted  the  views  of  Molyneux 
on  this  subject,  to  prove  that  parliaments  were  among  the  very  earliest  of  the  institutions 
bestowed  on  Ireland  by  her  new  masters;  because,  in  a  separate  and  self-willed  legisla- 
ture, they  found  a  mark  of  that  disjunction  and  separateness  of  the  two  realms  which 
forms  a  vital  part  of  their  theory;  and  because,  during  whatever  interval  the  new  king- 
dom may  have  been  left  unprovided  with  a  parliament  of  its  own,  it  must,  for  that  period, 
be  held  to  have  been  subject  to  the  Statute  Laws  of  England,  and  the  theory  of  its  inde- 
pendence and  self-government  must,  in  so  far,  be  relinquished. || 

There  are  yet  a  few  other  points  connected  with  Molyneux's  view  of  the  history  and 
attributes  of  the  Irish  parliament,  which  shall  be  noticed  as  cases  arise  which  require 
recurrence  to  the  subject.      But  it  may  be  adverted  to  here,  as  at  least  curious,  that 

*  With  reference  to  a  writ  sent  by  Henry  III  ,  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  reign,  to  the  arclibishops  anil 
others  in  Ireland,  for  tlie  strict  observance  of  the  laws  of  Engliiml  in  that  country,  Prynne  says,  "  Yet,  not- 
withstanding, this  privilege  of  using  the  laws  of  Knglaiul  in  Ireland  wa<i  never  intended  by  king  John  nor 
king  IlejJty  to  e.vtend  to  all  the  native  Irish  in  general,  but  only  to  the  English  inhabitants  transplanted 
thither,  or  there  born,  and  to  such  native  Irishmen  as  faithfully  adhered  to  these  kings,  and  the  English  in 
Ireland,  against  the  Irish  rebels." 

t  Among  the  records  in  the  Roll's  Office,  Dublin,  are  many  of  these  licenses  granted  to  particular  Irish  to 
use  the  Englisli  laws;  some  of  them  bijing  Irish  women,  whose  husbands  were  English.  Thus,  for  instance, 
"Quia  Rado  Burges  (Anglico  qui  flib'  continue  nioratr)  niaritata  est  qd  ipa  et  hedes  sui  utanlr  legib' 
Anglic'." — Sen  Inrjuisit  in  Office.  Rolul  Cnnccllar.  Hibern,  S(c.  Several  of  such  records  of  licenses  to  use  the 
English  laws  are  given  by  Prynne,  chap  76. 

J  This  assertion  may,  doubtless,  admit  of  di.-ipiite;  and  Mr.  Mason  has  produced  some  instances  of  councils 
held  in  Ireland  in  the  reigns  of  Edward  I.  and  Edward  II  ,  to  which  the  name  of  Parliament  may  fairly  be 
allowed.  "  In  the  third  of  Edward  II.,"  he  says  "  previous  to  the  period  fi.xed  upon  by  sir  J.  Davies  for  the 
commencement  of  Irish  legislation,  there  was  a  parliament  in  Ireland,  the  enactments  of  which  were 
printed  by  sir  Richard  Bollou  (the  chief  baron  that  was  cotemporary  with  sir  John  Davies,)  in  his  edition  of 
Irish  Statutes,  A.  D.  1G21.' 

5  It  is  clear  that  Molyneux,  though,  in  one  sense,  so  warm  a  champion  of  Ireland's  independence,  would 
have  hailed  a  Union,  such  as  now  e.\ists  between  the  two  counuies,  with  welcome.  In  noticing  the  fact 
above  stated, 'he  says  : — "  If  from  these  last  mentioned  records  it  beconcluded  that  the  parliament  of  England 
may  bind  Ireland,  it  must  also  be  allowed  that  the  people  of  Ireland  ought  to  have  their  representatives  in 
the  parliament  of  England.  And  this,  I  believe,  we  should  be  willing  enough  to  embrace:— but  this  is  a 
^ap|iines8  we  can  hardly  hope  for." 

II  To  l|us  obvious  objection  Molyneu.x  necessarily  laid  himself  open,  by  acknowledging  that  till  the  time  of 
Henry  III.,  no  regular  legislature  had  yet  been  established  in  Ireland.  He  likewise  not  merely  admits,  but 
demonstrates,  that  from  the  ninth  of  Edward  I.,  to  the  fiftieth  of  Edward  III.,  a  period  occupying  about  a 
century,  the  representatives  of  Ireland  came  over  to  t'a  in  the  parliament  of  Kngland  ;— a  fact  which,  con- 
curring with  the  absence  of  all  evidence  as  to  any  councils  liaving  been  held  previously  in  Ireland,  except 
that  rneniorai>le  one  convoked  by  Henry  II.,  at  Lismore,  seem  strongly  to  corroborate  the  opinion  advanced 
by  sir  John  Davies  respecting  the  time  when  a  regular-legislature  was  first  established  in  this, country. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  299 

writers,  whose  object  it  is  to  prove  that  the  parliament  of  England  was  entitled  neither 
by  right  or  precedent  to  bind  by  its  acts  the  people  of  Ireland,*  should  yet  have  taken  as 
the  main  foundation  of  their  argument  the  act  of  a  pnrliament  at  Oxford,  which,  without 
any  reference  whatever  to  the  consent  of  the  people  affected  by  its  legislation,  constituted 
a  youth  of  only  twelve  years  of  age  king  of  Ireland. 

The  solemn  enactment,  in  our  own  times,  of  a  legislative  union  between  the  two  coun- 
tries, would  seem  to  have  reduced  tlie  question,  here  noticed,  to  a  mere  theme  of  curious 
historical  speculation;  and  certainly,  on  no  slight  grounds  should  the  claims  of  Ireland 
to  legislative  independence  be  again  put  forth  as  a  practical  question.  But  should  the 
course  of  political  events  ever  bring  back  into  public  discussion  a  subject  now  quietly 
left  to  repose  in  the  page  of  the  historian  and  the  antiquary,  the  right  of  Ireland  to  legis- 
late for  herself  must  assuredly  be  asserted  on  some  more  tenable  grounds  than  the  obsolete 
grant  of  her  realm  to  a  stripling  king,  or  the  occasional  pretensions  of  the  English  par- 
liament of  the  Pale. 

The  deputy  appointed  by  John  to  the  government  of  this  country,  on  the  accession  of 
his  brother  Richard,  was  Hugh  de  Lacy,  son  of  the  first  lord  of  Meath;  in  consequence 
of  which,  John  de  Courcy,  finding  iiimself,  unfairly,  as  he  thought,  supplanted,  retired 
dissatisfied  to  his  own  possessions  in  Ulster,  and  there  assumed,  in  the  midst  of  his  fol- 
lowers, a  tone  and  attitude  of  independence  which  threatened  danger  to  the  English  in- 
terests in  that  quarter.  In  the  mean  while  the  native  princes,  encouraged  by  the  diver- 
sion to  the  shores  of  the  East,  under  Richard's  banner,  of  the  energies  and  resources  of 
England,  began  to  form  plans  among  themselves  of  combined  warfare  against  the  fo- 
reigners, and  even  to  suspend  their  intestine  quarrels  for  the  general  object  of  crushing 
the  common  foe.  In  Connaught,  where  still  some  lingering  pretensions  to  the  sove- 
reignty were  kept  alive,  two  of  the  ill-fated  race  of  O'Connor  were  at  this  tmie  contend- 
ing for  the  barren  prize;  and  a  battle  fought  between  the  two  factions,  in  which  each  could 
boast  of  English  auxiliaries  in  its  ranks,  terminated  in  favour  of  Cathal  O'Connor,  called, 
from  the  number  of  battles  fought  by  him,  O'Connor  of  the  Bloody  Hand.  With  the 
strange  notions  of  piety  prevalent  in  those  times,  when  the  God  of  peace  was 
made  a  party  in  every  sanguinary  feud,  this  devout  warrior  founded  an  abbey  on  i  igQ 
the  spot  where  the  battle  was  won,  and  called  it,  in  remembrance  of  that  for- 
tunate event,  the  Abbey  of  the  Hill  of  Victory. 

Among  the  chiefs  who  agreed  at  this  crisis  to  postpone  their  mutual  feuds,  and  act  in 
concert  against  the  enemy,  were  O'Brian  of  Thomond,  and  MacCarthy  of  Desmond,  here- 
ditary rulers  of  north  and  south  Munster,  and  chiefs  respectively  of  the  two  rival  tribes, 
the  Dalcassians  and  the  Eugenians.  By  a  truce  now  formed  between  these  princes, 
O'Brian  was  left  free  to  direct  his  arms  against  the  English;  and,  having  attacked  their 
forces  at  Thurles,  in  O'Fogarty's  Country,  gave  them  a  complete  overthrow,  putting  to 
the  sword,  add  the  Munster  Annals,  a  great  number  of  their  knights.  We  have  seen 
already  how  deeply  the  course  and  character  of  this  warlike  chief  were  marked  with  the 
taint  of  those  habits  of  treachery  which  a  long  life  of  faction  is  sure  to  engender.  Not- 
withstanding the  truce  he  had  now  entered  into  with  Mac  Carthy,  we  find  him,  at  no 
long  interval  after,  encouraging  secretly  the  views  of  the  English  on  that  prince's  pos- 
sessions, and  even  allowing  them  to  erect  a  fort,  the  castle  of  Breginnis,  within  his  own  ter- 
ritories, to  protect  and  facilitate  their  hostile  incursions  into  the  teritory  of  his  rival. f 

While  some  of  the  natives  were  thus  bringing  disgrace  on  the  Irish  name,  the  English 
colonists  had  begun,  even  thus  early,  to  exhibit  symptoms  of  that  state  of  degeneracy 
and  insubordination  into  which  at  a  later  period  we  shall  find  them  so  shamefully  sunk. 
The  independent  position  assumed  by  De  Courcy  on  his  usurped  territory,  setting  at  de- 

*  Among  the  countless  dilemmas  and  embarrassments  which  would  arise  practically  out  of  such  a  state  of 
relationship  between  the  two  countries  as  Molynpux's  theory  would  establish,  that  which  must  arise  on  the 
accession  of  a  new  monarch  to  the  throne  of  England  is  thus  keenly  put  by  the  ablest  and  acutest  of  his 
opp>>nents,  Carey,  a  raerchaut  of  Bristol.  Molyneux  having  allowed  that  a  king  declared  liy  the  parliament 
of  England,  though  ho  was  not  king  before  such  declaration,  becomes  thereby,  ipso  facto,  king  of  Ireland, 
the  Bristol  merchant  thus  entaugles  him  in  his  own  argument : — "  Is  it  any  better  than  contradiction  to  hold 
that  a  king  of  England,  as  created  or  declared  in  a  parliament  of  England,  is  thereby,  or  at  the  same  instant, 
king  of  Ireland,  and  yet  that  Ireland  is  a  kingdom  so  complete  in  itself,  that  he  is  no  king  till  the  act  of  par- 
liament, creating  or  declaring  him  king,  is  confirmed  by  a  parliament  in  Ireland  ?  Or,  take  it  the  other  way, — 
no  act  of  parliament  in  England  is  of  any  force  till  confirmed  in  Ireland  ;  and  yet  a  king  declared  by  a  par- 
liament of  England,  though  he  was  not  king  before  such  declaration,  is  thereby,  or  ipso  facto,  king  of  Ireland; 
— that  is,  ail  act  of  parliament  of  Ensland  is  not  of  force  in  Ireland  till  confirmed  tkerc,  and  yet  is  of  force, 
ipso  facto,  by  being  enacted  here.  Does  it  not,  therefore,  follow  that  such  an  anne.\ation  of  Ireland  to  the 
crown  of  England  as  makes  the  king  of  England,  ipso  facto,  king  of  Ireland,  destroys  the  supposition  that 
their  parliaments  have  authority  to  confirm  or  reject  laws  made  by  the  legislature  of  England  ?  or  otherwise, 
that  the  supposition  of  such  an  authority  in  the  parliament  of  Ireland  destroys  that  annexation  which  Mr. 
Molyneux  himself  yields?" 

t  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Dr.  Lanigan  should  have  suffered  his  nationality  to  prevail  so  far  over  his  sense 
of  right  and  wrong,  as  to  lead  him,  in  recording  the  death  of  O'Brian,  to  call  him  "  that^ood  and  brave  prince." — 
Chap.  xxxi.  §  10. 


300  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

fiance  the  dclogate  of  royally, — the  epectacle  of  English  soldiers  opposed  to  each  other  in 
the  ranks  of  contending  Irish  chieftains, — these  and  a  few  other  such  anomalies,  which 
beo-an  to  present  themselves,  at  this  period,  were  but  the  foretaste  of  evils  inevitably  yet 
to  come;  tlie  first  stirring  of  embryo  mischiefs  which  time  and  circumstances  brought, 
at  a  later  period,  to  baneful  maturity. 

In  the  year  1194  died  Donald  O'Brian,  king  of  Thomond  and  Ormond, — a 
■i^QA  pi^i'ice,  whose  mixture  of  warhke  and  religious  propensities  rendered  him  popular 
alike  among  the  laity  and  the  clergy  of  the  country.  The  wrong  done  by  him 
to  the  cause  of  Irelands  independence,  by  being  among  the  first  of  the  native  princes 
who  proffered  submission  to  Henry  II.,  was  in  some  degree  atoned  for,  though  never  to 
be  repaired,  by  the  vigour  and  obstinacy  of  his  resistence  afterwards  to  the  English,  on 
finding  that  their  object  was  to  make  of  himself  and  his  brother  princes  not  merely  tri- 
butaries but  slaves.  One  of  the  last  acts  of  his  long  and  stormy  life  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  add  to  the  redeeming  portion  of  his  long  career,  by  a  brilliant  victory  over  the 
invaders.  He  was  succeeded  in  the  principality  by  his  eldest  son,  Mortogh  Dall,  a  chief 
who  had,  in  like  manner,  tarnished  his  name  by  defection  from  the  national  cause, 
having  been  the  first  that  introduced  the  English  into  Munster  (1177,)  and  for  the  old, 
factious  purpose  of  employing  them  as  auxiliaries  against  his  own  kinsmen  and  neigh- 
bours, the  Eugenians  of  Desmond. 

Of  the  numerous  religious  houses  established  by  Donald  O'Brian,  a  due  and  grateful 
remembrance  is  cherished  in  our  ecclesiastical  annals.  Besides  several  monastic  foun- 
dations, he  established  a  nunnery  for  Augustin  canonesses  at  Kiloen,  in  the  Barony  of 
Islands;  and  formed  also  an  establishment,  under  the  name  of  St.  Peter,  in  the  city  of 
J.imerick,  for  black  nuns  of  the  order  of  St.  Augustin.*  To  him  also  Limerick  and 
Cashel  were  indebted  for  their  respective  cathedrals  ; — his  own  palace  having  been  be- 
stowed upon  the  Church  for  the  foundation  of  the  former  structure.f  while  the  great 
cathedral  of  CashelJ  was  erected  by  him,  adjoining  king  Cormac's  chapel,  which  beauti- 
ful building  was  made  from  thenceforth  to  serve  as  a  vestry  or  chapter  house. 

After  a  struggle,  not  without  bloodshed,  among  the  remaining  sons  of  Donald, — the  aid 
of  the  Englishbeing  called  in  by  one  of  the  contending  factions, — Carbrach,  the  youngest 
brother,  was  raised  to  the  sovereignty,  though  clearly  with  but  nominal  power,  as  it  ap- 
pears that  the  capital  of  his  kingdom,  Limerick,  was  in  the  year  1195  under  the  rule  of 
English  authorities. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  quick  change  of  deputies,  in  the  administration  of  the  colony, 
showed  how  uneasy  and  difficult  was  the  task.  After  a  short,  but  apparently  unsuccessful 
experiment  of  office,  Hugh  de  Lacy  was  succeeded  by  William  Petit,  for  whom,  shortly 
after,  we  find  substituted  William  Marshall,  or  Mareschall,  second  earl  of  Pembroke. 
This  powerful  nobleman,  who,  in  right  of  his  new  dignity,  bore  the  golden  staff^  and  cross 
at  the  coronation  of  Richard  I.,  had,  together  with  his  earldom,  received  from  that  mo- 
narch the  hand  of  Isabel,  daughter  and  heir  of  the  late  earl,  and  became  thus  invested 
with  her  princely  Irish  possessions.  But,  whatever  advantage  this  connexion  with  the 
country  may  linve  given  him,  the  results  of  his  government  were  by  no  means  prosper- 
ous. Presuming  on  the  tameness  with  which  the  Irish  had  yielded  to  aggression,  their 
haughty  invaders  now  began  to  add  insult  to  wrong:  but  not  with  equal  impunity.  Far 
more  alive  to  contempt  than  to  injury,  those  who  had  witnessed  unmoved  the  destruction 
of  their  ancient  monarchy,  now  flew  to  arms  with  instant  alacrity,  under  the  sure 
goad  of  English  insolence  and  scorn  ;  and  the  two  most  active  and  popular  of  the  native 
princes,  Cathal  of  Connaught  and  Mac  Carthy  of  Desmond,  held  forth  their  ever  ready 
banner  to  all  whose  war  cry  was  vengeance  against  the  English.  So  great  was  the 
success,  accordingly,  of  the  national  cause,  during  the  short  government  of  the  earl  Mar- 
shall, that,  in  spite  of  the  perfidy  which,  as  usual,  found  its  way  into  the  Irish  councils, 
Mac  Carthy,  aided  by  the  forces  of  Cathal  and  those  of  O'Lochlin,  succeeded  in  re- 

*  LaniRan,  chap.  xxxi.  §  lO. 

t  Ferrar  s  liislorv  of  Limerick,  at  St.  Mary's  Church. 

\  The  Cistercian  Abbey  of  Holy  Cross.  "  A  famous  abbey,  heretofore,"  says  Camden,  "which  makes  the 
country  about  it  to  be  commonly  ca)led  the  country  of  the  Holy  Cross  of  Ti|)i)erary.  This  church  enjoys  cer- 
tain privileges  granted  in  honour  of  a  piece  of  Christ's  Cross  preserved  there."  See  Lanigan,  ch.  xxx.  §  2, 
also  Dr.  Milner's  Inquiry,  &c.  Letter  X4  ;  and  Mr.  Crofton  Croker's  Researches  in  the  South  of  Ireland. 
chap,  xiv  .         ,       .  J  „  u 

§  According  to  Prynne,  this  ceremony  was  not  introduced  till  a  later  period:— "This  is  to  be  observed,  ne 
says.  "  tbat.  inouyh  thifre  were  divers  lords  marshals  of  England  tefore  the  reign  of  Richard  11.,  yet  Richard 
II.,  created  Tho.  Mowbray,  liist  earl  marshal  of  England,  per  nomen  Comitis  Mareschalli  Anglia-.  He  and 
Ins  snccessBr  earl  marshal  being  enabled  by  this  charter  tocairy  a  golden  staff  before  the  king,  and  in  all 
other  places,  with  the  king's  arms  at  the  top  of  it,  and  his  own  at  the  lower  end,  when  all  the  marshals  before 
his  creation  carrie<l  only  a  wood«Vi  s'tafT." — Oh  the  Instilxiteo,  Chap.  1. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  301 

ducing  several  of  the  garrisons  in  Munster,  and,  after  a  siege  of  some  duration,  com- 
pelled Cork  itself  to  surrender  to  his  arms. 

Discouraged  and  mortified  by  these  reverses,  the  earl  Marshall  willingly  resigned  the 
reins  of  authority  to  Hamo  de  Valois,  who  finding,  on  his  arrival,  the  government 
embarrassed,  for  want  of  means,  made  no  scruple  of  commencing  his  career  by  a  linj 
forcible  invasion  of  the  property  of  the  Church.     Notwithstanding  the  angry  re- 
monstrances of  Cuming,  archbishop  of  Dublin,  Hamo  persisted  in  his  design, — seizing 
several  lands  belonging  to  the  see  of  Dublin,  and  taking  possession  also  of  the  temporal- 
ities of  the  church  of  Leighlin,  together  with  the  property  of  the  canons.     The  indignant 
archbishop,  after  having,  in  vain,  tried  entreaty,  remonstrance,  and  excommunication,  in 
utter  despair,  at  length,  of  redress  from  the  Irish  authorities,  laid  the  sentence  of  interdict 
on  his  diocess,  and  departed  for  England  to  invoke  the  interference  of  the  throne.     But 
neither  earl  John  nor  king  Richard  appear  to  have  afforded  him  any  remedy.     Among 
the  letters  of  Pope  Innocent  III.  written  at  this  time,  and  containing  some  curious  particu- 
lars respecting  the  Irish  Church,*  there  is  one  addressed  to  earl  John,  complaining  angrily 
of  the  outrageous  conduct  of  his  deputy,  and  desiring  him  to  compel  that  officer  to  restore 
to  the  church  and  canons  of  Leighlin  the  temporalities  of  which  he  had  despoiled  them.  _ 
In  the  mean  while  Hamo,  who  had  enriched   himself  amply  by  these  exactions,  was 
recalled   from   the   government  of  the  country,  and  Meyler  Fitz   Henry,  one  of  the 
earliest  of  the  adventurers  in  the  Irish  \ivars,  was  appointed  his  successor  in  the  office. 

In  the  following  year  died,  at  the  advanced  age  of  82,  Roderic  O'Connor,  the  last 
of  the  monarchs  of  Ireland,  who  during  ten  years  of  his  life  reigned  over  Con- 
naught  alone,  for  the  eighteen  following  wielded  the  sceptre  of  all  Ireland,  and  iioj^* 
finally  devoted  the  thirteen  remaining  years  of  his  existence  to  monastic  seclusion 
and  repentance.     A  mistaken  zeal  for  the  national  honour  has  induced  some  writers 
on  Irish  history  to  endeavour  to  invest  the  life  and  character  of  this  unfortunate  prince 
with  some  semblance  of  heroic  dignity  and  interest.     In  their  morbid  sympathy  with 
his  own  personal  ruin  and  fall,  they  seemed  to  forget  that,  by  his  recreant  spirit,  he 
brought  down  a  kingdom  along  with  him,  and  entailed  subjection  and  its  bitter  conse- 
quences upon  his  country  through  all  time.     But  it  is  in  truth  idle  to  waste  words  on 
the  personal  character  of  such  a  man  ;  the  only  feelmg  his  name  awakens  being  that 
of  pity  for  the  doomed  country,  which,  at  such  a  crisis  of  its  fortunes,  when  honour, 
safety,  independence,  national  existence,  were  all  at  stake,  was  cursed  for  the  crown- 
ing of  its  evil  destiny,  with  a  ruler  and  leader  so  utterly  unworthy  of  his  high  calling. 

How  much  the  fate  of  an  entire  nation  may  depend  on  the  domestic  relations  of  its 
ruling  family,  is  strikingly  exemplified  in  the  instances  both  of  Roderic  and  of  Henry, 
whose  struggles  and  contentions  with  their  own  children  gave  a  direction  to  their  public 
measures,  of  which  the  subsequent  history  of  both  countries  has  deeply  felt  the  influ- 
ence. Had  not  Henry  been  called  away,  by  a  dark  conspiracy  within  his  own  family,  from 
applying  his  powerful  mind  to  the  conquest  and  settlement  of  Ireland,  far  different 
might  have  been  the  destiny  of  that  ill-starred  land.  Had  the  house  of  Roderic,  on 
the  other  hand,  united  in  defence  of  their  rights,  and  thus  set  an  example  of  zealous 
co-operation  to  others,  a  more  healthful  confidence  in  themselves  and  their  rulers  might 
have  been  awakened  in  the  people  of  Ireland,  a  brave  resistance  would  have  won  from 
the  conqueror  respect  and  forbearance  towards  the  vanquished,  and,  at  least,  the  dis- 
grace of  unnatural  treachery  would  not  have  been  added  to  that  of  insignificance  and 
weakness. 

One  of  the  few  circumstances  of  Roderic's  life  that  deserve  to  be  mentioned  with  any 
honour,  was  the  effort  made  by  him  to  recall  to  life  the  now  almost  extinct  learning  of 
the  country,  by  his  patronage  of  the  schools  of  Armagh,  and  by  the  annual  endowment, 
first  established  under  his  auspices,  for  the  head-master  of  that  institution.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark,  too,  as  affording  an  instance  of  those  strange  contrasts  which  Iri^ih  society,  as 
we  have  seen,  so  frequently  presents,  that  this  annual  pension  for  the  encouragement  of  a 
school,  to  which  the  lovers  of  learning  resorted  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  was,  according 
to  the  custom  of  rude,  uncivilized  times,  paid  in  oxen. 

*  One  of  these  letters  refers  to  an  attempt  made  by  an  ecclesiastic  named  Daniel,  to  impose  upon  the  Pope 
by  means  of  forged  letters,  professing  to  have  been  written  by  certain  Irish  bishops,  recommending  Daniel  as 
a  person  qualilied  to  till  the  vacant  see  of  Ross.  Dr.  Lanigan,  in  referring  to  this  letter  of  Pope  Innocent, 
mentions  that  one  of  the  candidates  for  the  bishopric  is  designated  therein  by  the  initial  letter  of  his  name. 
But  it  will  be  seen,  from  the  following  e.xtract,  that  all  the  candidates  are  so  designated  : — "  Propter  quod  idem 
predecessor  noster  causam  eoriim  vobis  fratres  Casselen  et  Laomen  {al.  Laarensis)  Episcnpi  sub  ea  forma 
commisil,ut  de  forma  et  processu  electionis  niemorati  U.  solicite  qu,Treretis,  et  si  eum  electum  canonice  fiiisse 
constaret,  ipsum  faceretis  pacifica  possessione  gaudere ;  alioquin  inter  prsdictos  F.  et.  E.  audiretis  causam  et 
cujus  electionem  canonicatn  et  raagis  rationaliter  factam  inveniretis,  &c.  Sic."— Letters  of  Pope  Innocent  III., 
published  by  BaluziuB,  torn.  i.  1. 1,  ep.  364. 


302  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Thrown  back  as  the  country  had  been  by  the  harassing  events  of  the  century  just 
now  closed,  into  a  state  of  confusion  and  disorganization,  differing  but  little,  in  its  general 
aspect,  from  barbarism,  it  could  not  be  expected  that  her  native  literature  would  escape 
the  prevailing  eclipse,  or  leave  any  names  behind  which  even  the  antiquary  would  con- 
sider worthy  of  preservation.  There  is  still  extant,  however,  a  Metrical  Catalogue  of 
the  kings  of  Ireland,  composed,  in  this  age,  by  a  learned  antiquary  named  GioUa  Moduda, 
abbot  of  Ardbracken,  in  Meath.  This  chronological  poem,  which  is  frequently  referred 
to,  as  of  high  authority,  by  Irish  scholars,  was  written  during  the  reign  of  the  great 
Turlogh  O'Connor ;  and  it  is  a  proof  alike  of  the  courage  and  the  professional  trust- 
worthiness of  the  antiquary,  that  he  ventured  to  deny  to  that  powerful  monarch,  then  in 
the  full  flow  of  success,  any  place  in  the  series  of  Ireland's  legitimate  kings. 

To  Celcus,  or  Cellach,  the  eminent  archbishop  of  Armagh,  who  died  a.  d.  1129,  Bale 
has  attributed  a  Book  of  Constitutions  and  other  writings;  but  apparently  on  no  better 
grounds  than  he  has  for  bestowing  upon  him  a  wife  and  children,  and  sending  him  to  be 
educated  at  Oxford.  With  ns  little  foundation,  probably,  has  a  Life  of  St.  Malachy  been 
attributed  to  Congan;  one  of  those  Irish  correspondents  of  St.  Bernard,  whose  entreaties, 
as  he  tells  us,  induced  him  to  undertake  a  Life  of  St.  Malachy  himself* 

For  whatever  insight  we  may  have  gained,  previously  to  the  epoch  of  the  English  in- 
vasion, into  the  social  condition  and  habits  of  the  Irish,  we  are  indebted  solely  to  the 
testimony  of  the  Irish  themselves;  for  it  is  a  singular  fact  that,  so  long  had  this  people 
remained  secluded  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  the  account  given  of  them  by  the 
Welsh  ecclesiastic  Giraldus,  who  went  thither,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  train  of  prince 
John,  was  the  first  and  only  one  known  to  have  been  writen  by  a  foreign  visiter  of  that 
country,  from  the  daysof  Himilco  and  the  Greek  geographers  down  to  the  time  of  Henry 
II.  With  the  aid,  therefore,  of  this  light,  but  following  cautiously  its  guidance,  I  shall 
proceed  to  offer  some  brief  remarks  respecting  the  social  and  moral  condition  of  the  Irish 
people,  at  the  gloomy  period  we  have  now  reached ;  and  if  not  to  throw  around  it  any 
very  favourable  colouring,  at  least  to  show  that  it  has  been  represented  too  darkly  by 
others. 

To  those  pre-occupied  by  the  picture  drawn  in  the  pages  of  Giraldus  of  the  low  state  of 
civilization  among  the  Irish  at  this  time,  it  would  be  difficult,  I  fear,  to  suggest  any  con- 
sideration that  would  weaken  the  hold  his  authority  has  taken  of  their  minds.  There 
are  indeed  few  enormities,  whether  in  morals  or  manners,  that  are  not  attributed  by 
him  to  the  natives.  In  estimating  the  value,  however,  of  his  testimony,  the  character 
of  the  man  himself  ought  to  be  taken  into  account;  and,  finding  him  so  ready  a  believer 
and  reporter  of  all  sorts  of  physical  marvels  and  monsters,  we  should  consider  whether  a 
taste  for  the  morally  monstrous  may  not  also  have  inspired  his  pen,  and  induced  him,  in 
a  similar  manner,  to  impose  as  well  upon  himself,  perhaps,  as  his  readers.  He  who 
gravely  tells  of  a  certain  race  of  people  in  Ossory,t  who  were,  every  seven  years,  trans- 
formed into  wolves,  would  hardly  hesitate  at  the  easier  effort  of  giving  thera  also  wolfish 
habits  and  dispositions. 

There  is  yet  another  feature  of  his  character  as  a  censor,  which  must  be  attended  to  in 
appreciating  the  value  of  his  censure,  and  that  is,  this  proportion  always  found  to  exist 
between  his  general  charge  and  the  facts  which  he  cites  to  support  it.  The  Irish  people 
he  pronounces  to  be  faithless,  cruel,  iniiospitable,  and  barbarous;  and  as  long  as  he  deals 
thus  only  in  generalities,  the  imagination  is  left  at  large  to  divine  the  extent  to  which  all 
these  vices  may  have  been  carried.  But  whenever,  as  in  the  following  instance,  he  sub- 
joins proofs  of  the  alleged  charge,  the  mind  is  relieved  by  knowing  definitely  the  amount 
of  the  transgression.  "This  people,"  he  says^  "  are  a  most  filthy  race;  a  race  of  all 
others  the  most  uninformed  in  the  very  rudiments  of  faith, — they  do  not  as  3n5t  pay  tithes 
or  first-offerings."!  He  then  adds  the  charge  before  nolicedi  respecting  what  he  calls 
their  "  incestuous"  marriages,  moaning  thereby  marriages  within  that  degree  of  consan- 
guinity which  the  canons  of  the  church  had  proscribed. 

Another  consideration  which  I  have  more  than  once  endeavoured  to  press  Open  the 
reader's  mind  is,  that  at  all  periods  of  Ireland's  course  with  which  we  are  acquainted, 
so  wide  has  been  the  interval,  in  civilization  and  social  comforts,  between  her  highest  and 

*  In  St.  Bernard's  Preface  to  tliis  work,  wliicli  is  addressed  toCongan,  he  says,  "Tu  id  mihi  AbliaCongane, 

injungis ac  tecum  pariler  (ut  ex  Ilybernia  scribis)  vestra  ilia  omnis  ccclesia  sanctorum,  libens 

ul>edio. 

t  He  makes  one  of  these  Ossorian  wolves  tell  his  own  story  ;— "  De  quodam  hominum  genere  sumus  Os- 

syriensium,  unde  (luolibet  septennio  per  imprecationem  sancti  cujusdani  Natalis  scilicet  Abbatis formam 

enim  humanam  prorsus  exuentes,  indumit  liipinam." 

I  "  Gens  enim  ha-c,  gens  spurcissima,  gens  vitiis  involiilissima,  gens  omnium  gentium  in  fidei  rudinientis 
incultissima  :— Nonduni  enim  decimas  vel  primitias  solvunt."— 7'o>wg-.  IJist.  3.  c.  li). 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  303 

lowest  classes,  that  no  conclusion  founded  solely  on  acquaintance  with  one  part  of  her 
population  can  furnish  any  analogies  by  which  to  judge  of  the  real  condition  of  the  other. 
Giraldus  himself  appears  to  have  been  aware  of  this  peculiarity  in  the  structure  of  Irish 
society,  or  at  least  to  have  been  puzzled  by  the  contrasts  resulting  from  it;  and  hence  his 
summary  of  the  character  of  the  people  is,  that  "  where  they  are  good  you  will  find 
none  better, — where  they  are  bad,  none  worse."* 

In  his  account  of  the  clergy  of  the  country,  there  are  but  few  dark  shades  interspersed. 
He  speaks  of  them  as  commendable  for  their  attention  to  all  religious  duties,  and  possess- 
ing, among  various  other  virtues  which  he  allows  to  them,  the  "prerogative  of  chastity" 
in  an  eminent  degree,  j-  He  lauds  also  their  exceeding  abstinence  and  sparingness  of 
food  ;  though  in  wine,  he  says,  they  were  accustomed,  after  the  fast  and  toils  of  the  day, 
to  indulge  more  freely  than  was  becoming.]:  He  repeats,  however,  his  commendation 
of  the  blameless  purity  of  their  lives,  which,  notwithstanding  this  indulgence,  they  most 
strictly,  he  admits,  preserved. ^  Altogether,  his  tribute  to  the  character  of  the  Irish  clergy 
(though  of  the  bishops  he  complains  as  slothful  and  inattentive  to  their  duty)  is  such  as, 
at  any  period,  it  would  be  honourable  to  a  clerical  body  to  receive. 

One  of  his  charges  against  the  Irish  prelates  was,  that,  from  the  lime  of  St.  Patrick's 
mission,  not  a  single  Irish  bishop  had  suffered  martyrdom  for  the  faith;  and,  on  his  ad- 
vancing, one  day,  this  opinion,  in  the  presence  of  Maurice,  achbishop  of  Cashel,  whom 
he  describes  as  a  learned  and  discreet  man,  that  prelate  thus  significantly  replied  to  him: 
— "  It  is  true  our  nation  may  seem  to  be  barbarous,  uncultivated,  and  cruel ;  yet  have 
they  always  shown  reverence  and  honour  to  men  of  the  church,  nor  ever  would  raise 
their  hands  in  violence  against  the  saints  of  God.  But  there  is  now  come  among  us  a 
people,  who  not  only  know  how,  bat  have  been  accustomed  to  make  martyrs.  From 
henceforth,  therefore^  Ireland  will,  like  other  nations,  have  her  martyrs."  || 

In  his  account  of  the  state  of  manufactures  and  the  useful  arts  among  the  Irish,  Gi- 
raldus falls  into  no  less  inconsistencies  than  on  the  subject  of  their  morals  and  manners. 
For  while,  on  the  one  hand,  he  tells  us  that  they  had  no  sort  of  merchandize,  nor  prac- 
tised any  mechanical  art  whatsoever^  he  informs  us,  on  the  other,  of  articles  common 
among  them,  such  as  cloth  dresses,  fringes,  linen  shirts,  military  weapons  well  steeled, 
musical  instruments,  and  other  works  of  art,  all  implying  a  certain  advancement  in  dif- 
ferent trades  and  handicrafts.lF  He  mentions  a  book,  also  which  he  had  seen  at  Kildare, 
containing  a  Concordance  of  the  Four  Gospels,  according  to  the  correction  of  St.  Jerome; 
and  which  is  described  by  him  as  so  beautifully  painted  and  embellished  with  innumerable 
emblems  and  miniatures,  that  you  might  be  sure,  he  adds,  it  was  the  workmanship  not  of 
human,  but  of  angelic  hands.** 

*  "  Est  enim  gens  hsc  cunctis  fere  in  actibus  immoderata  et  in  omnes  aflectus  veheraentissima.  Unde  et 
sicmali,  detcrrimi  sunt  et  nusquain  pejores  :  itaet  bonis  meliores  non  repeiies."  The  learned  Petavius(Petau) 
attributes,  almost  in  the  same  words,  the  same  character  to  the  ancient  Athenians. — Oral.  8. 

f  Inter  varias  quibus  pollet  virtutes,  castitatis  prajrogativa  pr.-eeminet  atque  pracellet."  c.  27. 

i  "  Inter  tot  jnillia  vis  unuin  invenies,  qui  post  jugem  tatn  jejuniorum  quam  orationum  instantiam,  vino 
variisque  potionibus  diurnos  labores  enorimius  quani  deceret,  noctu  nou  redimat."— /Airf. 

§  Unde  et  hoc  pro  miraculo  duci  potest,  quod  ubi  vina  dominantur,  Venus  non  regnat." 

^1  "  Verum  est,  inquit ;  quia  licet  gexis  nostra  Barbara,  nitnis  inculta  et  crudelis  esse  videtur,  veris  tamen 
Ecclesiasticis  honorem  magnum,  et  reverentiam  semper  exhibere  solebant,  et  in  sanctos  Dei  nulla  occasione 
inanum  extendere.  Sed  nunc  in  regnum  gens  advenit  qua;  raartyres  et  facere  novit  et  consuevit.  A  modo 
Hibernia,  sicut  alia;  regiones,  martyres  habebit." — Dist.  iii.  c.  32. 

ir  "  Item  non  lino  vel  lanincio,  non  aliquo  mercimoniorum  genere,  nee  ulla  mechanicarum  artiiim  specie 
vitam  producunt. "—£>;«<.  iii.  c.  10.  See  Gratianus  Lucius,  c.  12,  where  he  clearly  proves,  from  Giraldus's 
own  showing,  that  the  Irish  must  have  had  "  carminatores,  tinctores,  melrices,  textores,  fuUones,  panni  ton- 
sores,  et  sartores." 

**  "  Uj:  vere  Ijkc  opania  angelica  potius  quam  humana  intelligentia  jam  asseveraveris  esse  composita." — 
Dist.  ii.  c.  38. 


304  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

JOHN. 

Condition  of  Ireland  during  the  reign  of  king  John, — The  dissensions  among  the  natives 
fomented  hy  the  great  Enghsh  Lords. — Contention  between  Cathal  and  Carrach  for  the 
principality  of  Connaught. — Each  abetted  by  English  auxiliaries. — Two  thirds  of  that 
province  surrendered  by  Cathal  to  king  John. — Rivalry  between  John  de  Courcy  and  Hugh 
de  Lacy. — De  Courcy  sent  prisoner  to  England. — The  earldom  of  Ulster  transferred,  on  his 
death,  to  De  Lacy. — Murder  of  De  Courcy's  natural  son  by  one  of  the  De  Laeys. — Expe- 
dition of  king  John  to  Ireland. — Submission  of  many  of  the  Irish  chiefs. — Effect  of  his 
presence  upon  the  English  barons. — rPanic  and  flight  of  William  de  Braosa  and  the  two 
De  Lacys. — Outrage  committed  by  the  septs  of  Wicklow. — Introduction  by  John  of  Eng- 
lish laws  and  usages  into  Ireland. — His  return  to  England. — Administration  of  De  Grey.— 
Peace  in  Ireland. 

The  reign  of  king  John,  which,  in  the  hands  of  the  English  historian,  presents  so 
proud  and  stirring  an  example  of  successful  resistance  to  wrong,  exhibits  in  our  Irish  re- 
cords, but  a  melancholy  picture  of  slavery  and  suffering.  Some  brief  struggles  were,  indeed, 
attempted,  in  the  course  of  this  reign,  by  the  natives;  but,  while  fondly  persuading  them- 
selves that,  in  these  efforts,  they  fought  in  their  own  cause,  they  were,  really,  but  instru- 
ments in  the  hands  of  some  rival  English  lords,  who,  by  exciting  and  assisting  the  native 
chieftains  against  each  other,  divided  and  weakened  the  national  strength,  and  thereby 
advanced  their  own  violent  and  rapacious  views. 

Thus,  when,  on  the  death  of  the  monarch  Roderic,  his  two  sons  broke  out  into 
viQft*  fi^""*^^  contention  for  the  right  of  succession,  William  de  Burgh,  a  baron  of  the 

family  of  Fitz-Adelm,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  brother  named  Carrach,  while 
John  de  Courcy  and  Walter  de  Lacy  were  seen  to  range  themselves  on  the  side  of  Cathal 
of  the  Bloody  Hand;*  and  a  signal  victory  gained  over  the  latter  and  his  English  aux- 
iliaries, at  Kilmacdaugh,  appeared,  for  a  time,  to  have  finally  decided  the  contest.  As 
the  alliance,  however,  of  William  de  Burgh  had  been  chiefly  the  means  of  ensuring 
Carrach's  success,  there  was  yet  a  chance  that  this  powerful  lord  might  be  brought  to 

desert  the  chief's  cause,  and  that  thus  the  fortunes  of  the  discomfited  Cathal 
T>nn   "^'-ht  again  be  retrieved.     Speculating,  justly,  as  it  appears,  on  the  selfish  views 
■  of  De  Burgh,  this  prince  held  forth  to  him  such  prospects  of  gain  and  advantage, 
as  succeeded  in  winning  him  over  from  the  banner  of  his  rival. f      With  the  aid  of  so 
disreputable  an  alliance,  Cathal  again  took  the  field  against  his  brother,  and,  after  a  san- 
guinary action,  in  the  course  of  which  Carrach  was  slain,  regained  his  principality.]; 

Down  to  this  period,  the  province  of  Connaught,  the  hereditary  kingdom  of  the  last 
Irish  monarch,  had,  however,  torn  by  civil  dissension,  continued  to  preserve  its  territorial 
integrity,  as  guaranteed  by  the  solemn  treaty  between  Henry  and  king  Roderic.  But  at 
the  crisis  we  have  now  reached,  this  inviolability  of  the  realm  of  the  O'Connors  was  set 
aside,  and  through  the  act  of  its  own  reigning  prince.  Whether  from  weariness  of  the 
constant  dissensions  he  had  been  involved  in,  or,  perhaps,  hoping  that  by  the  cession  of  a 
part  of  his  territories  he  might  secure  a  more  valid  title  to  tlie  remainder,  Cathal,  of  his 
own  free  will,  agreed  to  surrender^  to  king  John  two  parts  of  Connaught,  and  to  hold  the 
third  from  him  in  vassalage,  paying  annually  for  it  the  sum  of  100  marks.     The  letter  of 

king  John,l|  wherein  the  terms  of  this  compact  are  stated  and  agreed  to,  is 
12QC*  addressed  to  Meyler  Fitz-Henry,  who,  was,  at  this  time,  justiciary  or  lord  justice 

of  Ireland  and  whose  name  is  associated  with  the  earliest  adventures  of  the  Anglo- 
Normans  in  this  island. 

*  See  chap,  xxxii.  of  this  Work,  pp.  299.  300. 
t  Ware's  Annals,  ad.  an.  1200. 

t  Annal.  Inisfall.  The  Book  of  Clonmacnoise,  at  the  years  1201-2,  commemorates  a  number  of  achievements 
performed  by  Cathal,  in  conjunction  with  William  de  Burgh. 
S  Close  Roll,  6  John. 
I  This  letter  is  given  by  Leiand  at  full  length,  p.  175. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  305 

The  mischief  of  the  policy  pursued  by  Henry  II.,  in  depuling  to  an  upstart  and  sud- 
denly enriched  aristocracy  (the  most  odious,  perhaps,  of  all  forms  of  political  power)  the 
administration  of  Irish  possessions,  was  in  a  few  instances  more  strikingly  f.xemplified 
than  in  the  rivalry,  which  now  had  reached  its  most  disturbing  heif^ht,  between  John  de 
Courcy  and  the  rich  and  powerful  baron,  Hugh  de  Lacy,  son  of  the  first  lord  of  Meath. 
Following  the  example  of  De  Courcy  himself,  this  baron  had  assumed  for  some  time,  a 
state  of  princely  independence,  entering  into  treaties  with  his  brother  lords  and  the 
native  chiefs,  and  aiding  the  latter  in  their  local  and  provincial  feuds. 

On  the  accession,  however,  of  John  to  the  English  throne,  the  daring  openness  with 
which  De  Courcy  spoke  of  that  event,  as  well  as  of  the  dark  and  guilty  deed  by  which 
it  was  followed,  drew  down  upon  him  the  king's  heaviest  wrath  ;  and  to  his  rival,  Hugh 
de  Lacy,  now  made  lord  justice,  was  committed  the  not  unwelcome  task  of  seizing  the 
rebellious  baron,  and  sending  him  prisoner  to  England.  What  was  ultimately  the  fate 
of  this  hardy  warrior  we  have  no  trust-worthy  means  of  ascertaining.*  The  stories  toldf 
of  his  subsequent  adventures  in  England,  his  acceptance  of  the  challenge  of  the  champion 
of  Trance,  and  his  display  of  prowess  in  the  presence  of  the  two  kings,  are  all  not  only 
fabulous  in  themselves,  but  wholly  at  variance  with  known  historical  events.  That  he 
did  not  succeed,  as  some  have  alleged,  in  regaining  his  place  in  the  royal  favour,  may  be 
taken  for  granted  from  the  fact  that,  though  he  left  a  son  to  inherit  his  possessions,  both  the 
title  and  property  of  the  earldom  of  Ulster  were,  on  his  decease,  transferred  to  his  rival, 
Hugh  de  Lacy. t  Nor  did  the  hatred  he  had  awakened  in  this  family  die  with  ^  ^ 
himself,  but  extended  also  to  his  race;  as  wo  find  that,  not  many  years  after,  a  y^Q^ 
natural  son  of  his,  who  bore  the  title  of  lord  of  Ratheny  and  Kilbarrock,  was  assas- 
sinated in  cold  blood,  by  one  of  the  De  Lacys.^ 

In  the  year  1210,  king  John,  with  the  view,  chiefly,  as  it  would  seem,  of  diverting  the 
minds  of  his  people  from  the  depressing  effects  of  the  papal  interdict  which  now  hung 
like  a  benumbing  spell  over  his  kingdom,  undertook  a  military  expedition  against       ^ 
Scotland  ;  and,  having  succeeded  in  that  quarter,  led,  soon  after,  a  numerous  army  j^.^j^q 
into  Ireland. II     Between  the  exactions  and  cruelties  of  the  English  on  one  side, 
and  the  constant  revolts  and  fierce  reprisals  of  the  maddened  natives  on  the  other,  a  suf- 
ficient case  for  armed  intervention  was  doubtless  then,  as  it  has  been  at  almost  all  periods 
since,  but  too  easily  found.     The  very  display,  however,  of  so  large  a  force  was,  of  itself, 
sufficient  to  produce  a  temporary  calm.     No  less  than  twenty,  we  are  told,  of  the  Irish 
princes,  or  chiefs,  came  to  pay  homage  to  the  monarch,  among  whom  were  O'Neill  of 
Tyrone,  and  the  warlike  Cathal,  prince  of  Connaught ;  the  latter  offering,  for  the  first 
time,  his  homage  as  a  vassal  of  the  English  crown. 11     After  remaining  but  two  days  in 
Dublin,**  the  king  proceeded  to  Carrickfurgus,  the  ancient  castle  of  which  town  he  took 
possession  of,  and  fixed  his  abode  there  for  ten  days.ff 

While  thus  auspicious  appears  to  have  been  the  effect  of  the  presence  of  royalty  upon 
the  natives,  it  produced,  in  adifl^erent  way,  no  less  salutary  consequences,  by  the  check  it 
gave  to  the  career  of  some  of  those  rapacious  barons,  compared  to  whose  multiform  mis- 
rule the  tyranny  of  one  would  have  been  hailed  as  a  blessing.  Among  these,  one  of  the 
most  impracticable  had  been  William  de  Breuse,  or  Braosa,  to  whom  the  king  soon  after  his 
accession,  had  made  a  grant  of  estates  in  the  south  of  Ireland.  Struck  with  panic  at  the 
consciousness  of  his  own  misdeeds,  this  lord  took  flight  precipitately  from  the  kingdom, 
leaving  his  wife  and  daughter  at  the  mercy  of  the  monarch,  who,  when  at  Carrickfurgu3,tt 
had  them  both  taken  into  custody,  and  brought  them  over  with  him,  on  his  return  into 
England.    At  Bristol,  he  yielded  so  far  to  the  lady's  entreaties,  as  to  allow  an  interview 

*  According  to  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen,  he  was  slain  by  the  De  Lacys,  Hanmar,  whom  Lodge  follows, 
makes  him  die  in  France. 

t  By  Holinshed,  Campion,  and  others. 

t  Pat.  Roll.  6  John.  §  Annal.  Hibern.  apud  Camden. 

II  To  defray  the  expenses  of  this  expedition,  he  had  seized  and  plundered  the  wretched  Jews,  all  over  Eng- 
land ;  and  the  memorable  torture  inflicted  upon  a  Jew  at  Bristol,  by  striking  out,  every  day,  one  of  his  cheek- 
teeth, was  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  him  to  pay  down  10,000  marks  towards  the  cost  of  the  Irish  expedition. 
The  religious  house  of  Margam,  in  Wales,  was  specially  exempted  from  the  general  exaction  levied  on  this 
occasion,  in  consequence  of  the  hospitality  extended  by  its  inmates  to  Henry  and  his  army,  both  on  their  way 
to  Ireland,  and  on  their  return. — Annal.  de  Margam. 

IT  Walsingham  represents  Cathal  as  having  been,  at  this  time,  conquered  and  reduced  by  John.  "  In  suam 
ditionem  redegal  totam  lerram  Cutalo  rege  Conacciae  triumphato," — Ypodlg  J^eustri<B.  But  the  Annals  of 
Inisfallen,  with  more  correctness,  state  it  to  have  been  an  act  of  willing  homage.  "Cathal  Crob  Dearg, 
king  of  Connaught.  came  with  a  great  retinue  to  pay  his  court  to  king  John."  See,  for  John  taking  Cathal 
under  his  protection,  Rymer,  torn.  i.  p.  136. 

*♦  Itinerary  of  king  John.  tt  Ibid. 

\l  Rex  Johannes  transfretavit  in  Lliberniam  et  cepit  ibi  castrum  Krakefergus. — Chronn.  TViomce.  Wikes. 
See  also  Itinerary. 

38 


306  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

between  her  and  her  husband  ;*  but  she  is  said  to  have  been  afterwards,  by  his  order,  im- 
prisoned in  Windsor  Castle,  and,  together  with  her  son,  inhumanly  starved  to  death. 

The  two  De  Lacys,  alarmed  at  the  arrival  of  the  king  in  Ireland,  took  flight  into  France, 
and  there  found  employment,  as  garden  labourers,  in  the  abbey  of  St.  Taurin.  In  this 
retreat  they  had  remained  concealed  for  two  or  three  years,  when  the  abbot,  induced,  by 
some  circumstances,  to  suspect  their  real  rank,  drew  forth  from  themselves  the  particulars 
of  their  story;  and  then  by  appealmg,  in  their  behalf,  to  the  clemency  of  John,  succeeded 
in  prevailing  upon  him  to  receive  them  again  into  favour.  On  condition  of  Walter  pay- 
ing 2500  marks  for  Meath,  and  Hugh,  on  his  part,  paying  4000  marks  for  the  earldom  of 
Ulster,  the  two  brothers  were  both  reinstated  in  their  possessions.!  In  grateful  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  service  rendered  him  by  the  abbot  of  St.  Taurin,  Walter  de  Lacy,  in 
returning  to  Ireland,  brought  v;ith  him  the  abbot's  nephew,  and,  after  making  him  a 
knight,  bestowed  upon  hitn  the  seignory  of  Dingle.| 

By  a  writ  to  his  barons  and  justices,  in  the  ninth  year  of  his  reign,  John  had  ordered 
that  measures  should  be  taken  for  the  expulsion  from  the  king's  lands  of  all  robbers  and 
plunderers,  and  all  such  persons  as  harboured  them  ;5  and  an  instance  of  outrage,  said  to 
have  occurred  about  the  same  time,  will  show  how  daring  was  the  spirit  of  lawless- 
ness  ihen  abroad,  even  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  chief  seat  of  English  power. 
120Q  '^''^  population  of  the  city  of  Dublin,  at  this  time,  appears  to  have  consisted,  for 
the  most  part,  of  colonists  from  Bristol,  who,  induced  by  the  grant  which  Henry  11. 
had  so  unceremoniously  made  of  Dublin  to  the  Bristolians,  established  themselves  there 
in  great  numbers.  These  citizens  having,  on  the  Monday  of  Easter  week,  flocked  out 
from  the  town,  for  air  and  recreation,  towards  a  place  still  called  Cullen's  Wood,  were  there 
attacked  by  some  lawless  septs,  inhabiting  the  mountains  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Wick- 
low,  and  no  less  than  .;iO0  of  the  assemblage,  exclusive  of  women  and  children,  inhumanly 
butchered.il  In  commemoralicn  of  this  massacre,  it  continued  long  after  to  be  the  cus- 
tom of  the  citizens  of  Dublin  to  hold  a  feast  every  year,  on  Easter  Monday,  upon  the 
epot  where  the  memorable  outrage  had  been  committed.  There,  pitching  their  numerous 
tents,  the  citizens  passed  the  day  in  sports  and  recreation  ;  and,  among  other  modes  of 
celebrating  the  occasion,  used  to  chEillenge,  from  time  to  time,  the  "  mountain  enemy"  to 
come  forth  and  attack  them,  if  he  dared. If 

To  introduce  into  the  new  territories  of  which  they  possessed  themselves  the  laws  and 
usages  of  the  country  they  had  left,  would  be  naturally  a  favourite  object  of  the  first  settlers 
in  Ireland;  and  in  this  civilizing  process  Henry  II.,  though  so  limited  i/i  tinie  for  his  task, 
made  very  considerable  progress.  Thus:,  for  instance,  the  duties,  conditions,  and  services 
by  which,  under  the  feudal  system,  property  was  held  in  England,  continued  to  be  the 
grounds  of  tenure  in  all  the  grants  made  by  him  in  locating  his  new  colony.  The  esta- 
blishment, also,  of  courts  baron,  by  the  respective  lords  to  whom  he  had  granted  lands, 
implies,  manifestly,  the  adoption  among  them  of  the  common  law  of  England ;  and  it 
appears,  fronri  a  record  of  the  reign  (if  Edvvard  HI.,  that  Hugh  de  Lacy,  from  the  time 
of  the  grant  to  him  of  the  territory  if  Meath  by  Henry  II.,  held  and  enjoyed  all  jurisdic- 
tions and  cognizance  uf  all  pleas  within  that  district.**  In  the  iacorppration  charter 
\vhich  John,  as  lord  of  Ireland,  granted  to  the  city  of  Dublin,  in  the  year  1192,  we  find 
the  principle  of  burgage  tenure  establi-hed, — the  mes.-uages,  plantations,  and  buildings, 
within  the  metes  of  the  city,  having  been  granted  to  the  burgesses,  "to  be  held  by  them 
in  free  burgage,  and  by  the  service  of  landgablo  which  they  render  within  the  walls."tf 

When  John,  for  the  second  time,  now  landed  upon  the  Irish  shore,  not  finding  any 
enemy  to  encounter  his  nijghty  force,  he  was  left  ihe  more  leisure  to  attend  to  the  civil 
condition  of  the  realm;  and  not  only  did  he  give  to  the  laws  and  institutions  which  he 
found  there  already  established  a  more  extended  scope  and  exercise,  but  he  had,  also,  the 
merit  of  introducing  others  of  no  less  import  to  the  future  well  being  of  the  scttleinent.|| 

*  Lettfr  nf  king  Jofin.  Pee  Description  of  Ihe  Patent  Rolh.  Sec,  by  Thomas  D  Hardy,  P.  S.  A.  Our  histo- 
ries in  general  represent, De  Braosa  as  being  at  this  time  in  France. 

t  Pat.  Roll.  17  John.  X  Annal  Hibern.  apud  Camden. 

.§   Pat.  RoJI,  9  John.  ||  Hanmer. 

Ir  In  process  of  time  the  pinging  boys  of  the  cathedral  were  deputed  to  offer  this  defiance  (Stnart,  Hist  Me- 
moirs of  Armasrh,  ch  viii  ;)  and  the  choirs,  says  Leland,  are  annually  regaled   at  this  place,  called  the  Wood 
of  Cullen,  to  the  prese'it  ilay. 
-    **  Chancery  Roll,  Diii)lin,"citcd  by  Lynch,  View  of  Legal  Institutions,  p.  6. 

tt  Cale,  Inquiry  in>o  the  Ancient  Corporate  System  of  Ireland,  Appendix,  iv.  "  Nor  fhould  it  he  concealed  that, 
ftrcyn  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  this  inconsis^tent  prince  (John)  had  shown  a  singular  readiness  to  convert 
demesne  towns  into  corporate  boroughs; — a  measure  inimical  to  all  despotism." — Roger  Wendover. 

U  Mathew  Paris,— Henry  de  Knyghtnn,— Walter  de  Hfmingford,  (fee.  "Statultque  ibidem  (says  Henry  de 
Kiiyghton)  legem  An£licanaro,el  ut  omnja  eorum  judicia,  secundum  eandem,  vel  Anglicanam  consuetudinem, 
terminarentur." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  307 

Some  writers,  it  is  true,  have  asserted  that  on  this  monarch's  accession  to  the  throne,  he 
found  the  laws  of  England  already  in  full  operation  throughout  his  Irish  dominions.  But 
there  seems  little  doubt  that  to  him  is  to  be  attributed,  besides  other  useful  measures,  the 
division  of  such  parts  of  the  kingdom  as  were  in  his  possession  into  shires,  or  counties,*  with 
their  respective  sheriffs  and  other  officers,  after  the  manner  of  England  ;  and  that  the 
first  sterling  money  circulated  in  Ireland  was  coined  under  his  direclioii.f 

We  need  look,  indeed,  for  no  stronger  evidence  of  ihe  importanl  share  which  this 
prince,  in  other  respects  so  odious,  took  in  the  great  task  of  transplanting  his  country's 
laws  and  institutions  into  Ireland,  than  is  found  in  a  record  of  the  reign  of  his  successor, 
Henry  III.,  wherein  it  is  set  forthj  that  "J.ihn  brought  with  him  into  Ireland  discreet 
men,  skilled  in  the  laws,  by  whose  advice  ho  commanded  the  laws  of  Englan;!  to  be  ob- 
served in  Ireland,  and  left  the  said  laws  reduced  in  writing,  under  his  seal,  in  the  Exchequer 
of  Dublin."  Having  provided  thus  for  the  better  administration  of  that  kmgdom's  affairs, 
and  in  so  far  redeemed  the  disgrace  of  his  former  experiment,  the  king  set  sail  f(jr  Eng- 
land, leaving  to  John  de  Grey,  bishop  of  Norwich,  whom  he  hud  appointed  lord  justice,  the 
task  of  carrying  all  these  measures  into  effect;  and  such  was  tiie  tr.mquillizing  influence, 
both  of  his  policy  and  of  the  skill  and  vigour  wit^i  which  he  administered  it,  that,  when 
the  French  king,  shortly  after,  threatened  an  invasion  of  England,  the  lord  Ju.stice  was 
enabled  to  spare  from  the  force  under  liis  command  a  company  of  knights  and  300  infantry, 
to  aid  the  cause  of  his  royal  master.^ 

Throughout  the  remainder  of  this  monarch's  reign,  which  passed  in  a  series  of  strug- 
gles, as  dishonouring  as  they  were  disastrous,  first  with  the  pope,  and  then  with  his  own 
turbulent  barons,  there  appears  to  have  been  no  effort  made  by  his  subjects  in  Ireland, 
whether  English  or  native,  to  turn  the  embarrassments  of  his  position  to  account  for  the 
advancement  of  their  own  several  interests  and  views.  On  the  contrary,  in  defiance  of 
all  ordinary  speculation, — and  a  similar  anomaly  presents  itself  at  more  than  one  crisis  of 
our  history, — while  England  was  affording  an  example  of  rebellion  and  riot,  which  mere 
neighbourhood,  it  might  be  supposed,  would  have  rendered  infectious,  the  sister  country 
mean  while  looked  quietly  on,  and  remained  in  ufjbroken  peace.  There  are  extant,  indeed, 
letters  of  John,  written  at  the  time  when  the  English  barons  were  in  arms  against  hia 
authority,  returning  thanks  to  the  barons  of  Ireland  for  their  fidelity  and  service  to  him, 
and  asking*  their  advice  respecting  some  arduous  affairs  in  which  he  was  then  engaged  || 
It  appears,  also,  from  an  order  addressed  at  this  time  to  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  that 
seasonable  presents  to  the  native  princes  and  chiefs  were  among  the  means  adopted  for 
keeping  them  in  good  humour;  that  prelate  having  been  commissioned  to  purchase, 
forthwith,  a  sufficient  quantity  of  scarlet  cloth,  to  be  made  into  robes  for  the  Irish  kings, 
and  others  of  the  native  grandees. IT 

As  in  the  contentions  between  John  and  his  barons  the  people  of  Ireland  had  taken  no 
part,  so  neither  in  the  Charter  of  Liberties  wrung  from  him  by  those  turbulent  nobles  did 
his  Irish  subjects  enjoy  any  immediate  communion  or  share.     There  were  notwithstand- 
ing, present,  on  the  side  of  the  king,  at  Runnymede,  two  eminent  personages, 
Henri  de  Londres,**  and  William,  earl  marshal,ff  who  might  both,  from   their  iqi^" 
respective   stations,  be  naturally  looked  to  as  representatives  of  Irish  interests; 
De  Londres  being  archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  at  this  time  justiciary  of  Ireland,  while  the 
lord  marshal  wns  a  baron  of  immense  hereditary  possessions  in  that  country.     By  neither, 
however,  of  these  great  lords,  does  any  claim  appear  to  have  been  advanced  m  behalf 

*  Of  the  counties  of  Ireland,  says  Ware,  "  twelve  were  erected  in  Leinster  and  Munster,  by  king  John  : 
viz.  Dublin,  Kildare,Meath,tJriel  (or  Louth,)  Catterlough  (or'Carlow,)  Kilkenny,  Wexford,  Waterford,  Cork, 
Limerick,  Keiry,  and  J'lpiieraTy." 

t  Some  of  the  coins  of  Jqhn  were  struck  before  his  accession  to  the  throne.  Those  wlilch  he  caused  to  be 
struck  at  this  time  (1210)  consisted  of  pennies,  half-pence,  and  farthings,  of  the  same  standard  as  the  English 
which  gives  twenty-two  and  a  half  grafns  to 'the  penny. — Lindsay's  Fiew  of  the  Coinage  of  Ireland. 

I  See  this  writ  in  Cox,  p.  51.,  §  Co.x. 

II  Several  of  such  writs  from  tiie  crown,  during  this  reign,  asking  "consilium  et  auiilium"  of  the  nobles  of 
Ireland,  may  be  found  among  the  records  in  the  Tower. 

IT  Uymer  torn,  i.— Presents  of  cloth  were  sometimes  made  to  the  chiefs  in  acknowledgment  of  their  au- 
thority; and  so  late  as  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  we  find  John  May,  on  being  appninted  archbishop 
of  Armagh  presenting  to  O'Neil  of  Ulster,  six  yards  of  good  cloth  for  his  (O'Neil's)  investiture,  and  three  yards 
of  like  cloth  for  his  wifes  tunic. — (Regist.  Armach. 

**  It  is  told  of  this  prelate,  that,  having  called  together  his  tenants,  for  the  purpose  of  learning,  as  he  al- 
leged, by  what  title  they  held  their  lands,  he  thus  got  possession  of  all  their  lea.ses,  and  other  evidences  of 
their  property,  and  then  consigned  the  whole  to  the  flames;  for  which  act,  it  is  added,  he  was  nicknamed 
'•  Scorch  villain,"  or  "  Burn  bill"  (as  Holinshed  explains  it,)  by  the  natives.— See  this  idle  story,  with  all  its 
redundant  particulars,  in  Hanmer's  Chronicle. 

tt  The  founder  of  Tintern  abbey,  in  the  county  of  Wexford.  This  lord,  being  in  great  danger  at  sea,  made 
a  vow  to  found  an  abbey  on  whatever  spot  he  should  reach  in  safety.  His  bark  found  shelter  in  Bannow 
bay,  and  he  religiously  performed  his  vow,  filling  the  abbey  which  he  thfere  founded  with  Cistercian  monks, 
brought  from  Tintern,  in  Monmothshire.— Archdall,  Mensst.  Hihern. 


308  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

of  the  king's  Irish  subjects,  nor  any  effort  made  to  include  them  specifically  in  the  grants 
and  privileges  accorded  by  the  charter. 

The  same  respite,  however,  from  civil  strife,  continued  through  the  remainder  of  John's 
inglorious  reign;  and  the  chief  merit  of  this  unusual  calm  may  doubtless  be  attributed  to 
the  talent  and  judgment  of  Henri  de  Londres  and  Geoffrey  de  Marisco,  to  whom,  succes- 
sively, and,  for  a  time,  jointly,  during  this  interval,  was  entrusted  the  task  of  administering 
the  affairs  of  the  realm. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 


HENRY  III. 


Accession  of  Henry  III. — Grant  of  the  great  charter  to  his  English  subjects  in  Ireland. — 
Exclusion  of  the  natives  from  all  share  of  English  laws  and  liberties. — Individual  excep- 
tions.— Hostilities  between  Hugh  de  Lacy  and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke. — Surrender  of  their 
principalities  by  the  Irish  chiefs — agree  to  hold  them  in  future  as  tenants  of  the  crown.— 
Breach  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  King  towards  Cathal. — Visit  of  Feidlim,  Prince  of  Con- 
naught,  to  the  English  King. — Rebellion  and  death  of  Richard,  Earl  Marshall. — Irish  forces 
employed  by  the  King  in  his  warfare  against  Wales, — Admission  of  a  few  natives  to  the 
participation  of  English  law. — Threatened  invasion  of  the  King's  dominions  in  Gascony, 
and  pressing  requests  for  aid  from  Ireland. — Grant  by  Henry  of  the  Lordship  of  Ireland  to 
his  son,  Prince  Edward. — Important  reservations  in  that  grant. — Probability  that  Prince 
Edward  visited  Ireland. — Renewal  of  hostilities  with  Wales. — General  rising  of  the  Mac 
Carthys  of  Desmond. — A  number  of  Geraldine  Lords  and  Knights  put  to  death  by  them. — 
Fall  out  among  themselves  and  are  crushed. — Dissensions  also  between  the  De  Burghs  and 
the  Geraldines. — A  parliament,  or  council,  held  at  Kilkenny,  and  peace  restored  between 
these  two  families. — Administration  of  Sir  Robert  de  Ufford. 

The  new  monarch  being  but  ten  years  old  when  he  ascended  the  throne,  it  became 

necessary  to  appoint  a  guardian  both  of  the  king  and  of  the  realm;  and  the  earl 

■^216  of  Pembroke,  who,  as  marshal  of  England,  was  already  at  the  head  of  the  armies, 

■  and  who,  though  faithful  to  the  fortunes  of  John,  had  yet  retained  the  respect  of 

the  people,  was,  by  a  general  council  of  his  brother  barons,  appointed  protector  of  the 

realm.     To  this  nobleman,  in  addition  to  his  immense  possessions  in  England  and  Wales, 

had  devolved,  by  his  marriage  with  Isabella,  daughter  and  heiress  of  earl  Strongbow,  the 

lordship,  or  rather  royal  palatinate,  of  Leinster.     Having,  personally,  therefore,  so  deep 

an  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  the  English  settlement,  it  could  little  be  doubted  that 

affairs  connected  with  that  country's  welfare  would  under  his  government,  become  objects 

of  special  attention. 

Accordingly  one  of  the  first  measures  of  the  new  reign  was  to  transmit  to  Ireland  a 
duplicate  of  the  instrument  by  which,  in  a  grand  council  held  at  Bristol,  Henry  had  re- 
newed and  ratified  the  great  Charter  of  Liberty  granted  by  his  father.  Neither  had  the 
English  settlers  themselves  been  so  little  alive  to  the  favourable  prospect,  which  a  reign, 
opening  under  the  auspices  of  the  lord  of  Leinster,  presented,  as  not  to  avail  themselves 
of  the  first  opportunity  of  making  an  appeal  to  the  consideration  of  the  throne.  Shortly 
after  the  king's  accession,  they  had  laid  before  him,  through  the  medium  of  one  of  his 
chaplains,  Ralph  of  Norwich,  a  statement  of  the  grievances  under  which  they  laboured; 
and  it  was  in  about  seven  weeks  at^er  that  the  duplicate  of  the  renowned  English  charter 
was  transmitted  to  them,*  "sealed,"  says  the  letter  of  Henry,  which  accompanied  it, 
"  with  the  seals  of  our  lord  Gualo,  legate  of  the  apostolical  see,  and  of  our  trusty  earl, 
William  Marshall,  our  governor,  and  the  governor  of  our  kingdom, — because  as  yet  we 
possess  no  seal."t 

There  prevailed  a  notion,  it  is  evident,  through  the  few  first  reigns  of  the  Anglo-Irish 
period,  that  the  kingdom  of  Ireland  ought  to  have  for  its  rulers  some  member  of  the  reign- 

*  Pat.  Roll,  1  Henry  III. 

t  Q,aui  sigiilum  nondum  habuiinu$. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  309 

ing  family  of  England.  An  unsuccessful  trial  of  this  experiment  took  place,  as  we  have 
seen,  under  Henry  Plantagenet ;  and  the  reign  at  present  occupying  our  attention  ex- 
hibits an  equally  injudicious  partition  of  the  royal  title  and  power;  the  first  suggestion  of 
such  a  plan  having  originated  with  the  Irish  barons  themselves,  who,  in  the  memorial 
addressed  by  them  to  Henry,  on  his  accession,'*'  desired,  among  other  requests,  that 
either  the  queen  dowager  or  the  king's  brother  should  be  sent  to  reside  in  that  country. 

In  giving  an  account  of  the  transmission  to  Ireland,  by  Henry  III.,  of  a  copy  or  du- 
plicate of  the  great  charter,  historians  have  left  it  too  much  to  bo  implied  that 
the  charters  for  both  countries  were  exactly  the  same;  without  any,  even,  of  those  -i^'in 
adaptations  and  compliances  which  the  variance  in  customs  between  the  two  coun- 
tries would  reasonably  require.  The  language  of  Henry  himself,  in  transmitting  the 
document,  somewhat  favours  this  view  of  the  transaction.  But  such  was  not  likely  to 
have  been  the  mode  in  which  an  instrument,  then  deemed  so  important,  was  framed. 
Among  the  persons  by  vi^hose  advice  it  had  been  granted  were  William  Marshall,  lord 
of  Leinster,  Walter  de  Lacy,  lord  of  Meath,  John,  lord  marshal  of  Ireland,!  3"d  several 
other  noblemen,  all  connected,  as  lords  of  the  soil  and  public  functionaries,  with  Ire- 
land, and  intimately  acquainted  with  the  peculiar  laws  and  customs  of  the  land.  As 
might  naturally  be  expected,  therefore,  several  minute  but  not  unimportant  differences 
are  found  to  exist  between  the  two  charters:  some  in  the  forms,  for  instance,  of  ad- 
ministering justice;  others  in  the  proceedings  for  the  advowsons  of  churches;  and  some 
arising  out  of  the  peculiar  Irish  custom  as  to  dowers;  while  all  imply,  in  those  who 
drew  up  the  document,  a  desire  to  accommodate  the  laws  of  the  new  settlers  to  the 
customs  and  usages  of  the  country  in  which  they  were  located.^ 

It  appears  strange,  however,  that  any  such  deference  for  the  native  customs  and  insti- 
tutions should  be  shown  by  legislators,  who  yet  left  the  natives  themselves  almost  wholly 
out  of  their  consideration;  the  monstrous  fact  being,  that  the  actual  people  of  Ireland 
were  wholly  excluded  from  any  share  in  the  laws  and  measures  by  which  their  own 
country  was  to  be  thus  disposed  of  and  governed.  Individual  exceptions,  indeed,  to  this 
general  exclusion  of  the  natives  occur  so  early  as  the  time  of  king  John,^  during  whose 
reign  there  appear  "  charters"  of  English  laws  and  liberties,  to  such  of  the  natives  as 
thought  it  necessary  to  obtain  them ;  and  it  is  but  just  to  say  of  John,  as  well  as  of  his 
immediate  successors,  Henry  and  Edward,  that  they  endeavoured,  each  of  them,  to  esta- 
blish a  community  of  laws  among  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  country.  But  the  foreign 
lords  of  the  land  were  opposed  invariably  to  this  wise  and  just  policy  ;  and  succeeded  in 
substituting  for  it  a  monstrous  system  of  outlawry  and  proscription,  the  disturbing  effects 
of  which  were  continued  down  from  age  to  age,  nor  have  ceased  to  be  felt  and  execrated 
even  to  the  present  day. 

The  desire  of  plunder,  which  had  hitherto  united  the  English  settlers  against  the  na- 
tives, was  now,  by  a  natural  process,  dividing  the  enriched  English  among  themselves. 
The  first  very  violent  interruption  of  the  peace  that  occurred  in  Henry's  reign  arose  out 
of  the  rival  pretensions  of  two  powerful  barons,  Hugh  de  Lacy  and  the  young  William, 
earl  of  Pembroke,  the  latter  of  whom,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  in  1219,  had  succeeded 
to  his  vast  Irish  possessions.  Some  part  of  the  lands  which  thus  descended  to  him  having 
been  claimed,  as  rightfully  his  own,  by  De  Lacy,  the  arbitrement  of  the  sword  was  ap- 
pealed to,  in  preference  to  that  of  the  law,  and  fierce  hostilities  between  them  ensued; 
in  the  course  of  which  Trim|i  was  besieged  by  Pembroke,  and  gallantly  defended, 
and  the  counties  of  Leinster  and  Meath  were  alternately  laid  waste.  The  power-  -i.^oo 
ful  chief  of  Tyrone,  O'Neill,  lent  his  aid,  in  this  war  of  plunder  to  De  Lacy.lT 

How  little  of  fairness  or  good  faith  the  wretched  natives  had  to  expect  in  their  dealings 
with  the  foreigner,  was,  about  this  time,  made  but  two  warningly  manifest.  Regarding 
the  throne  as  their  only  refuge  against  the  swarm  of  petty  tyrants  by  whom  they  were 
harassed,  more  than  one  of  the  great  Irish  captains  now  followed  the  example  of  Cathal 
of  Connaught,  in  formally  surrendering  to  the  king  their  ancient  principalities,  and  then 
receiving  back  a  portion  by  royal  grant,  to  be  held  in  future  by  them  as  tenants  of  the 
English  crown ; — thus  making  a  sacrifice  of  part  of  their  hereditary  rights,  in  order  to 

*  Close  Roll.  1  Henry  III. 

t  Nephew  of  the  lord  William  Marshall,  and  appointed  by  king  John  lo  the  marshalseaof  all  Ireland,  in  the 
ninth  year  of  his  reign. 

t  Lynch,  View  of  the  Legal  Inetitutions,  ^c.  established  in  Ireland,  chap.  2. 

§  So  early  as  the  year  1216,  John  had  laid  a  precedent  for  this  sort  of  charters,  by  his  grant  of  "  English 
law  and  liberty"  to  Donald  O'Neill.— Pat.  Roll,  17  John. 

II  It  is  generally  believed  that  the  still  existing  castle  of  Trim  was  built  by  the  younger  De  Lacy,  soon  after 
this  seige. 

IT  Hanmer. 


310  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

enjoy,  as  they  hoped,  more  securely  what  remained.     In  this  manner  O'Brian,  prince  of 
Thomond,  received  from  Henry  a  grant  of  part  of  that  territory,  for  which  he  was 
v>?i'  ^°  P^y  ^  yearly  rent  of  130  marks.*     The  fate  of  Connaught,  however,  held  forth 
but  scanty  encouragement  to  those  inclined  to  rely  on  such  specious  compacts. 
In  despite  of  the  solemn  engagement  entered  into  by  king  John.f  in  the  year  1219,  as- 
suring to  Cathal  the  safe  possession  of  a  third  part  of  Connaught,  on  the  condition  of  his 
surrendering  the  other  two  parts  to  the  king,  the  whole  of  that  province  was  now,  by  a 
grant  of  Henry  III.,  bestowed  upon  Richard  de  Burgh, — the  factious  baron  who  had  caused 
so  much  trouble  to  the  crown,  in  the  reign  of  king  John, — ^to  be  taken  possession  of  by 
him  after  Cathal's  death. 

This  violation  of  public  faith  was  not  allowed  to  pass  unresisted  or  unrevenged.     On 

the  death  of  Cathal,  which  occurred  soon  after,  the  people  of  his  province,  re- 

TOOQ   gardless  of  Henry's  grant,  and  supported  by  the  ever  ready  sword  of  O'Neill,  pro- 

'  ceeded  to  elect  a  successor  to  the  chieftainship,  and  conferred  that  dignity  upon 

Tirlogh,  Cathal's  brother.     So  daring  a  defiance  of  the  will  of  the  government  called 

down  on  the  offenders  the  vengeance  of  the  lord  justice,  Geoffrey  de  Marisco;    and 

a  long  furious  struggle  ensued,  during  which,  the  sovereignty  of  Connaught,  after  haying 

passed  from  Tirlogh  to  Aedh,  a  son  of  Cathal,  settled  at  last  on  the  brow  of  Feidlim, 

another  son  of  that  prinee. 

However  fertile  were  these  dark  times  in  acts  of  injustice,  violence,  and  treacheryj 

there  are  few  events  in  which  all  these  qualities  can  be  found  more  odiously  exemplified, 

than  in  the  melaflcholy  fate  of  the  young  Richard,  earl  marshal,  son  of  the  late  protector 

of  the  realm.     This  lord,  having  incurred  the  resentment  of  Henry,  by  joining  in 

12^^   a  confederacy  against  him,  with  the  earl  of  Cornwall  and  other  malcontent  lords, 

l.4t}6.  ^Qjjfjj  himself,  without  trial,  deprived  of  his  high  office  of  marshal,  and  was  forced 

to  retire  for  safety  into  Wales;  where  entering  into  an  alliance  with  Llewellyn  and 

other  chiefs  of  that  province,  he  successfully  defended  one  of  his  own  castles  that 

had  been  attacked  by  the  king's  troops,  and  made  reprisals  on  the  royal  territories  in 

return. 

To  repress  such  daring  movements  by  force,  would  have  been,  on  the  king's  part,  no 
more  than  an  exercise  of  a  natural  right  of  self-defence.  But  treachery  was  the  means 
employed  to  get  rid  of  this  refractory  young  lord.  By  the  base  contrivance,  as  it  is  said, 
of  the"  bishop  of  Winchester,  Henry's  chief  adviser,  letters  under  the  kings  seal,  fraudu- 
lently obtained,  were  sent  to  the  lord  justice,  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald,  to  Hugh  and  Walter 
de  Lacy,  Richard  de  Burgh,  Geoffrey  de  Marisco,  and  others  of  the  Irish  barons,  informing 
them  that  Richard,  late  earl  marshal  of  England,  having  been  proscribed,  banished,  and 
deprived  of  his  estates,  by  the  king,  yet  still  continuing  in  rebellion  against  his  authority, 
it  was  required  of  these  lords,  that  should  Richard  by  chance  land  in  Ireland,  they  should 
forthwith  seize  upon  his  person,  and  send  him,  dead  or  alive,  to  the  king.  In  conside- 
ration, it  was  added,  of  this  service,  all  the  possessions  and  lands  that  had  devolved  to 
Richard  in  Ireland,  and  were  now  at  the  king's  disposal,  would  by  him  be  granted  to 
them  and  their  heirs  fbrever.|; 

So  tempting  a  bribe,  to  men  brought  up  in  no  very  scrupulous  notions  of  right  and 
wrong,  could  not  fail  to  appeal  with   irresistible  effect;  and  from  thenceforth,  no  art  or 
treachery  appears  to  have  been  spared  to  lure  the  victim  into  their  toils.     In  order  to  in- 
duce him  to  pasi  over  into  Ireland,  exaggerated  accounts  were  conveyed  to  him  of 
^:.J':  the  force  of  his  immediate  adherents  ;  together  with  secret  assurances  of  support 
from  many  of  the  barons  themselves.     Thus  deceived  as  to  the  extent  of  his  re- 
sources, he  rashly  ventured  over  with  a  guard  of  but  fifteen  followers,  and,  immediately 
on  his  arrival,  was  waited  upon  by  the  chief  actor  in  the  plot,  Geoffrey  de  Marisco;  who, 
reminding  him  of  his  ancient  rights,  and  of  the  valiant  blood  flowing  in  his  veins,  advised 
him  to  avenge  the  insults  he  had  received  by  attacking  the  king's  territories  without 
delay.     This  advice  the  unsuspecting  young  earl  adopted;  and,  taking  the  field  with 
whatever  force  he  could  hastily  collect,  succeeded  in  recovering  some  of  his  own  castles, 
and  got  possession  of  the  city  of  Limerick  after  a  siege  of  but  four  days.J 

Still  farther  to  cnrry  on  tiie  delusion  till  all  siiould  be  ripe  for  his  ruin,  the  treacherous 
barons  now  affected  alarm  at  the  success  of  his  arms,  as  threatened  danger  to  the  king's 
government;  and,  prupoEing  a  truce,  requested  an   interview  with  him  for  the  purpose 

*  Cnx.  According  to  Lcl.in.l,  Imt,  1  ihiiik,  incorrectly,  the  payment  wa3  a  yearly  rent  of  100/.  and  a  fine 
of  1000  marks.  "  This  wa.s  ilie  only  giani  (says  Cox)  made  by  Ihc  crown  of  England  to  any  mere  Inshniaa 
to  that  time,  excepting  thai  to  the  king  of  Connaught." 

t  Co.\.  t  Malhew  Paris. 

0  "  Litneric  quoiine  famosam  Ilihernia"  civitatein  quadiiduana  cepit  obsidione." — Mulhetc  Puris. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  311 

of  arranging  the  terms.  To  this,  little  suspecting  the  treachery  that  hung  over  him,  the 
gallant  young  earl  assented;  and,  attended  by  Geoffrey  de  Marisco  and  about  a  hundred 
followers,  proceeded  to  the  place  of  conference  on  the  great  plain  of  Kildare.  But  it  was 
soon  manifest  that  he  had  been  decoyed  thither  only  to  be  betrayed.  The  pretence  of  a 
conference  had  been  devised  with  the  sole  view  of  provoking  a  conflict :  and  the  signal 
for  onset  having  been  given  on  the  side  of  the  barons,  Richard  found  himself  suddenly  de- 
serted by  Sis  perfidious  prompter,  De  Marisco,  who,  drawing  off  eighty  of  the  earl's  band, 
left  him  with  little  more  than  the  fifteen  followers  who  had  accompanied  him  from  Wales, 
to  stand  the  shock  of  a  force  ten  times  their  number.  Even  thus  abandoned  and  beset, 
the  earl  marshal  kept  his  ground,  till  at  length  unhorsed,  and  attacked  by  a  traitor  from 
behind,  who  plunged  a  dagger  up  to  the  hilt  in  his  back,  he  fell,  all  but  lifeless,  on  the 
field ;  and  being  conveyed  from  thence  to  one  of  his  own  castles,  which  had  just  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  justiciary,  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald,  breathed  his  last,  in  the  midst 
of  enemies,  with  only  a  youth  of  his  own  household  to  watch  over  him  in  his  dying  mo- 
ments.* 

Richard  was  one  of  five  brothers,  the  sons  of  the  protector  Pembroke,  who  all  lived 
to  be  earls  of  Pembroke,  and  all  died  childless  ;  in  consequence  of  which  default  of 
heirs,  the  high  and  warlike  house  of  Marshal  became  extinct.     The  death  of  this  1934 
gallant  nobleman,  from  the  peculiar  circumstances  attending  it,  created  a  strong 
sensation,  not  only  throughout  Ireland,  but  in  Enorland  where  he  was  looked  up  to,  says 
Mathew  Paris,  as  "  the  very  flower  of  the  chivalry  of  modern  timps."t 

Among  the  few  legislative  measures,  directed  10  peaceful  or  useful  objects,  that  greet 
the  course  of  the  historian  through  thpse  times,  must  be  mentioned  a  writ  addressed  by 
the  king  to  his  chief  justice  in  Ireland,  for  free  commerce  between  the  subjects  of  both 
kingdoms,!  without  any  impediment  or  restraint ; — a  measure  which  "some,"  it  is  added, 
"  endeavoured  to  hinder,  to  the  great  prejudice  of  both.'V} 

The  rapacity  and  violence  which  had  marked  the  conduct  of  De  Burgh  and  his  kins- 
man, throughout  these  contests,  had  been  made  known  to  Henry  through  various  channels. 
Among  others,  Feidlim,  the  new  dynast  of  Connaught,  had  addressed  the   king  ^    ^ 
confidentially  on  the  subject, |i  and  requested  leave  to  visit  him  in  England,  for  the  j.^^q' 
purpose  of  consulting  with  him  on  tlieir  mutual  interests  and  concerns.     After 
due  deliberation,  on  the  part  of  Henry,  the  conference  with  his  royal  brother  of  Con- 
naught  was  accorded  ;  and,  so  successfully  did  Feidlim  plead  his  own  suit,  and  expose  the 
injustice  of  the  grasping  family  opposed  to  him,  that  the  king  wrote  to  Maurice  Fitz- 
Gerald,  then  lord  justice,  and,  with  a  floridness  of  style,  caught,  as  it  would  seem,  from 
his  new  Irish  associates,  desired  that  he  would  '^  pluck  up  by  the  root  that  fruitless  syca- 
more, De  Burgh,  which  the  earl  of  Kent,  in  the  insolence  of  his  power,  had  planted  in 
those  parts,  nor  suffer  it  to  bud  forth  any  longer."1[ 

♦  "Cum  uno  tantum  Juvene  de  suis  inter  hostes  remansit." — Mathew  Paris.  This  story  of  the  last  days  and 
death  of  the  earl  Richard  occupies  in  the  diffuse  narrative  of  the  old  historian  no  less  than  fourteen  or  fifteen 
folio  pages. 

t  "  Militise  flo3  temporum  modernorum.'"  The  following  are  tributes  to  his  fame  from  contemporary 
writers ; — 

"  Anglia  plange,  Marescallam  plangens  lachrymare 
Gausa  subest,  quare  quia  pro  te  planxit  amare. 
Virtus  militia",  patrice  protectio,"  &c.  &c. 

Verses  in  the  Annals  of  Jfaverly,  ad.  ann.  1234. 

"  Tho  wende  Richard  the  marschal,  that  of  Penibroc  eri  was, 
Into  Irlonde  to  worri,  in  luther  time  alas  ! 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  • 

Wat  seiste,'  quoth  this  gode  erI, '  wan  Richard  the  marschal 
Upe  is  Etede  iarmed  is,  &  atiled  thoru  out  al, 
&  toward  is  fon  in  the  feld  hath  is  wombe  iwent, 
Ssold  he  turne  horn  his  rugh?  he  has  neuere  so  issent. 
Vor  he  ne  dude  it  neuere,  ne  neuere  iwis  ne  ssal. 
Frara  such  ssendnesse  Crist  ssulde  Richard  the  Marssal.'  " 

Robert  of  Oloucester's  Chronicle. 

X  Close  Roll,  29  Henry  IJI.  Walter  Hemingford,  a  chronicler,  who  himself  lived  in  this  reign,  and  of  whom 
Leland  {Comment,  de  Script.  Britann.)  says,  that  he  narrated  tlie  events  of  his  own  time  with  the  greatest 
care  ("  summa  cura,")  yet  states,  that  an  army  was  led  by  the  king  at  this  time  into  Ireland,  in  consequence 
of  the  expedition  thither  of  earl  Richard,  and  that  having  pacified  the  country,  after  that  lord's  death,  he  re- 
turned the  same  year  to  England! 

§  Prynne,  cap.  76. 

I  Rymer,  torn.  i.  391. — The  following  is  an  e.tfract  from  Feidlira's  letter  : — "  Grates  referimus  infinitas  ;  et 
ma.xiine  proeo  quod  pro  nobis  Willielmode  Dene  justo  vesto  Hi  hernia  bonfe  memoriae  pro  restitutionehabenda 
de  darapnis  nobis  per  Walterum  de  Burgo  et  suam  seguelam.  in  terra  nostra  de  Tyrmara,  illatis,  devote  scrip- 
sisti."  See  also,  writ  for  the  safe  conduct  of  Feidlim  (ib.  422,)  wherein  he  is  styled  "  Fedlinius  O'Cancanir, 
filius  regis  Conact."  .  . 

TT  "  Ut  ipsius  iniquae  palntationis.  quam  Comes  Cantiae  Huhertus  in  illis  pratibus,  dum  sua  potentia  de- 
baccharet,  plantavit,  infructaosam  sicoraorum  radicitiis  evulsam,  non  sinerel  amplius  pullulare." 


312  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

During  the  disputes  that  arose  between  Henry  and  two  successive  sovereigns  of  Wales, 
Llewellyn  and  David,  respecting  the  claim  of  feudal  superiority  advanced  by  the 
^n^  English  king,  a  perpetual  warfare  continued  to  be  maintained  between  the  bor- 
derers  of  the  two  nations,  which  grew,  at  times,  into  sufficient  importance  to  call 
into  the  field  the  respective  sovereigns  themselves.     On  an  occasion  of  this  kind,  which 
occurred  in  the  year  1245,  the  king,  being  then  hard  pressed  by  the  Welsh,  and  likewise 
suffering  from  the  intense  severity  of  the  winter,  summoned  to  his  aid  Maurice  Fitz- 
Gerald,  with  his  Irish  forces.*     A  letter  written  at  the  time,  by  a  nobleman  in  Henry's 
camp,  thus  gives,  with  the  freshness  of  a  sketch  taken  at  the  moment,  an  account  of  the 
state  of  the  English  army.     "The  king  with  his  army  lyeth  at  Gannock,  fortifying  that 
strong  castle,  and  we  live  in  our  tents,  thereby,  watching,  fasting,  praying,  and 
1245*  ^'■66zing  with  cold.     We  watch,  for  fear  of  the  Welshmen,  who  are  wont  to  in- 
vade and  come  upon  us  in  the  night-time;  we  fast,  for  want  of  meat,  for  the  half- 
penny loaf  is  worth  five-pence ;  we  pray  to  God  to  send  us  home  speedily ;  we  starve 
with  cold,  wanting  our  winter  garments,  having  no  more  but  a  thin  linen  cloth  between 
us  and  the  wind.      There  is  an  arm  of  the  sea  under  the  castle  where  we  lie,  whereto 
the  tide  cometh,  and  many  ships  come  up  to  the  haven,  which  bring  victuals  to  the  camp 
from  Ireland  and  Chester."! 

All  this  time  the  king  was  looking  impatiently  for  the  Irish  forces.  At  length  their 
sails,  says  the  chronicler,  were  descried  ;  the  fleet  reached  the  shore ;  and  Maurice  Fitz- 
Gerald,  and  the  prince  of  Connaught,  presented  themselves  in  battle  array  before  the 
king.|;  But  the  tardiness  of  the  lord  justice,  on  this  pressing  occasion,  was  by  no  means 
forgiven  by  his  royal  master.  Among  other  peculiar  rights  v/hich  the  Irish  barons,  in 
those  times,  claimed,  it  was  asserted  by  them  that  they  were  not  bound  to  attend  the 
king  beyond  the  realm  ;  difl^ering  in  this  from  the  nobles  of  England,  who  were  obliged 
by  law  to  assist  the  king  in  his  expeditions  as  well  without  as  within  the  kingdom. 
That  Henry  was  aware  of  the  exemption  claimed  by  them,  is  clear,  from  the  writs  issued 
by  him  on  this  occasion  having  been  accompanied  by  an  express  declaration  tliat  their 
attendance  now  should  not  be  brought  forward  as  a  precedent.  J  To  mark  his  displeasure, 
however,  at  the  lord  justice's  conduct,  he  soon  after  dismissed  him  from  his  high  office, — 
notwithstanding  some  eminent  services  performed  recently  by  him  in  Ulster, — and  ap- 
pointed Fitz-GeofFrey  de  Marisco  to  be  his  successor;  on  which  Fitz-Gerald,  retiring  from 
the  world,  took  upon  him  the  habit  of  St.  Francis,  and  dying  about  ten  years  after,  was 
buried  in  the  friary  of  that  order,  of  which  he  had  himself  been  the  founder,  at  Youghal. 
He  had  lived  all  his  life,  says  Mathew  Paris,  worthily  and  laudably,  with  the  sole  excep- 
tion of  the  mark  of  infamy  left,  unjustly,  perhaps,  upon  his  name,  by  the  share  he  was 
supposed  to  have  taken  in  the  events  that  led  to  the  melancholy  death  of  earl  Richard. 

A  similar  requisition  for  military  aid  had  been  addressed  by  Henry,  the  preceding 
year,||  to  those  Irish  dynasts  who  had  made  their  submission  to  the  English  government, 
desiring  that  they  would  join  his  standard  with  their  respective  forces  in  the  expedition 
then  meditated  against  the  Scottish  king.  A  list  of  the  different  Irish  toparchs  to  whom 
this  summons  was  addressed  is  found  appended  to  the  requisition,  and  they  consist  of 
about  the  same  number,  and  are  supposed  to  have  been  chiefly  the  same  individuals  who 
hastened  to  pay  homage  to  king  John,  on  his  last  expedition  into  Ireland. 

The  great  charter  of  liberty  communicated  by  Henry  to  his  Irish  subjects,  proved,  in 

the  hands  of  those  deputed  to  dispense  its  benefits,  a  worthless  and  barren  gift.     In  vain 

were  new  writs  issued,  from  time  to  time,  by  the  English  monarch,  ordering  the  charter 

and  laws  of  John  to  be  observed.     The  absolute  will  of  the  petty  tyrants  among  whom 

the  country  had  been  parcelled  out  now  stood  in  the  place  oi^  all  law ;  and  so  low  was 

the  crown  compelled  to  stoop,  in  submission  to  a  tyranny  of  its  own  creating,  that, 

1246  '"  *  ^^^^  ^  mandate  sent  over  by  the  king  in  the  30th  year  of  his  reign,  we  find 

him  enjoining  his  lay  and  spiritual  lords,  that,  for  the  sake  of  the  peace  and 

tranquillity  of  the  kingdom,  they  should  "  permit"  it  to  be  governed  by  English  law. IF 

It  must  at  the  same  time  be  always  kept  in  mind,  that  this  anxiety  to  extend  to  Ireland 
the  benefit  of  English  law,  implied  by  no  means  a  wish  to  include  in  that  benefit  the 
Irish  people.  It  was  only  by  rare  and  reluctant  exceptions  that  the  few  natives  admitted 
to  the  protection  of  the  conqueror's  law  were  invested  with  that  high  privilege.  In  a 
writ  of  Henry,  granting  this  favour  to  two  brothers,  Mamorch  and  Rotheric,  care  is  taken 
to  mark  the  exception,  by  an  assertion  of  the  general  principle; — the  writ  stating  that 

*  Rymer,  torn.  i.  431.  f  Mathew  Paris.  |  Ware's  Jlnnals. 

§  Close  Roll,  28  Henry  III.  ||  Rymer,  torn.  i.  315. 

TT  "  Quod  pro  pace  et  tranquillitate  ejusdem  terrse.per  easdem  leges eos  regi  et  et  deduci  permittant." — Pat. 
RoU,  30  Henry  III.  6  b  t- 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  313 

this  favour  is  conferred  upon  tliem  notwithstanding  that  they  were  Irishmen,  and  alleging 
ns  the  grounds  of  the  exception,  that  they  and  tlieir  forefathers  had  stood  firmly  by  the 
English,  in  their  wars  against  the  natives.*     This  exclusive  spirit,  on  the  part  of  the  state, 
called  forth,  even  thus  early,  and  while  yet  the  two  races  were  of  one  religion,  an  anta- 
gonist principle  on  the  part  of  the  Irish  church, — the  only  portion  of  the  native  commu- 
nity that  was  still  strong  enough  to  make  any  effectual  resistance.     In  a  synod  held  about 
the  year  1250,   the  archbishops,   bishops,  and   clergy  ot  Ireland,  who   were   of 
Irish  birth,  enacted  a  decree  that  no  Englishman  born  should  be  admitted  a  canon  i^.^rn' 
in  any  of  their  churches.     A   papal  bull,  however,  issued   at  the  instance  of  the      '"'  * 
king,  compelled  the  clergy  to  rescind  this  retaliatory  act. 

There  occurred,  frequently,  in  the  course  of  this  reign,  disputes  between  England  and 
Scotland,  arising  out  of  those  pretensions  of  feudal  superiority  on  the  part  of  England, 
which  were  carried  to  their  highest  pitch  and  realized  by  Henry's  heroic  successor. 
Among  other  preparations  for  an  expected  war,  at  one  of  those  junctures,  a  v/rit  was 
addressed  by  the  English  monarch  to  Donald,  king  of  Tyrconnei,  and  about  twenty  other 
great  Irish  chiefs,  requiring  them  to  join  him  with  their  respective  forces,  in  an  expedi- 
tion against  Scotland. f 

Another  of  those  exigencies  in  which  Henry  had  recourse  for  assistance  to  Ireland, 
occurred  in  the  38th  year  of  his  reign,  when,  under  the  apprehension  that  his  dominions 
in  Gascony  were  about  to  be  invaded  by  the  king  of  Castile,  he  issued  writs  to  his  lord 
justice  in  Ireland,  pointing  out  how  fatal  to  both  countries  might  be  the  success  of  such 
an  aggression,  and  urging  him  to  embark,  with  all  his  friends,  the  following  Easter,  at 
Waterford,  for  the  purpose  of  joining  him,  with  horses,  arms,  and  trusty  soldiers,  in  Gas- 
cony. "Never,  at  any  time,"  he  adds,  "  would  their  aid  and  counsel  be  of  such  impor- 
tance to  him  as  the  present."  The  same  request  was  shortly  after  repeated,  in  writs 
directed  *' to  the  archbishops,  bishops,  &c.,"  whereby  queen  Elianor  acquaints  them  that 
she  had  sent  over  John  Fitz-Geoffrey,  justiciary  of  Ireland,  to  explain  to  them  the  state  of 
Gascony  and  imminent  dangers  of  the  crown;  while,  in  another,  they  are  told  that  their 
compliance  witii  these  requests  will  be  "  a  measure  redounding  to  their  eternal  honour. "J 
From  all  this  it  may  fairly  be  concluded,  that,  though  so  backward  in  many  other 
essential  points,  this  country  already,  in  the  peculiar  aptitude  of  its  people  for  military 
pursuits,  contributed  largely  and  usefully  to  the  disposable  strength  of  England  for 
foreign  warfare. 

In  contemplation  of  the  approaching  marriage  between  his  son,  prince  Edward,  and  the 
infanta  of  Spain,  Henry  made  a  grant  to  him  and  iiis  heirs  for  ever  of  tiie  kingdom  of 
Ireland,  subjoining  certain  exceptions,  and  providing,  by  an  express  condition,  that 
Ireland  was  never  to  be  separated  from  the  Englisli  crown. ^     Not  content  with  -j^^c^' 
this  provision,  he  also,  in  more  than  one  instance,  took  care  to  assert  his  own  ju-  ■'■"^-*'** 
risdiction,  as  supreme  lord  of  that  land ;  and  even  reserved  and  set  aside  certain  acts  of 
authority,  such  as  the  appointment  of  the  lord  justice,  the  issue  of  a  writ  of  entry  out  of  the 
Irish  Court  of  Chancery,  and  one  or  two  other  acts  of  power,  which  the  prince,  presuming 
on  his  supposed  rights,  as  lord  of  Ireland,  had  taken  upon  him  to  perform. || 

The  motive  of  the  monarch,  in  thus  superseding,  occasionally,  the  authority  of  his  son, 
arose  doubtless  from  the  same  fear  which  appears  to  have  influenced  Henry  II.  under 
similar  circumstances,  lest  the  example  of  a  completely  separate  and  independent  sove- 
reign of  Ireland,  might,  in  after  times,  be  adduced  as  a  precedent  for  measures  affecting 
the  integrity  and  strength  of  tlie  whole  empire.  How  far  the  lot  of  that  country  might 
have  been  ameliorated  or  brightened,  had  prince  Edward,  as  was  once  intended,  gone 
over  thither  as  lord  lieutenant,  and  assumed  personally  the  administration  of  its  affairs, 
there  is  now  no  use  in  speculating.  That  he  would  have  allowed  any  ordinary  scruples, 
either  of  justice  or  humanity,  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  stern  policy,  the  course  pursued 
by  him  afterwards  in  Scotland  sufficiently  forbids  us  to  suppose.  Wiiether,  among  the 
Irish  chiefs  of  that  day,  he  would  have  found  or  called  forth  a  Bruce,  a  Douglas,  or  a  Ran- 
dolph, is  a  question  involving  too  melancholy  a  contrast  between  the  champions  of  the  re- 
spective countries,  to  be  more  than  thus  glanced  at  in  passing,  and  then  left  to  the 
charity  of  silence. 

These  reflections  are  of  course  founded  upon  the  generally  received  notion  that 

»  "  Q.uia  si  ipsi  et  anlecessores  sui  sic  se  liabuorunt  cum  Anglicis  quamvis  Hibernenses,  injiistum  est,  lice 
Hiberneirses  sint,  quod,"  &c. — Close  Roll,  37  Heniy  III. 

t  Pat.  KoU,  'JS  Henry  III,  |  Pat.  Roll,  38  Henry  HI. 

J  Rymer.  "  Ita  tameii  quod  pra;dictac  lerrse  el  caslra  omnia  nunquain  separentur  a  corona,  sed  integre 
remaneant  regibun  Angliae  in  perpetuum." 

II  See  in  I'rynne,  cap.  76.,  tlie  memorable  writ  (as  he  styled  it)  of  Henry  to  the  chief  justice  of  Ireland,  to 
stop  all  proceedings  in  law  upon  the  illegal  writ  issued  by  the  prince,  his  son. 

39 


314  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

prince  Edward  was  in  Ireland;  but  there  is  reason  to  believe,  though  we  find  no  mention 
of  it  in  any  of  our  histories,  that  he  did  once,  for  a  short  time,  visit  his  Irish  dominions. 
There  is,  at   least,  extant,  a  royal  mandate  addressed  by  Henry  in  the  year 
12'^  1255,  to  this  prince,  approving  of  his  project  of  passing  over  to  Ireland  from 
■  Gascony,*  and  remaining  tliere  for  the  winter, — with  the  view,  as  he  adds,  of 
reforming  and  regulating  the  state  of  that  country  ;  and  that  the  prince  may  have  put 
such  an  intention   in  practice,  is  rendered,  in  a  high  degree,  probable,  by  the  tenor 
of  letters  addressed  to  him  by  the  king,  in  the  very  same  year,f  ordering  him  to  con- 
voke before  him  the  prelates,  barons,  and  other  magnates  of  Ireland,  for  the  purpose  of 
consulting  with  them  as  to  the  redress  and  remedy  of  certain  encroachments  on  their 
ancient  rights  complained  of  by  the  clergy. 

Could  a  gallant  example  of  self-defence  have  roused  the  Irish  to  an  effective  effort 

for  their  own  deliverance,  they  had  now,  in  the  struggle  of  their  brave  neighbours  the 

Welsh,  against  English  aggression,  a  precedent  worthy  of  being  emulated  by  them; — 

for  most  truly  was   it  said  of  that  people,  now  armed   to  a  man  in  defence  of  their 

mountain  soil,  that  "their  cause  was  just,  even  in  the  sight  of  their  enemies."|     In 

the  course  of  this  warfare,  the  earl  of  Chester,  who  was  engaged  for  some  time  on 

the  side  of  the  Welsh,  had  recourse  for  assistance  to  Ireland  ;  but  prince  Ed- 

1255   ^^^^'  fitting  out  hastily  a  fleet,  attacked  the  vessels  which  contained  this  Irish 

force,  and  having  sunk  the  greater  number  of  them,  sent  the  remainder  back  with 

tidings  of  the  defeat. 

Shortly  after,  the  king  himself,  renewing  hostilities  with  the  Welsh  prince,  Llewellyn, 
sent  to  ask  for  troops  and  supplies  from  Ireland,  against  the  very  cause  she  had  lately 
so  warmly  espoused.  Thus  was  it  then,  as  it  has  been  too  frequently  since,  the  hard  fate 
of  the  Irish  to  be  not  only  themselves  the  bond-slaves  of  England,  but  to  be  made,  also, 
her  unwilling  instruments,  in  imposing  the  same  yoke  of  slavery  upon  others. 

In  the  year  1259  the  ofKcc  of  lord  justice  was  held  by  sir  Stephen  Longespe,^  who 

in  an  encounter   with  O'Neill,  in  the  streets  of  Down,  slew  that  chief  and  3.50  of 

his  followers.     Before  the  end  of  the  year,  however,  Longespe  himself  was  treacherously 

murdered  by  his  own  people.     During  the  administration  of  his  successor,  Wil- 

1259  ^'^"^  Den,  a  general  rising  of  the  Mac  Carthys  of  Desmond  threw  all  Munster  into 

confusion.il     This  warlike  sept,  the  ancient  proprietors  of  the  kingdom  of  Desmond, 

had,  by  the  grants  made  to  the  Geraldines  in  that  territory,  been  despoiled  of  almost  the 

whole  of  their  princely  possessions.     It  was  not,  however,  without  fierce  and  frequent 

struggles  that  they  suffered  their  soil  to  be  thus  usurped  by  the  foreigners;  and,  at  the 

time  we  now  treat  of,  attacking  suddenly  a  number  of  nobles  and  knights  collected  at 

Callan,  they  slew,  among  other  distinguished  Geraldines,  the  lord  Joim  Fitz-Thomas, 

A    D    ^"""der  of  the  monastery  of  Tralee,  together  with  Maurice,  his  son,  eight  barons, 

1261   ^"'^  fifteen  knights.     In  consequence  of  this  great  success,  says  the  chronicler,  the 

Mac  Carthys  grew,  tor  a  time,  so  powerful,  that  "the  Geraldines  durst  not  put  a 

plough  into  the  ground  in  Desmond. IT 

As  usual,  however,  the  dissension  of  the  natives  among  themselves  proved  the  safety 
and  strength  of  the  common  enemy's  cause.  The  mutual  jealousy  to  which  joint  success 
BO  frequently  leads  now  sprang  up  among  the  different  septs,  both  of  Carbery  and  Mus- 
kerry;  and  the  Mac  Carthys,  O'Driscolis,  O'Donovans,  and  Mac  Mahons,  who  had  lately 
joined,  with  such  signal  success,  against  the  English  being  now  disunited  among  them- 
selves, fell  powerless  before  them. 

The  remaining  years  of  this  long  reign  continued  to  roll  on,  at  once  dully  and  (urbidly, 
in  the  same  monotonous  course  of  fierce  but  ignoble  strife  which  had  darkened  its  records 
from  the  commencement.  As  if  schooled  into  civil  di.-cord  by  the  example  of  the  na- 
tives, scarcely  had  the  swords  of  the  great  English  lords  found  time  to  rest  from  their 
vvar.s  with  the  Mac  Carthys  and  Mac  Mahons,  than  they  again  drew  them  in  deadly 
conflict  against  each  other;  and  the  families  of  theDe  Burghs  and  the  Geraldines  were  now 
engnged  in  as  fierce  contention  among  themselves,  as,  but  a  short  time  before,  they  had 

•'*  Th;;  writ  for  the  sailiiis  of  tbe  prince  to  IreJand,  may  lie  found  in  Rymer,  torn.  i.  p.  5(j0,  561. 

i  Cli.se  Roll,  31)  Henry  111. 

X  '■  Ciiusa  aiiteni  eorum  etiam  liostibus  eoruni  just  a  videbatur." 

§  Tills  officer,  who  was  a  desceudaiil  of  the  countess  Ela  of  Salisbury  (foundress  of  Lacock  Abbey,)  is 
slylcd,  in  the  Book  of  Lacock,  carl  of  Ulster;  and  Borlase,  among  others,  has  adopted  the  mistake.  The 
iruth  i-!,  Stephen  Longespe  married  the  widow  of  Hugh  de  Lacy,  who  had  been  male  earl  of  Ulster  by  king 
John,  and  hence,  no  doubt  the  misconception.  See  Annals  and  Antiquities  of  Lacock  Abbey,  by  the  Rev.  IV.  L. 
Bowles,  pp.  154,  155. 

|r:  |(  The  Mac  Carthys  (says  the  old  chronicler,  in  language  worthy  of  his  subject)  "were  now  playing  the 
devil  in  Desmond." 

1!  Hanmer. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  315 

been  waging  jointly  against  the  Irish.     Walter  de  Burgh,  who  in  consequence  of  his  mar- 
riage with  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Hugh  de  Lacy,  had  been  created  earl  of  Ul- 
ster, was,  at  this  time,  the  head  of  the  great  house  of  the  De  Burghs;  and  to  such  a  -i^aA 
pitcli  had  arisen  the  feud  between  them  and  the  Geraldines,  that,  at  a  meeting  held 
this  year  at  Castle  Dermond,  Maurice  Fitz-Maurice  Fitz-Gerald,  assisted  by  John  Fitz- 
Tiiomas  (afterwards  earl  of  Kildare,)  audaciously  seized  on  the  persons  of  Richard  de  Ca- 
pella,  the  lord  justice,  of  Richard  de  Burgh,  heir  apparent  of  Ulster,  of  Theobald  le  Butler, 
and  one  or  two  other  great  partisans  of  the  family  of  the  De  Burghs,  and  committed  them 
to  prison  in  the  castles  of  Ley  and  Dunamase.* 

At  length,  the  attention  of  the  English  monarch,  already  sufficiently  distracted  by  the 
difficulties  of  his  own  position,  was  drawn  to  the  disturbed  state  of  his  Irish  dominions.  A 
parliament  or  council  was  held  at  Kilkenny,  by  whose  advice  the  prisoners  so  arbitrarily 
detained  by  the  Geraldines  were  released;  and  the  king,  recalling  the  present  lord  jus- 
tice, appointed  in  his  place  David  Barry  (the  ancestor  of  the  noble  family  of  Barrymore,) 
who,  curbing  the  insolent  ambition  of  the  Geraldines,  restored  peace  between  the  two 
rival  houses. 

Among  those  unerring  symptoms  of  a  weak  and  vicious  system  of  policy,  which  meet 
the  eye  on  the  very  surface  of  the  dreary  history  we  are  pursuing,  may  be  rec- 
koned the  frequent  change  of  chief  governors; — showing  how  uneasy,  under  such  -lA/j^* 
laws,  was  power,  as  well  to  the  rulers  as  the  ruled.     David  Barry  Jiad  been  but 
a  few  months  the  lord  justice,  when  he  was  replaced  by  sir  Robert  de  UfFord,  during 
whose  administration  there  came  over  a  writ  from  king  Henry  to  levy  aurum  regincB 
for  Elianor,  the  wife  of  prince  Edward.     This  act  of  sovereignty,  exercised  by  Henry  in 
Ireland,  sufficiently  proves  how  far  from  his  intention  it  had  been  to  cede  to  his  son  the  right 
of  dominion  over  that  realm.     But  a  still  stronger  proof  is  afforded  by  a  writ  issued  in  the 
same  year,f  wherein  he  annuls  a  grant  of  some  lands  made  by  Edward,  without  his  per- 
mission, and  transfers  them  to  the  son  of  his  own  brother,  Richard,  earl  of  Cornwall. 

During  the  administration  of  sir  James  Audley,  or  Aldethel,  the  last  but  one  of  the 
numerous  chief  governors  who  administered  the  affairs  of  the  country  during  this 
reign,  a  more  than  ordinary  effort  of  vigour  was  made  by  the  natives  to  wreak  ven-  lo^n 
geance,  at  least,  on  their  masters,  if  not  to  right  and  emancipate  themselves.     Ri- 
sing up  in  arms  all  over  the  country,  they  burned,  despoiled,  and  slaughtered  in  every 
direction,  making  victims  both  of  high  and  low.     In  the  country  then  called  Offaley,  all 
the  fortified  places  were  destroyed  by  them ;  while,  in  the  mean  time,  the  prince  of 
Connaught,  availing  himself  of  the  general  excitement,  took  the  field  against  VValter  de 
Burgh,  earl  of  Ulster,  and  putting  his  forces  to  rout,  killed,  among  a  number  of  other 
nobles  and  knights,  the  lords  Richard  and  John  de  Verdon. 

In  the  year  1272,  this  long  reign — the  longest  to  be  found  in  the  English  annals — was 
brought  to  a  close:  and  the  few  meager  and  scattered  records  which  have  been  strung 
together  in  this  chapter  comprise  all  that  Ireland  furnishes  towards  the  history  of  a  reign 
whose  course,  in  England,  was  marked  by  events  so  pregnant  with  interest  and  impor- 
tance,— events  which  by  leading  to  a  new  distribution  of  political  power,  were  the  means 
of  introducing  a  third  estate  into  the  constitution  of  the  English  legislature.  It  is  some- 
what remarkable,  too,  that  the  very  same  order  of  men,  the  fierce  and  haughty  barons, 
who  laid  the  foundation,  at  this  time,  in  Ireland,  of  a  system  of  provincial  despotism,  of 
which  not  only  the  memory  but  the  vestiges  still  remain,  should  have  been  likewise,  by 
the  strong  force  of  circumstances,  made  subservient  to  the  future  establishment  of  repre- 
sentative government  and  free  institutions  in  England. 

*  Anna!.  Hib.  ap.  Camtl.— Dunamase,  signifying  the  Fortress  of  the  Plain,  was  in  ancient  times,  the  strong- 
hold of  the  O'Moores,  princes  of  Ley.  As  this  rock  bounded  the  English  Pale  on  the  west,  a  castle  was  built 
there  for  the  protection  of  the  vicinity,  which  Vallancey  thinks  must  have  been  erected  about  the  beginning 
of  Henry  the  Third's  reign  ;  as,  nearly  at  the  same  time,  the  castle  of  Ley,  a  structure  similar  in  its  general 
style  of  architecture,  and  about  eight  miles  distant,  was  erected  by  the  barons  of  Oftaley  on  the  banks  of  the 
Barrow." — Collectanea,  vol.  ii. 

t  See  this  writ  in  Cox. 


316  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

EDWARD  1. 

Laws  of  EnjrJaiid  not  yet  extended  to  the  Irish.— Revolt  of  the  natives— seize  on  the  person 
of  the  lord  dc|)uty,  and  defeat  his  successor  in  battle.— Wars  of  De  Clare  in  Thomond— 
his  treachery  to  the  contending;  chiefs— is  defeated  by  Tirlogh  O'Brian.— Petition  of  the 
Irish  to  be  admitted  to  the  benefits  of  English  law^- the  king  favourable  to  their  request. — 
Grant  of  charters  of  denization.— Continuance  of  the  feud  between  the  Geraldines  and  the 
De  Burghs.— Great  power  of  the  earl  of  Ulster.— Contest  between  De  Vescy  and  the  baron  of 
Offaley — triumph  of  the  latter,  and  his  insolence  in  consequence — throws  the  earl  of  Ulster 
into  prison. — Truce  between  the  Geraldines  and  De  Burghs.— A  parliament  assembled. — 
Irish  forces  summoned  to  join  the  king  in  Scotland.— -Savage  murders  committed  both  by 
English  and  Irish. 

There  had  now  elapsed  exactly  a  century  from  the  time  of  the  landing  of  Henry  XL; 

A.  D    ^"'^  '*■  ^^*^"'^  ^^  difficult  to  pronounce  a  severer  or  more  significant  comment  upon 

1272   ^'^^. policy  pursued  by  the  rulers  of  Ireland,  during  that  period,  than  is  found  in  a 

■  petition  addressed  to  king  Edward,  in  an  early  part  of  his  reign,  praying  that  he 

would  extend  to  the  Irisii  the  benefit  of  the  laws  and  usages  of  England..* 

It  was  the  wise  boast  of  the  Romans,  that  their  enemTes,  on  the  day  they  were  con- 
quered, became  their  fellow  citizens;!  and  one  of  the  most  eloquent  of  the  Roman  philo- 
sophers demands,  "  What  would  have  become  of  the  empire  had  not  a  kindly  Providence 
mixed  up  together  the  victors  and  the  vanquished?"!  Far  different  was  the  policy 
adopted  by  liie  rude  satraps  of  the  English  colony,  who,  seeing  no  safety  for  their  own 
abused  power  but  in  the  weakness  of  those  subjected  to  them,  took  counsel  of  their  fears, 
and,  never  relaxing  the  unsure  hold,  continued  tiirough  aqcs  to  keep  the  Irish  in  the  very 
same  hostile  and  alien  state  in  which  they  had  found  them. 

The  reign  of  Edward  I.,  which  forms  so  eventful  a  portion  of  England's  history  and, 
combines  in  its  course  so  rare  and  remarkable  a  mixture  of  the  brilliant  and  the  solid,  the 
glorious  and  the  useful,  presents,  as  viewed  through  the  meager  records  of  Ireland,  a 
barren  and  melancholy  waste — unenlivened  even  by  those  fiery  outbreaks  of  just  revenge, 
which,  at  most  other  periods,  flash  out  from  time  to  time,  lighting  up  fearfully  the  scene 
of  suffering  and  strife.     In  the  first  year,  indeed,  of  this  reign,  before  the  return  of  Ed- 
ward from  abroad,  advantage  was  taken  of  his  absence,  by  the  natives,  to  make  a  sudden 
and  desperate  effort  for  their  own  deliverence.^     Attacking  the  castles  of  Roscommon 
4.  D^  Aldleck,  and  Sligo,  they  dismantled,  or,  as  it  is  said,  destroyed  them;||  and  at 
1272*.  ^''^  same  time  were  enabled,  through  tiie  treachery  of  his  followers,  to  seize  the 
person  of  the  lord  justice,  Maurice  Fitz-Maurice,  and  cast  him  into  prison.lf 
This  nobleman  was  succeeded  in  his  high  office  by  the  lord  Walter  Genevil,  newly 
A.  D.  '■^^"'■"^J  from  the  Holy  Land,  during  whose  administration  the  Scots  and  Red- 
1273.  ^'i^"'^'^»outof  the  Highlands,  made  a  sudden  incursion  into  Ireland,  and  committing 
the  most  cruel  murders  and  depredations,  escaped  with  their  booty  before  the  in- 
habitants had  time  to  rally  in  their  defence.     Shortly  after,  however,  a  considerable  force 
under  Richard  de  Burgh  and  sir  Eustace  de  Poer,  invading,  in  their  turn,  the  Highlands 
and  Scottish  isles,  spread  desolation  wherever  they  went,  putting  to  death  all  whom  they 
could  find;    while  such  as  dwelt,  in  the  manner  of  the  ancient  Irisl),  in  caves,  were 
smoked  out  from  thence,  like  foxes  from  their  holes,  or  destroyed  by  suffocation. 
jy^  J)        TI'G  successor  of  Genevil  in  the  government  of  the  country  was  Robert  de 
1267.  '^^'^'."''''  ""^v  for  the  second  time  lord  justice;  and  the  five  or  six  following  years, 
during  which,  personally,  or  through  his  deputy,  Steplien  de  Fulburn,  he  managed 
thcaffiirs  of  the  country,  v.cre  distracted  by  a  scries  of  petty  war:^-,  in  which  not  only 

*  Prynrifi,  cap.  l.txVi.  25l 
haVuer''t"''— 7-  """''''^  HdiiiuIiis  tantiun  apientia  Valuit,  ui  pierosque  populos  eoilem  die  liostes  deinde  cives 

I  "^""'.'""J'eesset  impcriiiin,  nisi  salubris  providenlia  victospermiscuisset  victnribiis?"— Seneca. 

?     Uuasi  omnes  Hibcini  KiK'rravprunt,"  says  a  MS,  fraement,  cited  by  Cox,  respecting  this  general  revolt. 

li  "a timer.  '       "^  _  ,  -r         .       ■  ^  Ware's  jlnnals. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  317 

English  fought  with  Irish,  but  the  Irish,  assisted  by  the  arms  of  the  foreigner,  fought  no 
less  bitterly  against  their  own  countrymen.  At  the  great  battle  of  Glandelory,  the 
English  were  defeated  with  much  slaughter;  and  among  the  numerous  prisoners  taken 
is  mentioned  William  Fitz-Roger,  prior  of  the  king's  hospitallers.  On  the  other  hand, 
Ralph  Pippard,  assisted  by  O'Hanlon,  gave,  in  the  same  year,  a  severe  check  to  the  great 
chieftain  O'Neill.* 

But  it  was  in  Thomond  that  the  scenes  most  tumultuous  and  most  disgraceful  to  the 
English  name  were  now  exhibited.    A  large  grant  of  lands,  in  Thomond,  had  been,  about 
this  time,  bestowed  upon  Thomas  de  Clare,  son  of  the  earl  of  Gloucester; — whether  by 
grant  from  the  crown,  or  as  a  gift  from  one  of  the  O'Brian  family,!  does  not  very  clearly 
appear.     Having  thus  got  footing  in  that  territory,  De  Clare  proceeded  on  a  course  of  open 
and  flagrant  treachery,  such  as  proved  both  the  simplicity  of  his  victims,  and  his  own  daring 
craft.     Taking  advaulage  of  the  fierce  strife  then  raging  among  the  O'Brians  for  ,    „ 
the  succession  to  the  throne  of  Thomond,  he  contrived,  by  supporting  and   be-  1077 
trayingeach  of  the  rivals,  in  turn,  to  enrich  and  aggrandize  himself  at  tiie  expense 
of  all.     To  enter  into  the  details  of  these  multiplied  treacheries  would  be  an  almost  end- 
less task;   but  the  following  is  a  brief  outline  of  the  events  as  they  are  found  related  in 
the  Annals  of  Inisfallen.| 

Forming  an  alliance  with  Brian  Ruadh,  whose  nephew  Tirlogh  was  then  contending 
with  him  for  the  principality,  De  Clare,  attended  by  Brian  himself,  marched  an  army  of 
English  and  Irish  against  his  competitor.  In  the  battle  which  then  ensued,  the  allied 
forces  under  the  English  lord  were  utterly  defeated;  and  among  the  slain  was  Patrick 
Fitz-Maurice,  the  son  and  heir  of  Fitz-Maurice  of  Kerry,  and  brother  to  De  Clare's  wife. 
As  it  was  in  Brian's  cause  this  calamitous  defeat  had  been  incurred,  the  conclusion  drawn 
by  the  barbarous  logic  of  De  Clare  was,  that  upon  him,  first  the  disaster  ought  to  be 
avenged;  and,  the  wife  and  father-in-law  of  Fitz-Maurice  being  the  most  loud  in 
demanding  this  sacrifice,  the  wretched  chieftain  was  put  to  death,  and,  according  -1.277' 
to  some  accounts,  with  peculiar  refinement  of  cruelty.^ 

The  manner  in  which  De  Clare  followed  up  this  crime  affords  a  sequel,  in  every  way, 
worthy  of  it.  To  Tirlogh,  against  whom  he  had  so  lately  fought,  in  conjunction  with 
Brian,  he  made  a  merit  of  having  thus  removed  so  formidable  a  rival ;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  he  entered  into  negotiations  with  Donogh  O'Brian,  the  son  of  the  murdered  prince, 
and  engaged  to  assist  him  in  gaining  the  throne  of  Thomond.  To  effect  this  object,  and 
put  down  the  pretensions  of  the  usurper,  a  force  was  collected  under  the  joint  command 
of  De  Clare  and  Donogh,  which,  making  an  impetuous  attack  upon  Tirlogh,  drove 
him,  as  the  annalist  describes  the  locality,  "to  the  east  of  the  wood  of  Forbair." 
The  Irish  chieftain,  however,  making  his  way  back  through  defiles  and  by-ways  with 
which  he  was  acquainted,  fell  upon  the  confederates  by  surprise,  and  gained  so  decisive 
a  victory,  that  they  were  forced  to  surrender  to  iiim  half  of  the  country  of  Thomond, 
leaving  the  remainder  in  the  hands  of  the  rightful  successor,  Donoirh.  De  Clare,  in 
drawing  off  his  troops  from  the  territories  of  these  chiefs,  said  significantly,  that  "the 
first  of  them  who  would  lay  waste  the  other's  lands,  should  be  his  declared  friend  for  life." 
In  one  of  these  battles,  fought  by  this  lord  with  the  Irish,  himself  and  his  father-in-law, 
Fitz-Maurice,  were  drawn,  with  a  part  of  their  force,  into  a  pass  in  the  mountains  of 
Slieve  Bloom,  and  there  compelled  to  surrender  at  discretion. 

While  such  was  the  state  of  Thomond,  in  almost  every  other  direction  the  same  strife 
and  struggle  prevailed  ;  the  infatuated  natives  performing  actively  the  work  of  the  enemy, 
by  butchering  each  other.  Thus,  in  a  battle  between  the  king  of  Connaught  and  the 
chief  of  the  Mac  Dermots  of  Moy-Lurg,  the  army  of  Connaught  was  utterly  defeated 

*  Hanmer. 

t  According  to  Lodge,  "  all  that  tract  of  Thomond  which  extends  from  Limerick  to  Ath  Solais,  was  be- 
stowed by  Bryan  Ruadh,  prince  of  Thomond,  upon  Thomas  de  Clare,  in  consideration  of  this  lord  coming 
with  the  English  troops  to  reinstate  him  in  his  kingdom."  Bnt,  according  to  others,  this  immense  prop<Mty 
was  a  reckless  gift  from  the  crown:  and  a  grant  (Pat.  Roll,  4  Ed.  1.,)  of  ample  liberties  in  his  lands  of 
Thomond  to  Thomas  de  Clare,  seems  to  confirm  this  statement.— See  Ryley's  Placit.  Partiameiitar.,  Appen- 
dix, 43S. 

I  MS.,  translated  by  Charles  O'Connor  of  Belanagare,  and  now  in  the  possession  of  Messrs.  Smith  and 
Hodges,  Dublin.  Though  Leland  cites  these  annals  as  an  authority  for  his  account  of  De  Clare's  proceedings 
in  Thomond,  the  statements  made  by  him  differ  entirely  from  those  found  in  the  Annals. 

§  The  particulars  of  this  treacherous  act,  as  given  by  the  Annalist,  are  as  follows : — "  The  earl  of  Clare's 
son  look  Brian  Roe  O'Brian  prisoner  very  deceitfully,  after  they  had  sworn  to  each  other  all  the  oaths  in  Mun- 
ster — as  bells,  relics  of  saints,  and  bachals— to  be  true  to  one  another;  also  after  Ihey  became  sworn  gossips, 
and  for  contirmation  of  this  third  indissoluble  bond  of  perpetual  friendship,  they  drew  part  of  the  blood  of 
one  another,  which  they  put  in  a  vessel  and  mingled  it  together.  After  all  which  protestations,  the  said  Brian 
was  taken,  as  aforesaid,  and  bound  to  a  steed;  and  so  was  tortured  to  death  by  the  said  earl's  son." 


318  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

with  the  loss  of  two  thousand  men,  and  the  king  himself  slain.     It  was  with  re- 

7277*  ^srence  to  this  battle  that  the  lord  justice,  Robert  de  Uffbrd,  when  called  to  account 

by  king  Edward  for  permitting  such  disorders,  replied  shrewdly,  that  "he  thought 

it  not  amiss  to  let  rebels  murder  one  another,  as  it  would  save  the  king's  coffers,  and 

purchase  peace  for  the  land."* 

It  is  clear  that  the  petition  addressed  to  the  king,  by  the  natives,  praying  for  the  pri- 
vileges of  English  law,  had  not  yet  been  even  taken  into  consideration  by  the 
1980  ^^^^"^'  ^^  ^^  ^"^  Edward,  in  the  present  year,  again  calling  upon  the  lords  spiri- 
tual and  temporal,  as  well  as  the  whole  body  of  English  subjects  in  "the  Land  of 
Ireland,"!  to  assemble  and  deliberate  upon  that  prayer.  Intimating  clearly  the  views  he 
himself  entertained  on  the  subject,  and  the  nature  of  the  decision,  which,  if  left  to  his 
own  clear  sense  and  vigorous  will,  he  could  not  have  failed  to  adopt,  he  yet  declares,  that 
without  the  concurrence  of  at  least  the  prelates  and  nobles  of  the  land,  he  should  not 
feel  justified  in  granting  the  desired  boon.  With  evident  allusion,  however,  to  certain 
excuses  alleged  by  the  barons  for  not  sooner  applying  themselves  to  the  subject,  he  en- 
joins strictly,  that  they  shall  by  no  means  omit,  in  consequence  of  the  absence  of  any 
of  their  body,  whether  owing  to  business  or  from  their  being  under  age,  to  meet  at_the 
time,  which  he  had  appointed,  and  to  give  to  the  subject  such  full  and  mature  delibera- 
tion, as  might  serve  to  point  out  to  him  the  line  of  policy  most  expedient  for  him  to  adopt-J 
The  petitioners,  though  styled,  in  vague  language,  "the  community"  of  Ireland,  were, 
in  all  probability,  only  the  inhabitants  of  the  districts  bordering  on  the  English  settle- 
ment, who,  from  contiguity  of  property  and  other  causes,  were  brought  the  most  fre- 
quently into  collision  with  the  king's  subjects,  in  matters  of  law  as  well  as  of  warfare ; 
and  naturally  wished,  by  acquiring  possession  of  the  same  rights  and  privileges  as  were 
enjoyed  by  their  neighbours,  to  share  with  them  the  safeguard  of  English  law,  instead  of 
knowing  it  only  as  an  instrument  of  oppression. 

As  the  crown  in  those  times,  required  to  be  bribed  into  justice,  these  wretched  peti- 
tioners did  not  forget  that  necessary  consideration,  but  offered  to  pay  into  the  king's  trea- 
sury 8000  marks,  on  condition  that  he  would  grant  their  request;  and  the  king,  in  his 
reply  to  the  lord  justice, 5  begins  by  mentioning — what  was,  with  him,  doubtless,  not  the 
least  interesting  part  of  the  transaction — this  tender  of  a  sum  of  money  ;  it  having  been, 
throughout  his  whole  reign,  one  of  the  most  pressing  objects  of  his  policy  to  raise  supplies 
for  the  constant  warfare,  both  foreign  and  internal,  in  which  he  was  engaged.  He  then 
proceeds,  in  this  letter,  to  say  that,  inasmuch  as  the  laws  used  by  the  Irish  were  hateful 
in  the  sight  of  God,  and  so  utterly  at  variance  with  justice  as  not  to  deserve  to  be  regarded 
as  laws,  he  had  considered  the  question  deliberately,  with  the  aid  of  his  council,  and  it 
had  appeared  to  them  sufficiently  expedient  to  grant  to  that  people  the  English  laws  :■— 
provided  always,  that  the  common  consent  of  the  English  settlers,  or  at  least  of  their  well- 
disposed  prelates  and  nobles,  should  lend  sanction  to  such  a  measure.!! 

Thus  laudibly  anxious  was  this  great  prince  to  settle  calmly  the  question,  then  first 
brought  into  discussion,  whether  the  Irish  were  to  be  ruled  by  liie  same  laws,  and  enjoy 
the  same  rights  and  privileges,  as  the  English;  a  question  which,  under  various  forms 
and  phases,  has  remained,  essentially,  down  to  the  present  day,  in  almost  the  same  state 
in  which  Edward  then  found  and  left  it.  Notwithstanding  the  urgent  terms  of  the  royal 
mandate,  no  farther  step  appears  to  have  been  taken  on  this  important  subject,  either  by 
king  or  barons;  and  it  may  be  concluded,  indeed,  from  the  records  of  licensesIF  granted 
in  this  and  subsequent  reigns,  admitting  certain  favoured  individuals  to  the  privileges  of 
English  law,  that  no  such  general  measure  of  denization  as  the  Irish  had  prayed  for,  and 
the  throne  wisely  recommended,  was,  tliroughout  that  whole  period,  conceded. 

Mean  while,  the  entire  country  continued  to  be  convulsed  with  constant  warfare,  not 

only  of  Irish  with  English,  but  of  the  natives  and  settlers  respectively  among  themselves, 

and  the  long-standing  feud  between  the  Geraldincs  and  the  De  Burghs  was,  owing  to  the 

power  of  the  great  families  enlisted  in  it,  prolonged  througli  the  greater  part  of 

128fi    '■'^'^  reign.     But  the  deaths,  in  1286,  of  tiie  two  loading  barons,  Gerald  Fitz-Mau» 

rice  and  the  lord  Thomas  de  Clare,  threw  the  ascendency,  without  farther  dispute, 

*  Cox. 

t  The  district  occupied  by  the  English,  and  known,  al  a  later  poriod,  by  the  name  of  the  Pale,  was  at  this 
lime,  and  for  some  centuries  after  called  "  the  Laud  of  Ireland." 

I  Pat.  Roll,  8  Ed.  I. 

6  This  letter  of  the  king  is  given  in  full  by  I,cland. 

U  In  order  to  turn  this  concession  to  the  most  profitable  account,  for  the  recruitment  of  his  fiscal  and  mili- 
tary means,  he  desired  the  lord  justice  to  agree  with  the  petitioners  for  the  highest  sum  of  money  he  could 
obtain;  and  also  to  stipulate  that  they  should  hold  in  readiness  n  certain  number,  as  might  he  agreed  upon, 
of  good  and  able  foot  soldiem,  to  repair  to  him  whensoever  lie  should  think  fit  to  siimniun  their  aid. 

IT  The  form  of  these  lifenees  may  be  seen  in  Prynne,  258. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  319 

into  the  hands  of  the  De  Burghs;  the  powerful  head  of  which  family,  Richard,  earl  of 
Ulster,  commonly  called  the  Red  Earl,  attained,  during  this  reign,  such  immense  authority, 
that  his  name  is  frequently,  in  the  king's  letters,  found  mentioned  before  that  of  the  lord 
justice.  Presuming  upon  this  great  power,  and  without  any  grounds,  as  it  appears,  but 
his  own  grasping  self-will,  he  laid  claim  to  the  lands  in  Meath  inherited  by  Theobald  de 
Verdon,  in  right  of  Margaret,  his  mother,  daughter  of  Walter  de  Lacy.  With  a  large 
tumultuary  force,  De  Burgh  invaded  this  territory,  and  besieged  De  Verdon  in  one 
of  his  castles;*  but  no  other  result  of  this  daring  aggression  is  mentioned,  than  the  -loaa 
usual  havoc  and  horror  attendant  on  such  inroads. 

It  was  during  the  time  when  John  Sandford,  archbishop  of  Dublin,  held  the  office  of 
chief  governor,  that  the  irruption  just  mentioned  took  place ;  and  the  same  period  is  ren- 
dered, in  another  sense,  memorable,  by  the  statute  entitled  "  An  Ordinance  for  the  State 
of  Ireland,"  which  was  made  in  the  seventeenth  year  of  this  reign,  and  which,  in 
the  now  defunct  controversy  respecting  the  right  of  the  English  parliament  to  bind  -looq" 
Ireland,  forms  part  of  the  evidence  adduced  in  support  of  that  questioned  right.f 

The  reader  has  already  been  prepared,  on  entering  into  this  Anglo-Irish  period,  to  find 
the  people  of  the  land  thrown  darkly  into  the  background  of  their  country's  history,  while 
a  small  colony  of  foreign  intruders  usurp,  insultingly,  their  place.|     So  lamentably  is  this 
the  case,  that  it  is  only  in  the  feuds  and  forays  of  the  English  barons  that  the  historian — 
if  he  may  lay  claim  to  such  a  title — can  find  materials  for  his  barren  and  unhonoured 
task.     A  personal  quarrel  of  this  description,  which  now  occurred,  excited  in  both  coun- 
tries, from  the  peculiar  circumstances  attendant  upon  it,  a  more  than  ordinary  share  of 
attention.     William  de  Vescy,  a  lord  high  in  favour  with  Edward,  having  been  appointed 
lord  justice  of  Ireland  in  the  year  1290,  a  mutual  jealousy  sprung  up  between  him 
and  John  Fitz-Thomas  FitzGerald,  baron  of  Oftaley,^   which  broke  out,  at  last,  -jAqm' 
into  Open  enmity ;  and  each,  accusing  the  other  of  treason  and  rebellion,  hurried 
to  England  to  lay  their  complaints  before  the  king. 

Being  admitted  to  plead  their  cause  before  him,  in  council,  they  there  poured  out  upon 
each  other  speeches  full  of  abuse  and  recrimination,  of  which  a  report,  professing  to  be 
faithful,  is  preserved  by  the  English  chronicler.|I  De  Vescy  having,  by  his  marriage  with 
one  of  the  co-heiresses  of  the  house  of  Pembroke,  become  possessor  of  the  actual  terri- 
tory of  Kildare,  while  Fitz-Thomas  was  but  the  titular  earl  of  that  district,  the  latter 
alluded  thus  to  this  circumstance,  in  one  of  his  speeches  : — "  By  your  honour  and  mine, 
my  lord,  and  by  king  Edward's  hand,  you  would  if  you  durst,  approach  me  in  plain  terms 
of  treason  or  felony.  For,  where  I  have  the  title,  and  you  the  fleece,  of  Kildare,  I  wot 
well  how  great  an  eye-sore  I  am  in  your  sight;  so  that,  if  I  might  be  handsomely  trussed 
up  for  a  felon,  then  might  my  master,  your  son,  become  a  gentleman."  When  their  cause 
was  again  heard,  before  the  king  in  council,  Fitz-Thomas  concluded  his  speech  with  the 
following  defiance  : — "  Wherefore,  to  justify  that  I  am  a  true  subject,  and  that  thou, 
Vescy,  art  an  arch-traitor  to  God  and  my  king,  I  here,  in  the  presence  of  his  highness, 
and  in  the  hearing  of  this  honourable  assembly,  ehallange  the  combat."  Whereat  (says 
the  chronicler)  all  the  auditory  shouted. IT 

De  Vescy  accepted  the  ehallange;  but,  on  the  day  fixed  for  the  combat,  when  all  was 
ready,  the  lists  prepared,  and  a  crowd  assembled  to  witness  the  trial,  it  was  found  that  he 
had  withdrawn  privately  to  France.  This  unchivalrous  step  being  regarded  as  an  avowal 
of  guilt,  the  king  bestowed  on  the  baron  of  Offaley  the  lordships  of  Kildare  andRathangan, 
which  had  hitherto  been  held  by  his  rival,  saying  that,  "though  De  Vescy  had  conveyed 
his  person  to  France,  he  liad  left  his  lands  behind  him  in  Ireland."** 

Elated  with  this  great  success,  the  ambitious  and  turbulent  lord  of  Offaley  indulged, 
unrestrainedly,  on  his  return  to  Ireland,  in  a  course  of  insulting  aggression  upon  all  who 
had,  in  any  manner,  opposed  his  domineering  views;  and  among  the  first  objects  of  his 
hostility  was  Richard  de  Burgh,  earl  of  Ulster,  whom  he  took  prisoner,  together  with  his 
brother  in  Meath,  and  confined  them  both  in  the  strong  castle  of  Ley.|  He  then 
transferred  the  scene  of  his  activity  to  Kildare,  where  the  Irish,  rising  in  immense  -,Aq/ 
force,  under  Calwagh,  brother  of  the  king  of  Offaley,  had  seized  on  the  castle  of         ' 

*  Marleburrough. — Davies. 

t  See  this  work,  chap,  x.xxii.  p.  296.  et  seq.  |  Ibid. 

§  This  lord,  who  sat  as  baron  of  Otfaley,  in  the  parliament  of  1295,  is,  in  the  pedigree  of  the  earls  of  Kil, 
dare,  made  the  s(!venth  lord  Offaley. — See  Lodge.  He  had  issue  two  sons,  says  the  same  authority; — John, 
Iho  eighth  lord  of  Offaley,  created  earl  of  Kildare;  and  Maurice,  created  earl  of  Desmond.  A  report  on  Ireland, 
in  the  Slate  Papers  (K.  Henry  VIII.,)  in  speaking  of  William  de  Vescy,  styles  him  '•  one  Vescy,  which  was 
lord  of  Kildar  befor  ther  was  aney  erle  of  Kildar."— Vol.  ii. 

II  Holinshed. 

1\  See  Rymer,  torn,  ii.;  "  De  adjornatione  duelli  inter  Willielmuni  de  Vescy  et  Johannem  filium  ThomsB." 

**  Cox.  ft  Annal.  Hibern.  ap.  Camden. 


320  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Kildare,  and  burnt  all  the  rolls  and  tallies  relating  to  the  county  records  and  accounts. 
Between  its  Enjjiisli  and  Irish  depredators,  that  district  was  entirely  laid  waste,  and  death 
and  desolation  tbIJowed  wherever  they  went. 

At  leng-th  an  attempt  was  made,  during  the  government  of  sir  John  Wogan,  to  mode- 
rate the  dissensions  of  these  lawless  barons;  and  a  truce  for  two  years  having  been  agreed 
upon  between  the  Giraldines  and  the  De  Burghs,  the  lord  justice  was  enabled,  by  this 
short  respite  from  strife,  to  consider  of  some  means  of  remedying  the  unquiet  and 

TOQ^'  disorganized  state  of  the  kingdom.  A  general  parliament  was  accordingly  as- 
sembled  by  him,  which,  though  insignificant  in  point  of  numbers,  passed  some 
measures  of  no  ordinary  importance  and  use.*  It  was  during  this  reign,  as  the  reader 
will  recollect,  that  the  parliament  of  England,  after  a  long  series  of  progressive  experi- 
ments, was  moulded  into  its  present  shape;  nor  did  a  house  of  commons,  before  this  period, 
form  a  regular  and  essential  part  of  the  English  legislature.!  In  Ireland,  where,  from 
obvious  causes,  the  materials  of  a  third  estate  were  not  easily  to  be  found,  the  growth  of 
such  an  institution  would  be,  of  course,  proportionably  slow  ;  and  the  assemblies  held 
there  during  this  reign,  and  for  some  time  after,  though  usually  dignified  with  the 
name  of  parliament,  differed  but  little,  it  is  clear,  in  their  constitution,  from  those  ancient 
common  councils,  at  which  only  the  nobles  and  ecclesiastics,  together  with,  occasionally, 
a  few  tenants  in  capite,  and,  perhaps,  the  retainers  of  some  of  the  great  lords,  were  ex- 
pected to  give  their  attendance. 

Among  the  acts  passed  by  this  parliament,  there  is  one  ordaining  a  new  division  of  the 
kingdom  into  counties;  the  division  established  under  king  John,  as  well  as  the  distribu- 
tion then  made  of  sheriffs,  having  been  found  defective  and  inconvenient.^  Another  ob- 
ject that  engaged  their  attention  was  the  defenceless  state  of  the  English  territory,  and 
the  harassing  incursions  of  the  natives  dwelling  upon  its  borders  ;  and,  as  this  scourge 
was  owing  chiefly  to  the  absence  of  the  lords  marchers,  it  was  now  enacted  that  all  such 
marchers  as  neglected  to  maintain  their  necessary  wards  should  forfeit  their  lands. 
Among  other  measures  for  the  maintenance  of  a  military  force,  it  was  ordained  that  all  ab- 
sentees should  assign,  out  of  their  Irish  revenues,  a  competent  portion  for  that  purpose  : — 
a  proof  how  early  the  anomalies  involved  in  the  forced  connexion  between  the  two  coun- 
tries began  to  unfold  their  disturbing  effects.  To  check  the  private  expeditions,  or  forays, 
of  the  barons,  a  provision  was  made  that,  for  tiie  future,  no  lord  should  wage  war  but  by 
license  of  the  chief  governor,  or  by  special  mandate  of  the  king.  With  a  like  view  to 
curbing  the  power  of  the  great  lords,  an  effort  was  made  at  this  time  to  limit  the  number 
of  their  retainers,  by  forbidding  every  person,  of  whatever  degree,  to  harbour  more  of 
such  followers  than  he  could  himself  maintain  ;  and  for  all  exactions  and  violences  com- 
mitted by  these  idle-men,  or  kerns  (as  they  were  styled,)  their  lords  were  to  be  made 
answerable.5 

To  this  parliament  is  likewise  attributed  an  ordinance, — belonging,  really  however,  to  a 
somewhat  later  period, — which,  in  reference  to  the  tendency  already  manifested  by  the 
English  to  conform  to  the  customs  and  manners  of  the  natives,  ordains  that  all  English- 
men should  still,  in  their  garb  and  the  cut  of  their  hair,  adhere  to  the  fashion  of  their 
own  country;  that  whoever,  in  the  mode  of  wearing  their  hair,  affected  to  appear  like  Irish- 
men, would  be  treated  as  such  ;  that  their  lands  and  chattels  would  be  seized,  and  them- 
selves imprisoned. 

During  the  two  or  three  following  years,  supplies  of  troops  were  sent  from  Ire- 

^2Qr'  ^^"'^'  ^^  'Jifferent  intervals,  to  the  aid  of  the  king  in  his  Scottish  wars;||  the  sort  of 
warfare  the  Irish  were  accustomed  to  among  their  own  lakes  and  mountains,  ren- 
dering tliem  a  force  peculiarly  suited  to  the  present  state  of  the  war  in  Scotland,  where 
the  northern  and  moimtainous  parts  of  the  country  alone  remained  to  be  subdued. 

12Qq'  ^"  '•'^'^  spring  of  the  present  year,  John   Wogan,  the  lord  justice,  having  been 
*  summoned  to  join  the  king.lF  in  Scotland,  repaired  thither  with  a  select  force,  and 

*  Black  Book  of  Christ  Church,  Dublin.— See  Ledwich  (Hist,  and  AnliquMcs  of  Irislttown  and  Kilkenny,) 
who  confounds  this  parliament  with  one  held  in  J309. 

t  Speakincof  the  ordainers  in  the  following  reign,  Lingard  says,  "  From  the  tenor  of  the  ordinances,  it  is 
plain  that  the  authority  of  the  parliament  was  hitherto  supposed  to  reside  in  the  baronage,  the  great  council 
of  former  reigns,    Thi!  commons  had  nothing  to  do  but  10  present  petitions  and  to  grant  money." 

I  For  the  dilTorent  divisions  of  the  kingdom  into  counties  by  John  and  Edward  I.,  see  Ware,  Atiliq.  c.  5. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  improved  distribution  made  by  JSdward  I.,  it  is  clear  that  the  ancient  form, 
which  allotted  one  sheriff  to  Connaught,  and  another  to  Roscommon,  was  still  in  use  in  the  time  of  Edward 
II.  Thus  we  find  in  rolls  of  that  reign,  Gerald  Tirrel,  "  vice-comes  de  Roscommon,"  and  Henry  Bermingham, 
"  nuper  vice-comes  Connacia;."— See  Serjeant  Mayart's  Answer  to  Sir  R.  Bolton,  Hibcrnica,  35. 

§  Black  Book  of  Christ  Church,  Dublin. 

II  The  contributions  of  Irelaiul  towards  this  object  had  commenced  some  time  before,  and  a  tenth  of  the 
revenues  of  the  clergy  had  been  granted  for  it.— Ryiner,  tom.  ii.  519,  torn.  iii.  44'.J. 

IT  "The  king  sent  unto  John  Wogan,  lord  justice,  commanding  him  to  give  summons  unto  the  nobles  of 
Ireland,  to  prepare  tliemselves  with  horse  and  armour,  to  come  in  their  best  array  for  the  war,  to  serve 
against  the  Scots." — Jlolinsked. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  321 

joining  in  the  pageant  of  that  invasion,  was,  together  with  his  followers,  royally  feasted 
by  the  triumphant  monarch,  at  Roxburgh  castle.*  During  this  expedition  of  the  lord 
justice,  William  dc  Ross,  prior  of  Kilmainham,  vvas  left  to  act  as  his  deputy;  and  the 
natives,  availing  themselves  of  the  absence  of  so  many  of  the  choicest  of  the  English 
nobles  and  soldiers,  broke  out  into  rebellion  in  several  places.  The  people  of  the 
Maraghie  mountains  burnt  Leighlin  and  other  towns;  but  in  Orgiel,t  where  O'Hanlon 
and  Mac  Mahon  endeavoured  to  rouse  the  spirit  of  their  countrymen,  they  were  both  of 
them  vanquished  and  slain. 

On  the  return  of  Wogan  from  Scotland,  a  few  years  of  unwpnted  tranquillity  ^ 
ensued  ;  owing  chiefly,  as  it  appears,  to  the  skill  and  firmness  with  which  this  joqo' 
functionary,  who  was  evidently  a  favourite  with  king  Edward,  succeeded  in  keep- 
ing down  the  old  family  feud  between  the  De  Burghs  and  the  Geraldines : — so  much  has 
the  tranquillity  of  Ireland,  at  all  periods,  depended  on  the  example  and  judicious  conduct 
of  her  chief  nobles  and  rulers. 

During  the  remaining  nine  years  of  this  reign,  the  Irish  records  supply  us  with  few 
occurrences  worthy  of  any  notice.     On  the  renewed  revolt  of  the  Scots,  under 
the  regent,  John  Cummin,  the  earl  of  Ulster,  with  a  large  force,  and  accompanied  jg^g 
by  Eustace  de  Poer,  went  to  the  king's  aid  in  Scotland, — the  earl  having  created 
thirty-three  knights,  in  the  castle  of  Dublin,  before  his  departure.};     Among  these  sum- 
moned  to  attend  the  king,  was  Edmund  le  Bot.iller,  afterwards  earl  of  Carrick,  who 
hastened  to  Dublin  to  embark  with  his  foUov/ers  for  that  purpose.     But  some  disturbances 
having  just  then  occurred,  it  was  not  thought  advisible  that  he  should  leave  the  kingdom; 
and  Edward,  ofTended  at  his  absence,  refused  to  grant  him  livery  of  some   lands  that  had 
lately  fallen  to  him.     On  being  made  acquainted,  however,  with  the  truth  of  the  matter, 
the  king  ordered  the  livery  to  be  granted,  i} 

Though  war,  and  its  attendant  horrors,  must  form,  in  all  cases,  too  large  a  portion  of 
the  historian's  theme,  the  enumeration  of  a  list  of  mere  private  murders  is  a  task  to 
which  rarely  his  pen  is  called  upon  to  descend.  When  the  victims,  however,  are  of  high 
rank  and  station,  and  when — as,  unfortunately,  was  the  case  in  more  countries  than  Ire- 
land, at  this  period — murders  are  held  to  be  little  else  than  a  sort  of  private  warfare,  the 
duty  of  noticing  them,  however  revolting,  cannot  honestly  be  avoided.  I  shall  therefore 
recount,  and  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  brief  lana'uage  employed  by  the  chronicler,  some 
barbarous  events  of  this  kind  which  occurred  in  the  last  years  of  Edward's  reign ;  and  it 
will  be  seen  that  both  English  and  Irish  were  alike  implicated  in  the  savage  actions  re- 
corded. 

In  the  year  1305,  Murtogh  O'Connor,  king  of  Offaley,  and  his  brother  Calwagh,  were 
murdered  in  Pierce  Bermingham's  house,  at  Carbery,  in  the  county  of  Kildare;||  and  in 
the  same  year,  sir  Gilbert  Sutton,  seneschal  of  Wexford,  was  put  to  death  in  the  ^   ^ 
house  of  Hamon  le  Gras  ;  the  host  himself,  who  was  of  the  ancient  family  of  Grace  J3Q5' 
having  narrowly  escaped  the  same  fate.lT     In  the  following  year,  O'Brian,  prince 
of  Thomond,  was  also  murdered;  and  Donald  Ruadh,  the  king  of  Desmond,  met  with  the 
same  violent  end,  at  the  hands  of  his  son,  Daniel  Oge  M'Carthy.     About  the  same  time, 
on  a  wider  scale  of  murder,  the  sept  of  the  O'Dempsys  made  great  slaughter  of  ^    ^ 
the  O'Connors,  near  Geashill,  in  Oftaley  ;  and  O'Dempsy,  the  chief  of  the  O'Re-  j^q^^ 
gans,  was,  on  the  same  occasion,  slain.     Shortly  after.  Pierce  Bermingham  suf- 
fered a  defeat  in  the  marches  of  Meath,  and  the  town  of  Ballymore  was  burnt  by  the 
Irish.     On  this,  the  war  spread  rapidly  throughout  that  whole  district,  and  the  English 
were  summoned  out  of  the  other  provinces  to  the  relief  of  Leinster,  where,  in  a  hard- 
fought  battle,  at  Glenfell,  sir  Thomas  Madeville,  the  English  leader,  had  his  horse  killed 
under  him,  and  his  troops  thrown  into  confusion  ;  but  at  length  succeeded,  by  skilful  cap- 
tainship, in  retrieving  the  fortunes  of  the  day.** 

Among  the  events  of  the  last  year  of  this  reign,  we  find  recordpd  the  murder  ^    ^ 
of  an  Irishman,  Murtogh  Balloch,  by  an  English   knight,  sir  David   Canton,  or  j^q^' 
Condon  ;  and  the  circumstances  attending  the  act  must  have  been  of  no  ordinary 
atrocity,  as,  by  a  rare  itistance  of  justice,  in  such  cases,  the  English  knight  was  hanged, 
in  Dublin,  for  this  murder,  in  the  second  year  of  the  following  reign.     A  rising  of  the 

*  Holinshed.— At  Roxborough,  says  Dr.  Lingard,  the  king  "found  himself  at  the  head  of  8000  horse  and 
80,000  foot,  principally  Irish  and  Welsh. 

t  A  territory  comprehending  the  present  Loiilh.  Monaghan,  and  Armagh. 

X  .^nnal.  Hibern. 

§  Carte's  Life  of  Ormond,  Introduct.  See  evidences  of  the  Earl  of  Ormond's  Lands,  taken  out  of  an  old 
Ledger,  b.  31.  Ed.  I.  Lambeth,  608.  fol.  9. 

II  Holinshed.  ^^  ,^, , 

TT  Annal.  Hibern.  **  I"""' 

40 


322  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

O'Kellys,  in  Connaught,  where  they  surprised  and  slew  a  number  of  English,  and  some 
daring  efforts  of  the  wild  mountaineers  of  Offaley,  who  destroyed  the  castle  of  Geashill, 
and  burnt  the  town  of  Ley,  are  among  tlie  last  of  the  miserable  records  contributed  by 
Ireland  to  the  history  of  a  reign,  whose  whole  course,  as  traced  tlirough  England's  proud 
annals,  present  such  a  series  of  shining  achievements,  both  in  legislation  and  warfare,  as 
no  period,  perhaps,  of  the  same  duration,  in  the  liistory  of  any  other  country,  ever  yet 
equalled. 

It  was  in  the  seventh  year  of  this  reign,  under  the  administration  of  sir  Stephen  de 
Fulburn,  that  a  new  kind  of  coin  was  struck  by  order  of  the  king, — who,  having,  highly 
to  his  honour,  fixed  a  certain  rule  or  standard  for  money,  in  England,  applied  the  same 
rule  to  the  regulation  of  the  mints  in  Ireland,  both  in  the  weight  and  fineness.  He  also 
descried,  a  few  years  after,  by  proclamation,  the  base  money  called  crockards  and  pol- 
lards.* 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 


EDWARD  II. 


The  new  king,  on  Iiis  accession,  recalls  Gaveston  from  banishment — sends  him  to  Ireland  as 
lord-lieutenant. — Rivalry  between  Gaveston  and  the  carl  of  Ulster — his  government  active 
and  beneficial. — Strong-  interest  felt  by  the  Irish  in  the  fortunes  of  Robert  Bruce. — 
Bruce  takes  refuge  in  the  Isle  of  Raclilin — his  expedition  from  thence  attended  by  two 
Irish  princes. — Effects  of  the  victory  of  Bannockburn  on  the  minds  of  tlie  Irisii. — Deputies 
sent  by  tliem  to  invite  Bruce  to  Ireland. — Landing  of  Edward  Bruce  at  Lame. — Consterna- 
tion of  the  English  authorities. — Cause  of  the  English  espoused  by  Feidlim,  prince  of  Con- 
naught. — The  earl  of  Ulster  defeated  by  the  Scots, — Great  battle  between  the  O'Connors. — 
Feidlim  O'Connor  joins  thti  Scots, — Successful  progress  of  the  invaders. — The  English 
defeated  in  Meath  and  in  Kildare. — General  rebellion  ol  the  Irisii. — Great  battle  at  Athenry. — 
Feidlim's  army  defeated  and  himself  killed. — Landing  of  Robert  Bruce  in  Ireland. — The 
earl  of  Ulster  suspected  of  concert  with  the  Scots — is  thrown  into  prison. — Intrepid  conduct 
of  the  citizens  of  Dublin. — Robert  Bruce  at  the  Sahnon-leap. — Dreadful  famine,  and  severe 
sufferings  of  the  Scots. — Inaction  and  indecision  of  the  English  leaders. — Retreat  of  the 
Scots  into  Ulster. — Departure  of  Robert  Bruce. — Earl  of  Ulster  liberated. — Ordinance  for 
annual  parliaments. — Mutual  hostility  of  tlie  English  and  Irish  churches. — Great  battle 
between  Edward  Bruce  and  the  English  near  Dundalk. — The  Scots  defiiatod,  and  Bruce 
himself  slain. — Remonstrance  addressed  to  the  pope  by  O'Neill  and  his  brother  chieftains. — 
Suppression  of  the  knights  Templars  in  Ireland. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  Edward  11.,  on  his  accession,  was  to  recall  his  favourite, 
^ony   Gaveston,  from  banishment;  a  step  which  his  father,  on  his  death-bed,  had  solemnly 

forbidden  under  pain  of  his  malediction.  Shortly  after,  too,  when  Edward  passed 
over  into  France,  for  the  purpose  of  espousing  the  beautiful  Isabella,  daughter  of  Philip 
the  Fair,  he  appointed  Gaveston  to  be  regent  of  the  kingdom  durinsr  his  absence,  with 
powers  that  usually,  on  such  occasions,  were  reserved  by  the  sovereign  to  himseU'.f  In 
like  manner,  the  high  distuiction  of  carrying  the  crown  at  the  coronation,  and  vv'alking 
immediately  before  the   king,  had,  with  insulting  neglect  of  the  claims  of  the  ancient 

nobility,  been  allotted  to  thi.s  foreign  minion.  The  anger  of  the  barons,  at 
ISO?'  ^''*^^^  proceedings,  soon  found  a  vent  in  the  voice  of  parliament,  which,  demanding 

the  immediate  expulsion  of  Gaveston  from  the  country,  compelled  the  favourite 
himself  to  swear  he  would  never  return,  and  bound  the  bishops  to  excommunicate  him 
should  ho  violate  his  oath. 

Though  thus  deprived  of  his  favourite's  society,  the  king  was  determined  still  to  uphold 
and  advance  his  fortunes;  and,  havmg  bestowed  upon  him  new  grants  of  land,  both  in 

*  Ware,  Antiquities,  chap.  32.  "  To  this  coinage  I  am  inclined  to  refer  a  very  curious  penny  found  at 
Youghal  in  1830,  together  with  a  large  hoard  of  English  aiul  Irish  coins  of  Edward  1.,  and  now  i»  the  cabinet 
(if  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's.  It  exactly  resembles  the  penny  of  this  reign,  but  is  of  ruder  work,  and  bears 
the  king's  head  without  the  triangle."— Lindsey,  Ficw  of  the  Coinage  of  Ireland. 

t  Lingard. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  323 

England  and  Gascony,  he  accompanied  him  on  his  supposed  exile  as  far  as  Bristol. 
From  that  port  Gaveston  sailed;  but,  to  the  surprise  and  mortification  of  all  who  toqq' 
had  expected  to  see  him  humbled,  it  was  now  discovered  that  Ireland  was  the 
chosen  place  of  his  banishment;*  that  he  had  been  sent  thither  as  the  king's  lieutenant,f 
and  went  loaded  with  the  royal  jewels. 

During  the  short  period  of  his  administration,  there  was  no  want  of,  at  least,  activity 
in  the  new  viceroy,  whom  our  records  represent  as  being  almost  constantly  in  the  field, 
engaging  and  subduing  the  refractory  chiefs,  and  enforcing  obedience  to  the  English 
power.J  But  like  most  governors  of  that  country,  both  before  his  time  and  since,  he 
applied  himself  solely  to  the  task  of  suppressing  rebellion,  forgetting  the  higher  duty  of 
investigating  and  endeavouring  to  remove  its  causes. 

In  so  confined  a  sphere  as  formed  the  compass  of  English  dominion  at  this  time  in  Ire- 
land, it  would  have  been  difficult  for  two  such  potent  lords  as  the  king's  favourite,  and 
the  Red  Earl,  to  move  in  their  respective  orbits  of  rule,  without  coming  hostilely  into  col- 
lision. It  was,  of  course,  with  no  ordinary  feelings  of  jealousy,  that  the  haughty  De 
Burgh,  whose  name  took  precedence  of  that  of  the  representative  of  majpsty,  saw  an 
upstart  thus  put  in  possession  of  the  royal  resources  of  the  realm;  while  to  Gaveston,  it 
could  have  been  no  less  galling  and  mortifying,  to  find  himself  confronted  by  the  princely 
state  and  feudal  authority  of  the  proud  earl.  Shortly  after  the  lieutenant's  arrival,  a 
grand  feast  was  given  by  De  Burgh,  in  the  lordly  cattle  of  Trim,  where,  in  the  course  of 
the  pomps  and  festivities  of  the  day,  he  conferred  upon  two  of  the  noble  family  of  De 
Lacy  the  honour  of  knighthood. J 

Among  the  benefits  resulting  from  Gaveston's  government  is  mentioned,  particularly, 
the  attention  paid  by  him  to  public  works ;  several  ciistles,  bridges,  and  causeways  having 
been  constructed,  we  are  told,  during  his  administration.     But,  however  beneficial 
his  continuance  in  that  post  might  have   proved  to  the  country, — depravity  of  ji.nq 
morals  being,  in  him,  not  incompatible  with  shining  and  useful  talents, — the  in- 
fatuated monarch   could  no  longer  endure  his  favourite's  absence,  and  he  was  immedi- 
ately recalled  to  England  ;  the  pope  absolving  him  from  his  late  vow,  and  the  barons,  in 
consequence  of  the  king's  promises  of  amendment,  giving  their  consent  to  his  return. 

The  successor  of  Gaveston,  at  the  head  of  the  government,  was  sir  John  Wogan,  a 
gentleman  high  in  the  royal  favour,  who  had  already  three  times  filled  the  office  of  lord 
justice.  Soon  after  his  arrival,  a  parliament  was  held  at  Kilkenny,  of  which  the  enact- 
ments are  still  preserved ;||  and  among  them  are  some  directed  against  the  gross  exac- 
tions and  general  misconduct  of  the  nobility. 

Still  farther  to  embroil  and  complicate  those  scenes  of  strife  of  which  Ireland  was  now 
the  theatre,  each  of  the  two  contending  parties  became  divided  into  fierce  factions  within 
itself;  and  the  brief  pauses  between  their  conflicts  with  each  other  were  filled  up  with 
equally  rancorous  strife  among  themselves.     In  this  year,  Richard,  earl  of  Ulster,  leading 
a  ihrce  into  Thomond,  attacked  the  castle  built  at  Bunratty  by  the  earl  Thomas  de 
Clare  ;ir  but,  being  encountered  by  the  lord  Richard  de  Clare,  sustained  a  signal  loin' 
defeat;  himself  and  his  brother,  lord  William,  were  made  prisoners,  and  John  de 
Lacy  and  several  others  of  his  followers  slain.     In  the  mean  while,  the  native  septs  were 
no  less  active  in  civil  dissension  than  their  foreign  masters;  but,  to  their  shame,  the 
weapon  of  the  assassin  was  often  substituted  by  them  for  the  sword  of  civilized  warfare. 
In  this  base  spirit,  Donogh  O'Brian,  a  descendant  of  their  ancient  princes,  was  murdered 
in  Thomond  by  some  of  his  own  people;  and  John  Mac  O'Hedan  fell  in  like  manner,  by 
the  hand  of  a  brother  chieftain,  Manmoy.** 

To  the  English,  a  feud  that  now  sprung  up  among  themselves,  was  nearly  productive 
of  serious  mis'chief.  The  Byrnes  and  O'Tools,  the  hardy  septs  of  the  mountains  of  Wick- 
low,  having  risen,  this  year,  in  great  force,  had  attacked  the  towns  of  Tassagardft  and 
Rathcoole,  and,  advancing  to  the  woods  of  Glendalory,  from  thence  menaced  Dublin. If 
Instead  of  being  able  to  repress  and  punish  this  audacious  movement,  the  lord  justice,  sir 

*  Walsingliam. 

t  The  king's  locum-tcnens,  as  he  is  styled  in  the  instrument  of  his  appointment.— Rymer,  torn.  iii.  92. 

X  Annnl.  Hibern. 

§  Aniiiil.  Hibein.  "  Heretofore  every  pprson  (lubbefl  a  knight  had  a  power  to  dub  others Thus  we 

read  in  Clyn's  Annals,  that,  ann.  1:^41,  the  earl  of  Desmond  made  Richard  Archdekino  a  knight  in  Det^mond, 
and  on  the  same  day  the  new  knight  made  three  others  knights."— Ware,  Antiq.  of  Ireland,  chap.  20.  It 
appears  from  Selden  that  the  same  practice  prevailed  in  other  parts  of  Europe  in  this  a^e.— Titles  of 
Honour. 

II  Bolton's  Irish  Statutes. 

ir  This  lord,  whose  achievements  in  Thomond  have  already  bepn  mentioned,  was  slain  in  a  battle  fought  by 
him  with  one  of  the  O'Brians,  in  the  year  Xl^l.— Annals  of  Inisfallen. 

**  Annal.  Hibern.  tt  Now  caHed  Taggard.  11  Cox. 


324  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

John  Wogan,  found  himself  compelled  to  march  into  Orgiel,  with  whatever  troops  he 

could  hastily  collect,  for  the  purpose  of  repressing  a  revolt  headed  by  sir  Robert 
tsi^  Verdon;  and  so  powerful  was  the  aid  given  to  this  outbreak  by  other  English  mal- 
■  contents,  that,  in  the  engagement  which  ensued,  the  force  of  the  lord  justice  was 
defeated,  and  sir  Nicholas  Avenell,  Patrick  de  Roche,  and  others  of  his  officers  were 
slain.*  Such  was  the  difficult  and  responsible  task,  between  the  Irish  enemy  on  one  side 
and  the  factious  English  on  the  other,  which  the  harassed  and  sleepless  government  of 
that  kingdom  was  called  upon  constantly  to  perform. 

A  few  years  before  the  period  we  have  now  entered  upon,  negotiations  had  taken 
place  between  Edward  and  the  Scottish  king,  in  which  De  Burgh,  earl  of  Ulster,  was 
one  of  the  commissioners  on  the  part  of  England.  A  truce  then  made  between  the 
two  parties,  was,  sliorlly  after,  through  the  impatience  of  both,  violated  ;  and  a  war, 

memorable  for  ever  in  the  annals  of  victorious  Scotland,  was  the  immediate 
ISOq'  ^^^"'^'     Aroused  from  the  torpor  that  had  hitherto  hung  over  him,  the  English 

monarch  collected  forces  from  all  quarters,  as  well  mercenaries  as  vassals;  or- 
dered levies  of  infantry  to  be  made  in  the  marches  of  Wales  and  the  nothern  countries 
of  England;  and,  alfo,  by  a  mandate  addressed  to  the  principal  Irish  chieftains,  invited 
their  prompt  and  strenuous  aid.f  But  to  this  call  on  the  heirs  of  Ireland's  ancient  kings, 
no  voice  of  loyal  obedience  seems  to  have  responded.  Even  the  slight  feudal  link,  by 
which  king  John  had  attached  those  dynasts  to  the  English  crown,  was  now  evidently 
broken  asunder;  and  it  is  clear,  from  the  terms  of  the  writ  of  military  service,  that  not 
one  of  the  chiefs  summoned  had  ever  sworn  fealty  to  ?2dward. 

The  nature  of  the  policy,  indeed,  pursued  by  every  successive  chief  governor, — or  rather 
by  those  rulers  of  both  government  and  people,  the  proud  and  rapacious  Anglo-Irish  lords, — 
had  been  such  as  to  make  of  the  nation  they  ruled  over,  not  subjects,  but  bitter  and  con- 
firmed foes.  Aware  that  the  restraints  of  legal  forms  would  stand  in  the  way  of  their  own 
unprincipled  projects,  they  refused  to  the  natives  all  that  was  protective  in  the  law,  while 
employing  against  tlicm  all  its  worst  contrivances  of  mischief  To  what  an  extent,  at  this 
time,  had  been  carried  the  wanton  exactions  of  the  great  English  lords,  may  be  gathered 

from  a  tardy  but  significant  notice  of  their  rapacity  which  occurs  in  the  proceed- 
IMOO*  '"§^  °^'  ^  parliament  held  at  the  beginning  of  this  reign ;  and,  it  needs  only  to  be 

mentioned  as  a  sample  of  the  spirit  in  which  these  legislators  dealt  with  the  "Irish 
enemy," — for  so  they  called,  and  took  pains  to  make,  the  great  bulk  of  the  population, — 
that  the  murder  of  an  Irishman  was  not  held  to  be  a  crime  punishable  by  law;]:  and  that 
even  the  violator  of  female  chastity,  if  his  victim  was  proved  to  be  an  Irishwoman,  in- 
curred no  legal  punishment.^ 

That  a  nation  thus  treated  should  writhe  impatiently  under  the  yoke,  and  greet  with 
eagerness  the  faintest  prospect  of  deliverance,  was  but  in  the  natural  course  of  manly 
and  patriotic  feeling;  and  the  noble  stand  made  by  the  Scots  for  their  national  indepen- 
dence had  shot  a  feeling  of  hope  and  sympathy  through  every  Irish  heart.  Besides  those 
motives,  arising  far  less  from  views^of  policy  than  from  natural  and  deep-seated  revenge, 
which  would  have  interested  them  in  the  success  of  any  nation  armed  against  the  En- 
glish, there  vvas  also,  to  enlist  their  good  wishes  peculiarly  in  the  cause  of  the  Scots,  the 
sympatliy  of  a  kindred  people,  a  common  lineage  and  language,  and  the  similarity,  still 
preserved,  of  their  old  national  institutions.  In  the  fortunes  of  Bruce  a  lively  interest 
appears  to  have  been  taken  by  the  Irish,  at  a  time  when  his  great  and  glorious  work  was 
as  yet  out  in  its  first  .stages  of  accomplishment.  In  the  year  1306,  when  forced  to  fly, 
soon  after  his  coronation,  it  vvas  in  a  small  island,  called  Rachlin,  a  tew  miles  off  the 
north  coast  of  Antrim,  tliat  he  found  a  safe  place  of  refuge,  and  remained  concealed  during 
the  winter. 

On  his  first  arrival  there,  the  simple  islanders,  unaccustomed  to  the  sight  of  armed 
men,  fled  to  their  places  of  defence,  with  their  families  and  cattle;  but,  being  treated  by 
Bruce  with  kindness,  they  .'■ubmitted  to  him  as  their  lord,  and  agreed  to  furnish  him  daily 
with  food  for  300  men.     Here  he  remained  till  the  approach  of  spring,  when,  having 

*  Annal.  Hibern. 

t  Ryiner,  c.  iii.  p.  180.    Tim  names  of  lliirty-tive  Trisli  cliiefs  are  annexed  to  this  summons. 

j:  In  proof  of  tSiis  exclusion  of  the  mere;  Irish  from  the  protection  of  the  law,  we  need  only  refer  to  the  re- 
cord cited  by  Davies  (4  Ed.  \l..)  wliere  the  murderer  avows  his  commission  of  the  act,  but  pleads  that  his  vic- 
tim was  an  Irishman.  "  none  Coanovit  quod  prjedictum  Johanuem  interfecit;  dicit  tamen  quod  per  ejus 
interfectioneuj  feloniam  conimittpre  non  notuit,  quia  dicit  quod  pira;dictus  Johannes  fuit  purus  Hiber- 
nicus" 

§  This  enormity  belongs  properly  to  the  preceding  reign.  See  the  case  referred  to  by  Lynch  (Chief  Remeni. 
Roll.  Dub.  fl  &  7  Kd  I.,)  wherein  ilohert  de  la  Koch  and  Adam  le  Waleys  were  indicted  for  an  offence;  of  this 
description  against  Margrry  O'Rorke;  hut  it  being  found  that  "  the  aforesaid  Margery  was  an  Irishwoman" 
(quod  prsdicta  Margeria  est  Ilibcrnica,)  the  aggressors  Uobeit  and  Adam,  were  acquitted. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  325 

received  some  aid  from  friends  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  he  set  sail,  with  a  fleet  of  thirty- 
three  galleys  and  about  300  men,  and  pr6ceeded  on  that  course  of  chivalrous  conquest 
which  led  to  the  establishment  of  his  country's  independence  and  his  own  deathless  re- 
nown. Besides  the  small  force  he  had  brought  with  liirn,  his  brothers,  Thomas  and  Alex- 
ander had  collected  for  him,  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  a  body  of  700  men,  with  which 
they  passed  over  to  Loch  Ryan  in  Galloway.*  Being  attacked,  however,  in  endeavouring 
to  land,  by  Duncan  M'Dowal,  a  powerful  chieftain  of  that  country,  the  greater  number 
of  them  were  put  to  the  sword,  or  lost  in  the  sea ;  and  among  the  slain  were  found,  with 
their  heads  cut  off,  the  bodies  of  two  Irish  princes.f 

The  strong  interest  then  felt  in  the  fortunes  of  the  heroic  Bruce  became  elevated,  of 
course,  into  enthusiasm  when  full  success  crowned  his  generous  struggle;  and 
the  glorious  victory  of  Bannockburn,  in  ridding  Scotland  of  the  English  yoke,  opened  .  oi  V 
a  vista,  also,  of  hope  to  the  future  fortunes  of  oppressed  Ireland.     There  appeared, 
at  last,  a  dawning  chance  of  her  deliverance  from  bondage.     The  proud  race  who  had 
trodden  down  her  princes  and  nobles,  were  now,  themselves,  not  only  humiliated,  but  un- 
manned, insomuch  that,  as  an  historian  of  the  following  age  expresses  it,  "a  hundred 
Englishmen  would  take  flight  at  the  sight  of  two  or  three  Scots."J 

While  actively  following  up  his  victory,  Bruce  was  waited  upon  by  deputies  from  the 
Irish,  placing  themselves,  and  all  that  belonged  to  them,  entirely  at  iiis  disposal,  and  pray- 
ing that,  if  he,  himself,  could  not  be  spared  from  his  royal  duties,  he  would  send  them 
his  brother  Edward  to  be  their  king;  nor  suffer,  as  they  said,  a  kindred  nation  to  pine  in 
bondage  beneath  the  proud  and  inexorable  tyranny  of  the  English.  Besides  the  acces- 
sion of  power  and  territory  which  the  possession  of  so  fine  a  country  would  aflx)rd  him, 
Bruce  saw  in  the  proposed  enterprise  a  ready  vent  for  the  restless  ambition  of  his  brother, 
who  had  become  impatient  of  inferiority,  even  to  the  Bruce  himself,  and  already  laid 
claim  to  an  equal  share  with  him  in  the  government  of  the  Scottish  realm. ^  Robert  ap- 
pears, however,  to  have  fully  appreciated  the  danger  and  difficulty  of  the  undertaking, 
as  some  time  elapsed  before  he  adopted  any  serious  steps  towards  its  accomplishment; 
and  a  few  attempts  by  his  people,  in  boats,  on  the  coast  of  Ulster,  had  all  been  vigorously 
repulsed. 

In  the  mean  while,  sir  Theobald  de  Vernon  was  appointed  lord  justice  of  Ireland;  and 
the  aspect  of  affairs  being  such  as  to  call  for  more  than  ordinary  consideration,  John  de 
Hothum,  a  clergyman  high  in  Edward's  confldence,  was  sent  over  to  treat  and  consult 
with  the  earl  of  Ulster,  and  other  great  lords  and  officers,  on  matters  relating  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  king  and  his  realm  of  Ireland. ||  De  Hothum  was  the  bearer,  also,  of  writs, 
or  letters  of  credence,  to  the  different  noblemen  specified,  ordering  them  to  appoint  a  fit 
and  competent  deputy  for  the  government  of  Ireland,  durin^f  the  lord  justice's  absence, 
and  likewise  to  repair,  all  of  them,  personally,  to  the  parliament  at  Westminster, H  to 
confer  with  the  king  and  his  prelates  and  nobles  concerning  the  state  and  peaceful  set- 
tlement of  that  realm. 

Early  in  the  spring,  1315,  sir  Edmund  Butler,  who  had,  in  the  interim,  been  made 
lord  justice,  returned  ;  and,  on  the  25lh  of  May,  Edward  Bruce,  with  a  fleet  of  300  sail, 
appeared  off  the  north  coast  of  Antrim,  and  landed,  at  Lirne,  an  army  of  6000  men.*''' 
Being  joined  by  immense  numbers  of  the  Irish,  their  united  force  overran,  with  scarcely 
any  resistance,  the  whole  earldom  of  Ulster;  striking  terror  by  the  havoc  and 
ruin  that  marked  every  step  of  their  course.     Whether  taken  by  surprise,  or,  loic" 
as  it  is  said,  distracted  by  personal  feuds,  the  English  lords  made  no  adequate  eflyrt 
to  meet  tins  tumultuary  onset;  and  the  earl  of  Ulster,  whose  stake  in  the  struggle  was 
such  as  to  stimulate  even  his  declining  energies,  appears  to  have  been  tiie  only  lord  who 
came  forward  promptly  to  face  the  danger,  on  its  first  burst.     The  town  of  Dundalk  was 
stormed  by  the  invaders,  and  burnt  down  ;  and  the  church  of  the  Carmelite  friary,  in 
Ardee,  filled  with  men,  women,  and  children,  was  savagely  set  fire  to,  and  all  within  it 
consumed. tt 

*  Tytler,  Hist,  of  Scotland. 

\  "Sed  hos  preEcipiios  de  interfectis  in  praelio  obtulit  domino  reei,  videlicit  Malcolmi  iM'Kail,  domini  de 
Kenter,  caput,  et  duorura  reguloium  Hibernensiiim  capita,"  &c. —  Matt/tew  of  Westminster,  p.  458. 

X  "Neiiipe  tunc  Anglis  in  tantum  cnnsueta  adempta  fuit  audacia,  ut  a  facie  duorum  vel  triuni  Scotorum 
fugerenl  Angli  centum." — Walsingham,  Hist.  Avgl. 

§  Tytler.  Hist  of  Scotland. — "  Iste  Edwards  erat  homo  ferox,  et  magni  cordis  valde,  nee  votuit  cohabitare 
fratri  suo  in  pace,  nisi  dimidium  regne  solus  haberet;  et  hac  de  causa  mota  fuit  guerra  in  Hibernia." — 
Fordun. 

II  Close  Roll,  8  EJ.  tl.  See  also  Rymer,  for  the  full  powers  entrusted  to  Hothum;—"  plenam  committimua 
putentiam." 

If  "  Nut  as  members  of  parliament,"  says  Prynne,  "  but  only  as  commissioners  or  treaters." 

**  Anual.  Hibern.  The  names  of  the  leaders  of  this  expedition  may  be  found  enumerated  by  Barbour,  and 
in  Camden's  Annals. 

ft  Holinshed. — Annal.  Hibern. 


386  HISTORY  OP  IRELAND. 

Summoning  his  vassals  to  attend  him  at  Roscommon,  De  Burgh  marched  from  thence 
to  Athlone,  where  he  was  joined  by  Feidlim  O'Connor,  the  prince  of  Connaught,  with 
his  provincial  troops.  As  this  is  the  only  great  native  lord  who  is  mentioned  as  ad- 
hering— and  even  in  his  case,  but  temporarily — to  the  side  of  the  English,*  it  may  be 
concluded  that  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  other  chiefs  enumerated  in  the  king's  writ,  had 
joined  the  standard  of  the  invader.  With  no  other  support  than  the  troops  of  Feidlim, 
(the  lord  justice  having  withdrawn  to  Dublin,)  De  Burgh  marched  in  pursuit  of  the  in- 
vaders. He  had  even  refused,  we  are  told,  the  proffered  aid  of  the  lord  justice — saying 
to  him  haughtily,  "  You  may  return  home  :  I  and  my  vassals  will  overcome  the  Scots. "f 
In  the  mean  time,  Bruce,  while  at  Dundalk,  had  caused  himself  to  be  crowned  king  of 
Ireland  ;|  and  then,  after  overrunning  the  countries  of  Down,  Armagh,  Louth,  and  Meath, 
returned  again  to  the  north  of  Ulster,  where,  taking  up  a  post  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  river  Banne,  he  resolved  to  await  supplies  from  his  own  country.  Here  De  Burgh 
came  up  with  the  Scottish  forces,  and  making  a  vigorous  attack  upon  them,  was,  after  a 
stubborn  conflict,  defeated,  with  the  loss  of  a  great  number  of  his  followers  slain,  and  of 
his  brother  William, J  sir  John  Mandeville,  and  sir  Alan  Fitz-Alan,  taken  prisoners.il 
But  Bruce  had  also  suffered  much  loss  ;  and  the  small  force  with  which  he  had  landed 
being  now  reduced  in  numbers  and  strength  by  the  harassing  service  in  which  they  had 
been  engaged,  he  despatched  the  earl  of  Mora'ylT  into  Scotland,  for  fresh  succours. 

The  part  taken  by  the  prince  of  Connaught,  in  lending  his  aid  to  the  English  arms,** 
could  not  fail  to  draw  down  odium  upon  him,  not  only  his  own  sept  and  province,  but 
among  his  fellow  countrymen  in  general  ;  and  the  favourable  opening  afforded  by  this 
feeling  for  an  attempt  to  supplant  him  in  the  sovereignty  of  Connaught,  was  quickly  per- 
ceived, and  as  quickly  acted  upon,  by  his  near  kinsman,  Roderic  0'Connor,tt — a  worthy 
branch  of  that  Royal  house,  whose  domestic  discords  and  crimes  have  furnished  the  his- 
tory of  their  doomed  country  with  some  of  its  darkest  pages.  Taking  advantage  of 
Feidlim's  absence,  this  bold  pretender,  with  the  aid  of  the  faction  he  had  secured,  made 
himself  master  of  the  Irish  district  of  Connaught,  compelling  most  of  the  septs  to  ac- 
knowledge his  dominion,  and  give  hostages  for  their  future  attachment  and  faith. 

To  punish  and  expel  this  daring  usurper  was  now  the  most  urgent  object  of  the  right- 
ful prince ;  and,  whatsoever  were  his  means  of  raising  an  adequate  force, — for  his  friends, 
the  English,  were  themselves  too  weak  to  assist  him,  his  followers,  it  appears  were  still 
sufficiently  strong,  both  in  numbers  and  loyalty,  to  enable  him  to  take  the  field ;  and  a 
great  battle,  fought  between  him  and  Roderic,  ended  in  the  death  of  that  usurper,  and 
the  complete  discomfiture  of  his  force.  Whether  the  defection  of  his  own  people  had  let 
in  new  light  on  Feidlim's  mind,  or  a  closer  experience  of  the  English,  as  allies,  had  in- 
spired him  with  dread  of  them,  as  masters,  he  now,  in  the  face  of  the  country,  renounced 
their  alliance,  and,  to  the  great  joy  of  his  brother  chieftains,  throughout  all  Ireland  de- 
clared for  Bruce  and  the  Scots. 

This  step  of  Feidlim,  to  which,  in  most  times  and  histories,  we  could  point  out  pa- 
rallels, was  such  as  his  contemporaries,  according  to  the  party  which  they  had  themselves 
espoused,  would  pronounce  either  noble  and  patriotic,  or  treacherous  and  base. 

Mean  while,  the  Scottish  leader,  following  up  boldly  his  late  victory,  laid  siege  to  the 
stronfTliold  of  Carricktlsrgus;  while  the  Irish,  rising  in  arms  throughout  Ulster  and  Mon- 
ster, burnt,  in  the  course  of  their  wild  ravages,  the  castles  of  Randovvn  and  Athlone; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  three  other  castles,  in  Connau<Tht,  belonging  to  the  earl  of  Ulster, 
were  destroyed  by  a  chief  of  that  province,  Cathal  Ruadh  O'Connor.];! 

The  increasing  spread  of  the  spirit  of  revolt,  infecting  some  even  among  the  English 

*  Bonk  of  Clonmacnoise. 

t  Dalrymple,  Annals  of  Scotland. 

I  This  ceremony,  according  to  Lodge,  took  place  at  Knocknemelan,  within  half  a  mile  of  Biindalk. 

§  Sir  William  de  Burgh,  called  Lyegh  or  the  Orey.  He  was  on  this  occasion,  carried  into  i^cotlaiid, 
where,  leaving  his  sons  William  and  Edward  hostages,  he  gained  his  liberty  and  returned  to  Ireland.— iod^e. 

II  The  stratagem  that  led  to  this  victory  on  the  pan  of  the  Scots,  is  thus  described  by  Dalrymple:— ••The  En- 
glish, ignorant  of  the  motions  of  an  enemy  whom  Ihey  ilespised,  advanced  to  the  attack.  The  Scots,  by 
the  council  of  sir  Philip  Mowliray,  left  their  banners  flying  in  the  camp,  and  having  made  a  circuit,  suddenly 
assaulted  the  flank  of  the  English  Hrmy:'— Memoirs  of  Scolland.  He  adds,  in  a  note,  "  If  I  mistake  not,  this 
simple  stratagem  has  been  successfully  employed  in  late  wars" 

IT  Thomas  Randolph,  Earl  of  Murray,  or  Moray,  who  con)manded  the  left  wing  of  the  Scottish  army  at 
Bannnckburn.  ..>  ^  o  j 

**  The  readiness  with  which  Feidlim  O'Connor  cooperated  With  the  English  forces  against  Bruce,  is  one 
of  the  many  proofs  which  history  and  our  records  furnish  of  the  early  and  continued  inclination  of  ihe  Irish 
to  be  obedient  to  the  laws  and  government  of  England,  unless  when  perverted  by  the  ruiers  in  Dublin,  and 
the  iiiterested  settlers  throughout  the  land  by  whom  the  persecuted  natives  were  constantly  goaded  into  rebel- 
lion."— Hardiman's  History  of  Gnlway. 

tf  Book  of  Clonmacnoise. 

tl  Annal.  Hibern. 


HISTORY  OF  IKELAND.  327 

themselves,  appeared  to  the  government  to  warrant  the  demand  of  some  public  pledge 
of  allegiance  from  those  on  whose  loyalty  the  safety  and  maintenance  of  the  king's 
government  depended;  and  a  declaration  was  accordingly  framed,  wherein,  after  -.U^^ 
stating  that  "  the  Scottish  enemies  had  drawn  over  to  them  all  the  Irish  of  Ire-  ^'^^'^' 
land,  several  of  the  great  lords,  and  many  English  people,"  the  subscribers  pledged  them- 
selves to  maintain  loyally  the  rights  of  the  king  against  all  persons  whatsoever.* 

Bruce  himself,  having  left  some  troops  to  carry  on  the  siege  of  Carrickfergus,f 
marched  his  army  into  Meath  ;  and  being  encountered  there  by  an  English  force  under 
the  lord  justice,  Roger  Mortimer,  put  them  to  rout  with  great  slaughter,  owing  his  suc- 
cess to  the  treacherous  conduct  of  the  De  Lacys.  Keeping  his  Ciiristmas  at  a  place 
called  Loughsudy,  which  he  set  fire  to,  we  are  told,  on  leaving  it,  he  pushed  rapidly 
on  into  Kildare;  until  arriving  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Moate  of  Ascul,  he  found 
himself  encountered  by  the  lord  justice  Butler,  who,  together  with  the  lord  John  Fitz- 
Thonias,  the  lord  Arnold  Poer,  and  other  lords  and  gentlemen  of  Leinster  and  Munster, 
had  marched  with  a  force  to  meet  him.  After  a  short  skirmish,  however,  the  English 
army,  owing  to  some  feuds  and  misunderstandings  among  its  leaders,  took  suddenly  to 
flight,  and  abandoned  the  field  to  the  Scots,  having  lost  in  the  action  sir  William  Pren- 
dergast,  knight,  and  a  "  right  valiant  esquire,"  Hamon  le  Gras.|  On  the  Scottish  side 
were  killed  Fergus  of  Androssan,  and  sir  Walter  Moray,  with  several  other  officers  and 
knights,  who  were  all  buried  in  the  church  of  the  Friars  Preachers,  at  Aihy. 

Encouraged  by  these  evidences  of  weakness  and  discord  in  the  English  camp,  the  peo- 
ple of  Munster  and  Leinster  rose  in  open  rebellion,  and  the  Byrnes,  O'Tooles,  and 
O'Moores  burnt  the  country  from  Arklaw  to  Ley.  But  the  lord  justice,  issuing  out  upon 
them  checked  their  depredations,  and  returned,  with  four-score  heads,  as  a  trophy  of  his 
triumph,  to  Dublin. ^ 

Towards  the  beginning  of  the  year  1316,  the  forces  of  both  parties  were  early  in  the 
field;  but  the  Scots,  after  a  few  adventurous  eftbrts,  were  compelled,  from  wani  of  pro- 
visions, to  return  into  Ulster.  There,  taking  possession  of  Northburg  Castle,  they  sat 
down  quietly  in  their  quarters,  and  Bruce  kept  his  court,  and  took  cognizance  of  all 
pleas,  as  composedly  as  if  it  were  in  limes  of  profound  peace.  The  forces  of  the  En- 
glish, mean  while,  were  furnished  with  sufficient  employment  nearer  home  by  the 
O'Byrnes,  O'Tooles,  and  others  of  the  mountain  septs  of  Wicklow,  who  continued  daily 
to  infest  the  neighbourhood  of  Dublin,  having  already  laid  waste  both  the  town  and 
country  of  Wicklow.  The  lord  justice,  therefore,  finding  his  army  too  much  enfeebled 
to  enable  him  to  cope  with  these  marauders,  and  detach,  at  the  same  time,  a  sufficient 
force  against  the  Scots,  applied  his  concentrated  means  to  the  former  object,  and  with  so 
much  success,  that  these  mountain  bandits  were,  for  the  time,  entirely  subdued. 

Nor  were  the  Scots,  mean  while,  lost  sigiit  of; — a  small  body  of  troops,  under  the  lord 
Thomas  Mandeville,  having  been  appointed  to  hover  round  and  watch  their  movements. 
In  the  course  of  his  performance  of  this  service,  occasional  skirmishes  took  place  be- 
tween him  and  the  enemy,  in  one  of  which  he  and  his  party  slew  thirty  Scots;  and,  in  ano- 
ther, this  gallant  lord  was  himself  slain.  The  arrival  of  supplies  to  Bruce,  from  Scotland, 
in  the  spring  of  the  year  1316,  gave  a  new  impulse  to  this  frightful  conflict;  and  the  va- 
rious horrors  of  massacre,  burning,  and  waste,  which  had  been  suspended  during  the  late 
temporary  lull,  were  all  now  freshly  renewed. 

To  reward  the  conduct  of  those  lords  who  had  stood  firmly  by  the  English  go- 
vernment, throug'i  this  crisis,  was  a  measure  called  for  as  well  by  policy  as  by  ^.jJ?.' 
gratitude  ;  and  with  this  view,  the  dignity  of  earlof  Carrick  was  bestowed  upon  the  '-'^^^' 
lord  justice  Butler,  and  John  Fitz-Thomas,  baron  of  Offaley,  was  created  earl  of  Kildare.|| 

*  Rymer,  torn.  iii.  At  the  head  of  the  subscribers  to  this  Letter  of  Allegiance  from  the  Magnates  Wibernia:, 
stands  the  name  of  John  Fitz  Thomas  of  Offaley,  the  first  earl  of  Kildare. 

t  There  are  some  details  respecting  this  siege,  not  apparently  much  to  be  relied  upon,  which  the  reader 
may  find  on  referring  to  Harbour's  Metrical  Life  of  Robert  Bruce. 

I  In  some  verses  of  considerable  merit,  suggested  by  a  visit  to  Jerpoint  Abbey  (see  Memoirs  of  the  Family 
pf  Orace,)  a  tribute  to  the  memory  of  this  young  hero  may  be  found. 

"  On  Ascul's  plain  was  heard  the  sound  of  wo. 
And,  as  the  gentle  Barrow  glided  by. 
All  blood-tinged  were  its  waters  in  their  flow, 
Where  heroes  died — but  not  for  victory, — 
There  Hamon  flourished  in  his  flower  of  days,"  &c. 

In  a  note  on  these  lines,  Hamon  le  Gras  is  stated  to  have  been  the  commander  of  the  force  opposed  to  Bruce 
at  Ascul ;  but  no  authority  that  I  have  seen  warrants  this  assertion. 
§  Annal.  Hibern. 

II  There  occurs  a  difficulty  at  this  step,  in  the  (ledigree  of  the  earls  of  Kildare,  for  which  the  reader  may 
consult  Lodge  ;  and  likewise  Lynch's  Fiew  of  the  Legal  histitxaions.  See.  p  '235.  Selden,  in  his  Titles  of  Honour, 
declares  that  Kildare's  patent  is  "  the  ancientest  form  of  creation  he  had  seen." 


3'28  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

The  De  Burghs  and  Geraldines,  who,  even  at  this  trying  juncture,  had  been  unable  to 
adjourn  their  hereditary  feud,  now  consented  to  a  temporary  truce;  and  there  appeared, 
among  all,  a  firm  and  loyal  resolution  to  set  themselves  manfully  to  the  defence  of  the 
realm. 

Tliey  were  soon  furnished,  too,  with  a  favourable  opportunity  of  encountering,  in  a 
pitched  battle,  the  now  favourite  champion  of  the  Irish  cause,  Feidlim  O'Connor,  who  had 
fully  atoned  for  his  former  desertion  of  the  national  banner,  by  a  series  of  bold  and  suc- 
cessful irruptions  into  the  English  territory  ;  in  the  course  of  which,  many  of  the  most 
gallant  knights,  and  among  others,  lord  Stephen  de  Exeter  and  William  Prendergast, 
were  cut  off  by  the  sword.  Encouraged  by  this  success,  and  the  applauding  voice  of  his 
fellow  countrymen,  to  try  a  more  extended  scale  of  military  operations,  the  Connaught 
chief  now  took  the  field,  with  a  large  force;  and,  having  been  threatened  with  an  incur- 
sion into  his  territory  by  William  de  Burgh,  assisted  by  Richard  de  Berminghara,  boldly 
marched  forth  to  meet  them. 

It  was  near  Atiienry,  in  the  county  of  Galway,  that  the  two  armies  encountered  each 
other ;  and  the  great  battle  that  then  ensued  was,  according  to  Irish  writers,  the  most 
bloody  and  decisive  that  had  ever  been  fought  from  the  time  of  the  first  English  invasion. 
This  mighty  struggle  ended  in  the  total  defeatof  the  Irish,  of  whom  not  less  than  11,000, 
it  is  said,  fell  on  the  field  ;  the  gallant  young  Feidlim,  himself,  being  among  the  slain,* 
together  with  O'Kelly,  chief  of  Hymaine,t  and  a  number  of  other  great  lords  and  cap- 
tains of  Connaught  and  Meath.  The  achievement  performed  in  the  course  of  this  battle, 
by  one  Hussey,  a  butcher  of  Athenry,  who,  finding  himself  alone,  at  the  mercy  of  three 
assailants,  encountered  and  slew  them  all,  is  much  dwelt  upon  by  the  chroniclers,  who 
add  that,  Hussey  having  been,  for  his  bravery,  dubbed  a  knight,  his  family  became  after- 
wards barons  of  Galtrim.  Among  other  traditions  connected  with  this  great  victory, 
which  gave  a  final  blow  to  the  power  of  the  O'Connors,!  it  is  said  that  the  walls  of  the 
town  of  Athenry  were  built  from  the  spoils  gained  by  that  battle. 

There  had  now  elapsed  more  than  a  year,  since  the  landing  of  Edward  Bruce  in  Ire- 
land;  and,  though  his  arms  had  been  hitherto  invariably  victorious,  no  definite  object  had 
yet  been  gained  by  the  enterprise.  In  this  state  of  the  war,  his  illustrious  brother,  king 
Robert,  determined,  generously,  to  come  in  person  to  his  aid.  Such  was  the  confusion, 
indeed,  then  reigning  in  the  councils  of  England,  where  the  king  and  his  barons  were  all 
but  at  war  on  the  subject  of  the  Ordinances,  tiiat  Bruce  had  little  to  apprehend  from  that 
quarter  during  his  absence.  Entrusting  the  government,  therefore,  to  his  son-in-law,  the 
steward,  and  sir  James  Douglas,  he  passed  over  to  the  aid  of  the  new  king  of  Ireland, 
with  a  considerable  body  of  troops.^ 

The  brave  garrison  of  Carrickfergus,  who  had,  through  so  many  months  of  privation 
and  suffering,  maintained,  unshrinkingly,  their  post,  were  now  reduced  to  such  extremi- 
ties as  to  be  compelled  to  eat  the  hides  of  beasts,  and  even  to  feed  upon  the  dead  bodies 
of  eight  Scots  whom  they  had  made  prisoners.  In  this  dreadful  state,  they  at  length 
surrendered  to  the  two  brother  kings,  on  the  condition,  only,  tliat  the  lives  of  the  garrison 
soldiers  should  be  spared. 

We  have  seen  that  to  the  backwardness  or  treachery  of  the  De  Lacys  was  attributed 
the  failure  of  the  first  efforts  against  the  Scots.  In  a  parliament,  held  soon  after  by  the 
lord  justice,  Walter  de  Lacy  was  declared  to  be  absolved  from  the  charge;  but,  as  an  im- 
pression still  prevailed  that  this  powerful  family  were  leagued  secretly  with  the  Scots, 
they  deemed  it  prudent,  in  the  month  of  December,  this  year,  to  go  through  the  forms  of 
an  indictment  and  acquittal,  on  the  charge  ;|1  and,  receiving  a  charier  of  pardon  froni  the 
king,  they  renewed  their  oath  of  fealty,  and  sealed  it  solemnly  by  the  sacramental  rite. 

The  two  great  parties  engaged  in  this  general  warfare  now  strained  every  effort  to 
put  forth  their  utmost  strength.  Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1316,  the  English  had 
gained  some  important  advantages  over  the  natives.  A  second  victory  achieved  in  Con- 
naught by  William  de  Burgh  and  Sir  John  Bermingham,  was  attended  with  a  loss,  to  the 
Irish,  of  500  of  their  best  tmops,  together  with  their  captains,  O'Connor  and  Mac  Kelly ; 
and,  in  the  following  month,  John  Loggan  and  Hugh  Bissetput  to  rout  the  Scottish  force, 
in  Ulster,  slaying,  says  the  chronicler,  100  men  in  double  armour,  and  200  in  single 

*  In  this  battle  fell  Felim  O'Connor,  from  whom  the  Irish  had  expected  more  than  from  any  other  Gael  then 
\iving."—Jinnals  of  the  Four  Masters.  According  to  these  annals  this  prince  was  then  twenty-two  years  of 
age. 

t  "  A  territory  in  the  county  of  Galway,  bordering  on  the  county  of  Roscommon,  and  at  times  extended 
by  conquest  into  it,  usually  called  Mainech." — Ware,  Antiq. 

J   Hardiman,  Hist,  of  Galway. 

§  Tytler,  Hist,  of  Scotland."— "  A  flying  report  spread  up  and  down  Dublin,  that  the  lord  Robert  Bruce, 
king  of  Scotland,  was  now  landed  in  Ireland  to  assist  his  brother  Edward."— ,/Jnnai.  Hibern. 

II  Annal.  Hibern. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  329 

armour,  besides  a  great  number  of  tlieir  naked  followers.     Among  the  prisoners  taken  at 
this  battle  and  sent  to  Dublin,  were  sir  Alan  Stewart  and  sir  John  Sandale. 

On  the  side  of  the  Scots,  meanwhile,  no  exertion  of  labour  or  zeal  was  wanting  to 
bring  into  the  field  an  army  slronjif  cnouf^h  to  ensure  a  triumphant  result,  and  thereby 
signalize,  in  a  manner  worthy  of  him,  the  presence  of  their  hero,  Bruce,  i[i  Ireland.* 
Having  collected  together  a  force,  computed  at  20,000  men,  independent  of  the  tumul- 
tuary army  of  the  northern  Irish,  they  snarched  as  far  as  Slane,  layuig  waste  and  burning 
all  in  their  way;  and  from  thence  to  Castlekiioci<,  in  the  nciglibouriiood  of  Dublin,  wiiere, 
taking  Hugh  Tyrrcl,  the  lord  of  that  castle,  prisoner,  tliey  established  there  their 
quarters.!  During  tlie  encampment  of  Bruce  at  tliis  place,  the  earl  of  Ulster,  who  had 
been  living  retired  in  St.  Mary's  Abbey,  near  Dublin,  was  in  consequence  of  infjrniation 
that  he  had  been  instrumental  in  bringing  the  Scots  to  Ireland,  suddenly  arrested  by  Robert 
de  Nottingham,  mayor  of  the  city,  and  committed  to  prison  in  Dublin  Castle.|  The  sus- 
picion of  a  secret  understanding  between  him  and  the  Bruces,  migiit  possibly  have  had 
no  otiier  foundation  than  the  near  connexion  between  the  two  tiimilies:  Robert  Bruce 
having,  in  the  year  1302,  married  Ellen,  one  of  the  daughters  of  this  earl.^  An  attempt, 
on  the  part  of  De  Burgh,  to  make  resistance,  gave  rise  to  a  fray,  in  which  seven  of  his 
servants  were  killed;  while  the  abbey  of  St.  Mary  was  pillaged  and  partly  burnt  down, 
owing  to  a  suspicion  that  the  monks  favoured  the  enemy.|| 

The  citizens  of  Dublin,  on  finding  themselves  menaced  with  a  siege,  declared  their 
resolution  to  defend,  obstinately,  the  city,  and  gave,  at  the  same  time,  a  proof  of  their 
readiness  to  make  every  sacrifice  for  this  object  by  setting  fire  at  once  t(j  the 
suburbs;  though,  in  this  operation,  many  of  the  churches  were  destroyed,  and  even  the 
venerable  fane  of  St.  Patrick  did  not  entirely  escape.  To  the  intrepidity,  indeed,  and 
decisive  conduct  of  the  citizens  of  Dublin,  at  this  crisis,  the  very  existence  of  the  Irisli 
government  was  mainly  indebted  for  its  preservation. IT  On  being  informed  of  this  spirit 
of  the  inhabitants,  and  learning,  also,  that  the  city  was  well  walled,  the  Scottish  leader 
deemed  it  most  prudent  not  to  risk  the  delay  or  failure  of  a  seige;  but,  under  the 
guidance  of  Walter  de  Lacy,  who,  in  shameless  defiance  of  his  late  oath,  had  become 
the  adviser  and  conductor  of  the  invading  army,  he  turned  off  with  his  forces  towards 
Naas,  and  rested  for  a  short  time  at  Loixlip  on  his  way  ;**  nor  is  it  a  slight  addition  to  the 
interest  of  that  romantic  spot  to  be  able  to  fancy  that  the  heroic  Bruce,  surrounded  by 
his  companions  in  arms,  had  once  stood  beside  its  beautiful  waterfall,  and  wandered,  per- 
haps, through  its  green  glen. 

Passing  from  Naas  into  the  county  of  Kilkenny,ft  and  from  thence  wasting  the  whole 
country  as  far  as  Limerick,  the  Scots,  after  spreading  around  them  misery  and  desolation, 
were  brought  at  length  to  feel  the  extremities  of  famine  themselves;  and  while  numbers 
of  them  perished  from  hunger,  the  remainder  had  no  other  resource  than  the  Hesh  of 
horses  for  food. f  J  What  motive  could  have  led  the  two  brothers,  more  especially  at  so 
inclement  a  season,  to  venture  on  a  march  of  such  length  and  peril,  it  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  divine.  If  they  sought,  by  this  movement,  to  establish  themselves  at  Limerick 
as  a  sort  of  central  position  between  Munster  and  Connaught,  which  might  enable  them 
to  attract  to  their  banner  the  chieftains  of  both  those  provinces,^^  the  scheme,  though 
plausible,  appears  to  have  been  hazarded  merely  on  speculation,  and  to  have  entirely 


*  See,  for  an  account  of  the  great  Scottish  officers  who  accompanied  the  Bruces  to  Ireland,  a  poem  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Drummond,  entitled,  "  Bruces  Invasion  ;"  in  which  tlie  scanty  materials  furnislied  to  the  poet  by  this 
short  episode  in  our  history  are  turned  ta account  with  much  skill  and  success 

t  Annal.  Hibern.— Holinshed.  t  Harris,  Hist,  of  the  City  of  Dublin. 

§  Lodge. — According  to  other  authorities,  a  sister  of  the  earl.  j|  Harris. 

IT  See,  in  Prynae  {Animad.  p.  60.,)  the  writ  issued,  on  this  occasion  by  the  king  (Close  Roll,  11  E.  II.,) 
granting  immunity  to  the  mayor  and  citizens  for  having  set  tire  to  the  suburbs  of  Dublin  :"  Nos  advertentes 
(says  the  writ)  quod  ea  quie  urgenti  necessitate  guerra;  hunt  pcenis  legis communis  poenis  subesse  non  debent, 
vobis  mandaums."  &,c. 

**  "  Le  Brus,  understanding  that  the  citv  was  fortified  to  receive  him,  marched  towards  Salmon's  Leap,  where 
Robert  le  Brus,  king  of  Scotland,  with  Edward  le  Brus,  the  earl  of  Moray,  the  lord  John  Stewart,  &c.  en- 
camped themselves  and  continued  for  four  days." — .Canals  of  Ireland. 

ft  "  Some  vestiges  of  Bruce's  invasion  yet  remain.  Near  Aghaboc  is  an  old  fortification,  vulgarly  called 
Scotfralh.  but  properly  Scottiswailh,  or  the  Scot's  walls  or  fortress." — Ledwich,  Hist,  and  Antiq.  of  Irishlown 
and  Kilkenny 

Xi  "  In  eadem  expeditione  multi  fame  i)erierunt ;  reliqui  vero  carnibus  equorum  usi  sunt." — FordunA.  xii. 
c.  25. 

§§  According  to  the  Annals  of  Inisfallen,  so  far  was  the  cause  of  the  Scots  from  findiiig  any  favour  at 
Limerick,  that  a  large  army,  composed  of  English  and  Irish,  had  been  collected  there,  for  the  purpose  of  at- 
tacking them;  having  chosen  unanimously  for  Iheir  leader  Murtogh  O'Brian,  prijice  of  Thomond  ;  and  this 
force,  adds  the  annalist,  were  about  to  march  against  the  invaders,  when,  "  to  the  great  dissatisfaction  and 
disappointment  of  the  descendants  of  Brian  Roe,  the  Scots  made  a  precipitate  retreat  back  into  Ulster."  It 
appears,  from  the  same  annals,  tiiat  anoilier  of  the  O'Brians,  Donough,  took  the  part  of  the  invaders. 

41 


330  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

failed;  or  if,  as  may  seem  more  probable,  the  pressure  of  famine  compelled  them  to 
wander  to  such  a  distance,  the  rapine  and  havoc  that  marked  their  course  entirely  defeated 
the  very  object  they  had  in  view,  and  but  extended  to  others  the  scourge  from  which 
they  sought  to  relieve  themselves. 

Still  more  unaccountable  than  even  this  vague  and  hazardous  movement  of  the  Scots 
was  the  total  inaction,  mean  while,  of  the  English  leaders  ;  who,  instead  of  availing  them- 
selvrs  of  the  weak  condition  to  which  the  invaders  were  reduced,  to  strike  a  blow  that 
would,  at  once,  sweep  ihenifrom  the  face  of  the  land,  were  quietly  employed  in  holding  par- 
liaments, both  at  Kilkenny  and  in  Dublin,  to  consult  on  the  state  of  the  country,  and  con- 
cert measures  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Scots.  On  one  of  these  occasions  their  de- 
-..j,  J  bates  lasted,  we  are  tokl,  for  a  whole  week;  and  during  all  this  delay,  an  army  of 
no  less  than  30,000  men,  under  the  command  of  sir  Edmund  Butler  and  the  earl 
of  Kildare,*  were  waiting  orders  to  take  the  field. 

While  thus  these  lords,  at  a  moment  so  critical,  allowed  the  time  to  elapse  in  such 
helpless  indecision  as  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  the  awing  influence  which  the  pre- 
sence of  Bruce,  even  under  a  cloud,  was  still  able  to  exercise,  that  great  man  himself, 
with  the  half-famished  remains  of  his  army,  had  succeeded,  by  slow  and  painful  marches, 
in  effecting  his  retreat,  at  the  beginning  of  JVIay,  into  Ulster.  Here,  convinced,  perhaps, 
of  the  hopelessness  of  any  attempt  to  build  up  a  durable  dominion  out  of  materials  so 
rude  and  crumbling  as  the  stale  of  Ireland  then  afforded,  Bruce  committed  to  his  more 
sanguine  brother  the  farther  prosecution  of  the  war,  and,  taking  away  with  him  only  the 
earl  of  Moray,  returned  to  his  own  dominions.  Among  the  great  and  good  qualities  of 
Robert  Bruce,  strong  sense  appear.=,  as  in  most  such  leading  spirits,  to  have  been  predomi- 
nant; nor  could  he  have  failed,  from  all  he  had  observed,  to  deduce  an  opinion  respecting 
the  Irish,  which  their  whole  succeeding  history  has  tended  to  verity,— that  a  people  whom 
long  misrule  had  accustomed  to  be  bad  subjects,  could  never,  on  their  own  soil,  make 
good  or  trustworthy  soldiers;- — a  result  which,  though  easily  to  be  accounted  for,  is  ren- 
dered, in  the  case  of  the  Irish,  peculiarly  striking,  from  tbeir  acknowledged  eminence  in 
all  the  best  soldierly  qualities,  when  acting  on  other  shores. 

In  Easter  week,  the  new  lord  justice,  sir  Roger  Mortimer,  afterwards  earl  of 

-^q,J  March,  arrived  at  Youghal  ;  and  active  operations  were  about  to  be  commenced. 

*  The  welcome  news,  however,  of  the  retreat  of  Bruce  into  Ulster  rendered  such 

measures  unnecessary ;  and  the  immense  body  of  volunteers  which  had  been  collected 

for  the  occasion — called  by  the  Irish  a  "  rising  out"t — were  all  dismissed  to  their  several 

homes. 

Thus  released  from  the  immediate  pressure  of  the  enemy's  forces,  the  attention  of  the 
government  was  drawn  to  the  case  of  the  earl  of  Ulster,  who  was  still  a  prisoner  in  the 
castle  of  Dublin,  notwithstanding  that  a  writ  of  mainprise  had  been  issued  for  his  dis- 
charge.f  In  defiance  of  law  and  authority,  the  mayor  of  Dublin  still  kept  him  confined. 
In  a  parliament,  however,  held  at  Kilmainham  by  the  lord  justice,  together  with  the  lord 
Wogan,sir  Fulke  Warren,  and  thirty  other  knights,  the  deliverance  of  the  earl  was  taken 
into  consideration,  and,  at  a  second  meeting  of  the  same  parlinment,  was  effected  ;  tlie  earl 
having,  previously,  been  required  to  give  hostages,  as  well  as  to  take  an  oath  on  the 
sacrament,  that  he  would  neitherby  himself,  his  friends,  or  followers, do  any  injury  to  the 
citizens  in  revenge  for  his  imprisonment. 

Among  the  memorable  Articles  of  Reform  framed  by  the  Ordaiuers  in  the  fourth  year 
of  this  reign,  there  was  one  to  the  effect  that  "  to  prevent  delay  in  the  administration  of 
justice,  parliaments  should  be  holden,  at  least,  once,  and,  if  need  be,  oflener,  every  year." 
Following  in  the  train  of  that  example,  a  petition  was  addressed,  this  year,  to  the  king, 
praying  that  "  a  parliament  might  be  held  once  every  year  in  Ireland,  to  redress  the 
grievance  mentioned  in  their  petition."  Attempts  have  been  made  from  time  to  time, 
especially  in  periods  of  high  political  excitement,  to  misrepresent  the  meaning  and  ob- 
ject of  these  enactments  for  the  holding  of  annual  parliaments.  But  it  is  clear  that 
fleither  by  the  measures  adopted  in  England  for  that  purpose,  nor  by  the  prayer  of  the 
Irish  petition  just  noticed,  was  it  at  all  meant  that  parliaments  should  be  elected  every  year, 
but  simply  that  the  parliament  should,  every  year,  hold  a  session.  No  farther  evidence, 
indeed,  is  wanting  in  support  of  this  view  of  the  question,  than  the  known  fact,  that  the 
very  same  parliament  which  confirmed  the  ordinance  for  the  annual  holding  of  parlia- 
Bients,  was  itself  continued,  by  prorogation,  to  another  session. J     With  respect  to  the 

*  Thomas,  the  second  earl  of  KHiarc— Lodge. 

T  Cox.  J  Holinshed  — Annal.  Hibern. 

§  In  the  words  of  the  writ  of  summons,  "  ad  idem  parliamentum  quod  ibidem  duximus  continuandum."^ 
Prynne,  •Parliamentnj  JVnis,  i,v.  87. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  331 

Irish  petition,  we  learn  from  a  writ  dated  at  Lincoln,  in  the  tenth  year  of  this  reign,  that 
the  prayer  contained  in  it  for  a  parliament  to  be  iield  annually  was  granted.* 

Through  all  the  calamities  and  reverses  that  now  befell  the  national  cause,  the  spirit 
of  the  people  was  chiefly  sustained  by  the  exhortations  of  their  clergy ;  for  it  is  a  fact 
worthy  of  notice,  that  the  church  of  the  Irish  and  the  church  of  the  English,  in  that 
country,  were  at  this  time  as  widely  divided  by  llieir  difference  in  language  and  race  as 
they  have  been  at  any  period  since,  by  their  difference  in  creed.  A  strong  proof  of  the 
sort  of  feeling  with  which  the  native  ecclesiastics  regarded  all  who  belonged  to  the  race 
of  their  English  rulers  is  to  be  found  in  a  regulation  of  the  abbey  of  Mellifont,  dated 
A.  D.  1322,  determining  that  no  person  whatsoever  should  be  admitted  into  that  abbey, 
until  he  had  taken  an  oath  that  he  was  not  of  English  descent.f  They  but  followed,  too, 
in  this  exclusive  spirit,  the  example  set  them  by  their  rulers,  who  strictly  forbade,  under 
severe  penalties,  the  admission  of  natives  into  any  of  the  religious  communities  esta- 
blished within  the  English  bounds. 

The  disaffection  towards  the  ruling  powers  so  strongly  manifested  among  the  clergy 
was  not  confined  to  the  native  ecclesiastics,  but  spread,  also,  among  their  English  or  An- 
glo-Irish brethren;  and  Adam  de  Northampton,  bishop  of  Ferns,  was  not  only  a  favourer 
of  the  cause  of  the  Bruces,  but,  as  appears  from  a  writ  issued  against  him,  August  6th, 
1317,  was  accused  of  furnishing  them  with  provisions,  arms,  and  men.|  Complaints  had 
been  made  by  the  English  monarch  to  pope  Innocent  XXII.,  with  whom  he  stood  high  in 
favour,  of  the  disloyal  conduct  of  the  Irish  clergy  ;  and  a  letier  was  addressed,  accordingly 
by  his  holiness,  to  the  archbishops  of  Dublin  and  Cashel,  empowering  them  to  admonish, 
and,  if  necessary,  excommunicate,  all  such  rebpls  to  the  English  crown.  The  effect  of 
this  papal  commission,  or  mandate,  on  the  minds  of  the  Irish,  we  shall  have,  presently,  a 
more  fit  opportunity  of  noticing. 

Throughout  the  remainder  of  this  year  the  same  chaotic  confusion  of  public  and  private 
warfare  seems  to  have  prevailed  over  the  whole  kingdom.  The  untractable  De  Lacys, 
no  less  fierce  than  they  were  treacherous,  still  defied  and  baffled  the  authority  of  the  lord 
justice  Mortimer,  who,  having  sent  to  command  them  to  come  to  him,  and  received  a 
refusal,  then  formally  deputed  sir  Hugh  Crofts  to  enter  into  treaty  with  them  for  the  set- 
tlement of  peace.  These  savage  lords,  however,  did  not  scruple  to  murder  this  envoy, 
who  was  a  gentleman  of  high  repute  and  honour.  It  became,  therefore,  necessary  to 
adopt  strong  measures;  and  the  lord  justice,  taking  with  him  an  armed  force,  attacking  the 
offenders  in  their  own  territory,  and,  driving  them  from  thence  into  Connaught,  laid 
waste  their  lands,  slew  numbers  of  their  followers,  and  declared  themselves,  by  procla- 
mation, traitors  and  outlaws. 

As  another  specimen  of  the  sort  of  example  held  out  thus  early  by  the  gentry  of  the 
Pale  to  the  natives,  it  is  found  on  record,  that  sir  Hugh  Cannon,  chief  justice  of  the 
court  of  common  pleas,  was,  at  this  time,  nmrdered  on  the  road  between  Naas  and  Castle 
Martyr  by  one  of  the  family  of  the  Berminghams. 

Among  the  Irish,  mean  while,  the  old  game  of  discord  continued  to  be  carried  on  with 
all  the  usual  national  zest;  and  a  quarrel,  which  had  been  for  some  sime  kindling  between 
two  great  captains,  or  princes,  of  Connaught,  now  led  to  a  battle  attended  with  the 
slaughter  of  4000  of  their  respective  followers.  It  was  this  discord  among  themselves, 
the  inherent  vice  of  the  Irish  nation,  that  paralyzed  then,  as  it  has  done  ever  since,  every 
effort  for  their  enfranchisement,  and  which,  at  that  time,  would  have  kept  them  hopeless 
and  confirmed  slaves,  had  even  a  whole  army  of  Robert  Bruces  thronged  to  their  de- 
liverance. 

The  natural  consequences  of  so  long  a  continuance  of  the  scourge  of  warfire  now 
showed  themselves  in  a  general  famine  throughout  the  country,  during  which  the 
wretched  people  were  reduced  to  such  extremities  that  they  took  the  dead,  as  we  are 
told,  out  of  their  graves,  and,  boiling  the  flesh  ot"  the  corpses  in  the  sculls,^  thus  fright- 
fully appeased  their  hunger  ;^eveu  mothers  in  this  manner,  feeding  upon  their  own 
children.  Following  close  on  these  harrowing  details,  we  find  an  account  of  a  splendid 
banquet  given  by  the  lord  justice  at  the  castle  of  Dublin,  in  the  course  of  which  he  con- 

*  Close  Roll,  10  E.  ir.— See  Prynne,  for  this  writ,  Animad.  8,-c.  26h 

t  Cox— "In  Abbathia  Melifontistaiisinolevilerror,  quod  nullus  ibi  admittatur  in  domurapraedictatn,  nisi 
primitiis  facta  fiile,  quod  iion  sit  de  genere  Angloruin." 

I  Ware's  Bishops. 

§  ''  Some  of  them,"  says  the  annalist  in  Camden,  "  were  so  pinched  with  famine  that  they  dug  up  graves 
in  churchyards,  and  after  they  had  boiled  the  flesh  in  the  scull  of  the  dead  body,  cat  it  up." — "  As  if,"  saya 
Dalrymple,  "  famine  had  consumed  the  spits  and  the  kettles!"  This  absurd  story  (Dr.  Drummond  thinks) 
may  have  arisen  from  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  "  sculls ;"  which  frequently,  as  used  by  old  writers,  means 
a  covering  for  the  head.  Thus,  in  Baron  Finglas's  Breviate  of  Ireland,  "  Every  six  yeomen  to  take  a  hackney, 
and  a  lad  to  bear  their  jacks,  sculls,  bowa,  and  arrows." 


332  IITSTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

torrerl  kni"lilIioo(l  upon  John  Mortimer,  nnd  tour  other  of  his  train,  and  shortly  after  set 
sail  for  Enjiland,  leaving  all  his  debt?,  whicii  amounted  to  lOOOZ.,  unpaid  ;  in  consequence 
of  wiiicli,  Siiys  tl)e  chronicler,  "  many  a  bitter  curse  he  carried  with  him  to  the  sea." 
Before  Morluner's  dop:irtiire,  he  had  condemned  John  de  Lacy,  who  had  been  for  some 
time  in  prison,  and  refused  to  plead  to  the  indictment  against  him,  to  suffer  the  frightful 
punishment  of  bein^  pressed  to  death.* 

The  spell  of  inaction  that  had  hung,  all  this  time,  around  Edward  Bruce, — owing  far 
more  to  the  weakened  condition  of  his  army  than  to  any  effect  produced  by  the  anathe- 
mas of  the  pope, — was  now  on  the  point  of  being  broken,  and  in  a  way  fatal  to  his  chi- 
valrous enterprise  and   life.      Alexander   Bicknor,  archbishop  of  Dublin,  had  just  been 
appointed  lord  justice,  succeeding  in  that  office  the  archbishop  of  Cashel,  William  Fitz- 
John.     An  early  and  abundant  harvest,  in  all  those  partsof  the  country  not  wholly  wasted 
by  war,  enabled  both  of  the  belligerent  parties  to  resume  early  their  operations;  and  Edward 
Bruce,  taking  the  field  with  an  army  amounting,  as  some  say,  to  about  3000  men,  marched 
to   the  Faughard,  a  memorable  spot  within  two  miles  of  Dundalk.f      The  other 
■p^is   commanders  of  the  Scottish  force  were  Philip  lord    Mowbray,  Walter  lord    de 
Sonlis,  and  Alan  lord  Stewart,  together  with  his  three  brothers.     The  three  De 
Lacys,  also,  had  joined  the  rebel  ranks. 

The  English  force  which  had  marched  from  Dublin  to  encounter  this  army  was  com- 
manded by  the  lord  John  Bermingham,  having  under  him  a  number  of  distinguished 
officers, — sir  Richard  Tuit,  sir  Miles  de  Verdon,  John  Maupas,  and  other  Anglo-Irish 
barons, — nnd  being  accompanied  to  the  field  by  the  primate  of  Armagh,  to  perform  the  last 
offices  to  the  dying.i 

According  to  the  Scottish  historians,  Edward  Bruce  had,  in  the  course  of  the  three 
years  during  which  he  waged  war  in  Ireland,  encountered  the  English  armies  eighteen 
limes,  and  been  in  every  one  of  those  successive  battles  victorious. ^  The  same  authori- 
ties compute  his  force  on  the  present  occasion  to  have  been  little  more  than  a  tenth  of 
that  of  liis  adversaries;  while  the  English  chnniclers,  on  the  other  hand,  represent  the 
number  of  their  own  countrymen  engaged  to  have  been  not  one  half  of  that  of  the  Scots. 
On  whichever  side,  in  these  widely  differing  statements,  the  balance  of  truth  may  bo 
supposed  to  lean,  it  is  clear,  from  both  accounts,  that  the  conflict  was  short;  that  victory 
declared  for  the  English  on  the  very  first  onset;  and,  moreover,  that  to  the  desperate 
bravery  of  one  man  that  result  is  mainly  to  be  attributed.  Under  the  persuasion  that  the 
death  of  Bruce  himself  would  give  victory,  at  once,  to  the  English,  John  Maupas,  a  brave 
Anglo-Irish  knight,  rushed  devotedly  into  the  enemy's  ranks,  to  accomplish  that  object; 
and  when,  after  the  battle,  the  body  of  Bruce  was  discovered,  that  of  John  Maupas  was 
found  laying  stretched  across  it.||  The  amount  of  the  slain  in  the  respective  armies  has 
been  variously  stated;  being  made,  by  each  party,  proportionate  to  its  own  calculation  of 
the  numbers  originally  engaged. IT 

Untaught  by  the  generous  example  of  Robert  Bruce,  who,  after  the  victory  of  Ban- 
nockbiirn,  treated  with  the  coiirirsy  of  a  true  knight  those  whom  he  had  conquered  in 
the  field,**  the  English  insulted  over  the  body  of  his  fldlen  brother,  and,  dividing  it  into 
quarters,  sent  them  to  be  exhibited  all  over  the  country;  while  the  head,  which  Ber- 

*  ricilinslipil — a  mode  of  punislinipnt  Gallcil  by  tlin  law,  peine  fo1-le  et  dure.  The  annalist  in  Camdon,  not 
nnderstandinfi  this  refinement  of  cruelty,  tells  us  that  Lacy's  punishment  was  "  to  be  pinched  in  diet,  so  that 
he  died  in  prison  " 

f  "The  Faii^'hard"  is  an  artificial  mount,  composed  of  stones  and  terras,  with  a  deep  trench  round  it, 
raised  to  \W  liri^lit  of  sixty  feet,  in  the  form  of  the  frustriim  of  a  cone,  upon  the  north  frontier  of  what  is 
now  called  the  liiiL'lisli  pale.  There  has  formerly  lieen  some  sort  of  an  octagonal  building  on  ttic  top  of  it,  as 
appears  from  thi'  f.mndations  renutiimiff."— Wright,  Louthiava 

I  By  VValsiiiKham  this  prelate  is  represented  as  having  b^en  the  captain  of  the  English  force.  "  Primate 
de  Armacli  pro  rese  Anglorum  capitaineo  existente."  §  Barbour,  hook  xii. 

II  "  A  pillar,  in  the  burying  ground  of  Faughard,"  says  Dr.  Druinmond,  "  marks  the  grave  of  Kdward 
Bruce  'J'his  pillar  is  said  to  have  stood,  within  the  memory  of  man,  seven  feet  above  tlie  ground."  He 
adds  that  "every  jieasant  in  tlie  neighbourhood  can  point  out  the  grave  of  king  Bruce,  as  he  is  universally 
called.'' 

IT  'J'i-e  fcdiowing  is  VValsinghatn's  account  of  the  result : — Decisis  baronettis  de  Scotia  20,  in  eodem  campo, 
et  5  millibus  et  oclingentis  aliis  pra-ler  niilliles  et  nobiles  supradiclos." 

**  (Juplivos  quos  caperat  lam  civiliter  tractari  fecit,  tarn  lioiiorifice  ciistodiri,  quod  corda  multoruin  in 
aniorem  sui  iiidivisibililir  coiiiinniavil  '' — IValshigkam  "  He  set  at  liberty,"  says  another  historian,  "  Ralph 
de  Monthermar  and  sir  Maiuia.lnke  T«'enge.  widioiu  ransom  ;  and  sent  the  dead  bodies  of  the  earl  of  Glou- 
cester and  lord  Clifford  to  be  inii'rred  in  i;n3land  with  the  honours  due  to  their  birth  and  valour."  Dal- 
rymple,  Aniials  nf  Scotland.  An  instance  of  the  chivalrous  courtesy  of  Robert  Bruce,  while  in  Ireland,  is 
thus  related  by  Mr.  Tytler ,— "In  Ireland  we  find  the  king  halting  the  army,  while  retreating,  in  circumstances 
of  extreme  difficulty,  on  hearini;  the  cries  of  a  poor  laveiulere,  or  washerwoman,  who  had  been  seized  with 
labour,  coininanding  a  lent  to  li'  pitched  for  her,  and  lakin:;  measures  for  her  pursuing  her  journey  when  she 
was  able  to  travel."— ///</.  (;/"  sroi/aiif',  vol,  ii. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  333 

mingliam  presented  as  a  trophy,  to  the  Englisli  king,  procured  for  him,  in  return  the 
earldom  of  Louth  and  a  grant  of  the  manor  of  Atherdee.* 

We  liave  seen  that  the  pope,  in  consequence  of  the  complaints  made  to  him  by  Ed- 
ward of  the  rebellious  spirit  manifested  in  Ireland,  as  well  by  the  clergy  as  by  the  laity, 
iiad  addressed  a  strong  letter  to  tlie  chief  Irish  prelates,  empowering  them  to  launch  the 
censures  of  the  church  against  all  those,  whether  lay  or  ecclesiastical,  who  were  guilty 
of  disaffection  to  the  ruimg  powers.  This  interposition,  m  aid  of  the  views  of  their 
haughty  oppressors,  was  felt  the  more  keenly  by  the  great  body  of  the  Irish  chieftains, 
as  coming  from  a  quarter  to  which  the  ancient  fame  of  their  country  for  sanctity  and 
learning  might  well  have  encouraged  them  to  look  for  sympathy  and  support.  In  the 
warmth  of  this  feeling,  a  memorable  remonstrance  was  addressed  to  the  pope  by  O'Neill, 
prince  of  Tyrone,  speaking  as  the  representative  of  his  brother  chiefs  and  of  the  whole  Irish 
nation.  "It  is  with  difficulty,"  say  they,  "we  can  bring  ourselves  to  believe  that  the 
biting  and  venomous  calumnies  with  which  we,  and  all  who  espouse  our  cause,  have 
been  invariably  assailed  by  the  English,  should  have  found  admittance,  also,  into  the  mind 
of  your  holiness,  and  have  been  regarded  by  you  as  founded  in  fact  and  truth."  Lest 
such  an  impression,  however,  should,  unluckily,  have  been  produced,  they  begged  to  lay 
before  him  their  own  account  of  the  origin  and  state  of  their  nation, — "  if  state  it  could 
be  called,"! — ^"<J  t)f  the  cruel  injuries  inflicted  upon  them  and  their  ancestors  by  some 
of  the  English  monarchs  and  their  unjust  ministers,  as  well  as  by  the  English  barons 
born  in  Ireland; — injuries,  they  add,  inhumanly  commenced,  and  still  wantonly  con- 
tinued. It  would  thus  be  in  his  power,  to  judge  of  them  and  their  rulers,  and  determine 
on  which  side  the  real  grounds  for  complaint  and  resentment  lay. 

After  this  introduction,  the  Irish  chiefs  proceed  to  give  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  early 
history  of  their  country;  and  beginning  with  the  sons  of  Milesius,  lay  claim  to  a  succes- 
sion of  kings  of  Ireland  through  no  less  a  period  than  4000  years,  ending  in  the  year 
1170,  when  Adrian,  an  Englishman  by  birth,  and  still  more,  as  they  add,  by  affection  and 
prejudice,  delivered  up  a  country  which  its  own  line  of  kings  had  preserved  sacred  from 
foreign  doinuiion,  through  so  many  ages,  to  be  the  helpless  prey  of  a  horde  of  tyrants,  far 
more  cruel  than  the  fangs  of  ravening  wild  beasts.^  From  that  fatal  moment,  they 
allege,  no  device  or  expedient  that  fraud  or  violence,  in  their  most  odious  forms,  could 
suggest,  had  been  left  untried  by  the  English  intruders  to  extirpate  the  native  race,  and 
appropriate  to  themselves  the  sole  dominion  over  the  soil.  In  this  design,  too,  they  had 
so  far  succeeded,  that  wliile  all  the  fairest  portion  of  the  island  had  been  gradually 
usurped  by  them,  the  rightful  proprietors  were  driven  to  the  bogs  and  mountains,  and, 
even  there,  were  compelled  to  fight  for  some  dreary  spot  upon  which  to  exist. 

The  stale  of  a  country  thus  circumstanced,  could  not  be  otherwise,  these  chiefs  add, 
than  one  of  constant  civil  war;  and  it  was,  therefore,  not  wonderful  that  the  crimes 
and  miseries  which  are  ever  attendant  on  domestic  strife, — the  murder  and  rapine,  the 
mean  frauds,  the  detestible  perfidies,  which  it  engenders, — should,  with  both  parties,  have 
grown  so  habitual  as  to  become  a  second  nature. ^  So  great  had  been  the  sacrifice  of 
human  life,  in  this  struggle,  that,  without  counting  the  numbers  carried  ofl^  by  famine, 
and  long  grievous  imprisonment,  no  less  than  50,000  on  each  side  had  fallen  by  the 
sword  in  the  field.  ||  "Alas!"  they  exclaim,  "  we  have  now  no  directing  head  to  watch 
over  us,  to  enlighten  our  counsels,  and  amend  our  errors."ir 

The  safety  of  their  church,  they  bitterly  complain,  had  been  brought  into  peril,  not 
merely  in  a  worldly  and  temporal  sense,  but  as  regarded  the  eternal  safety  of  their  own 
souls;  and  while  such  was  the  extremity  to  which  the  act  of  the  Roman  pontiff"  had  re- 
duced thein,  none  of  those  conditions  on  which  he  had  granted  the  dominion  of  Ireland 
to  Henry  and  his  successors  had  been  fulfilled  by  any  of  those  princes.  According  to  the 
bull  confirming  this  grant,  the  English  king  had  solemnly  promised  to  enlarge  the  boun- 

*  Rymer.  t.  iii.  p.  767.— This  grant  "  shows  (says  Dalryiiiple)  the  maiinpr  in  which  earls  were  created  at 
that  time.  It  confers  twenty  pounds  per  annum  upon  him  for  his  services  in  the  battle  of  Dundalk,  under 
the  name  of  earl  of  Loueth,  and  gives  that  earldom  to  him  and  the  heirs  male  of  his  body  by  the  service  of 
one  fourth  of  a  knight's  fee." 

t  "  De  ortu  nostro  et  statu,  si  tamen  status  dici  bebeat,  ac  etiam  de  injuriis  crudelibus  nostris,  nostrisque 
progenitoribus,  per  nonuullos  reges  Anglia',  eorumque  ministros  iniquos,  et  barones  Anglicos  in  Hibernia 
natos,  iiihumaniter  illatis,  et  coniinuatis  adhuc." 

X  "  Sicque  nos  privans  honore  regin,  nostri  absque  culpa,  et  sine  rationabili  causa,  credelioribus  omnium 
bestiarum  deiilibus  tradidit  laercandos." 

§  "  Unde  propter  hsec  et  nuilta  alia  similia  inter  nos  et  illos  implacabiles  inimieiticB  et  giierrs  perpetual  sunt 
exorts.  E,x  quibus  seculce  sunt  occasiones  muluse,  depredationes  assiduse,  rapinse  continuse,  fraudes  et  per- 
tidis  detestabiles  et  nimis  crebra;." 

II  "  Plusquamquinquaginta  millia  hominum  a  tempore  quo  facia  est  usque  in  pr.Tsens  de  utraque  natione, 
prater  consumptos  fame  et  afflictos  careere  gladio  ceciderunl." 

IT  "  Sed,  proh  dolor!  ex  defectu  capitis,  omnis  correctio  nol)is  defecit  et  debita  enienda.'' 


334  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

daries  of  the  Irish  church,  and  preserve  all  its  rights  and  privileges  untouched  and  entire ; 
to  inform  the  people,  by  wholesome  laws  and  sound  moral  discipline;  to  implant  every 
where,  throughout  the  land,  the  seeds  of  virtue,  and  eradicate  those  of  vice;  and,  finally, 
to  pay  to  St.  Peter  the  stipulated  pension  of  Id.  a-year  from  every  house. 

Such  were  the  conditions  of  the  papal  grant ;  but  the  kings  of  England,  they  declare, 
had,  in  every  respect,  departed  from  them.  Instead  of  the  boundaries  of  the  church 
having  been  enlarged,  it  had,  on  the  contrary,  been  so  much  encroached  upon,  that  some 
of  the  cathedrals  had  been  despoiled  of  half  their  possessions;  while,  to  such  an  extent 
was  ecclesiastical  liberty  violated,  that  bishops  and  prelates  themselves  were^  by  the  mere 
order  of  the  king's  ministers,  cited  to  appear,  and  then  arrested  and  cast  into  prison;* 
till,  at  length,  from  long  endurance  of  such  treatment,  the  spirit  of  the  clergy  had  sunk 
into  servile  submission,  nor  could  they  now  summon  the  courage  to  whisper,  even  to  his 
holiness,  the  grievances  and  insults  under  which  they  suffered.  Such  being  "  their  own 
unworthy  silence,  under  such  wrongs,  it  is  not  for  us,"  add  these  indignant  chiefs,  "  to 
utter  a  syllable  in  their  behalf" 

With  respect  to  the  mass  of  the  population,  whom  their  new  rulers  had  pledged  them- 
selves to  instruct  by  means  of  salutary  laws  and  sound  moral  discipline,  such  was  the 
manner,  they  allege,  in  which  this  promise  had  been  carried  into  effect,  that,  by  degrees, 
all  that  holy  and  dovelike  simplicity  which  had  once  characterized  the  Irish  nation,  was 
transformed,  by  the  example  and  society  of  these  strangers,  into  low  serpentine  craft.f 
Depriving  the  people  of  their  own  ancient  and  written  laws, — with  the  exception  of  a 
few  which  they  would  not  suffer  to  be  wrung  from  them,— ^these  foreigners  replaced  them 
by  others  of  their  own  dictation,  conceived  in  the  bitterest  spirit  of  hatred  towards  the 
people  for  whom  they  legislated;  and,  in  more  than  one  instance,  providing  deliberately 
for  their  extermination. 

To  give  some  idea  of  the  iniquity  of  the  code  under  M'hich  they  suffered,  the  writers 
of  the  remonstrance  cite  the  following  instances: — I.  That  no  Irishman,^  however  ag- 
grieved, could  bring  an  action  in  the  king's  courts;  though,  against  himself,  an  action 
might  be  brought  by  any  person  who  was  not  an  Irishman.  2.  That  if  an  Englishman 
murdered  a  native,  however  innocent  and  exalted  in  rank  might  be  the  latter,  or  whether 
he  was  layman  or  ecclesiastic,  or  even  abishopj  no  cognizance  would  be  taken  of  the  crime 
in  the  king's  courts.^  '3.  That  no  native  woman  married  to  an  Englishman  could,  on  his 
death,  be  admitted  to  the  claim  of  dower.  4.  That  it  was  in  the  power  of  any  English 
lord  to  set  aside  the  last  wills  of  the  natives  subjected  to  him,  and  dispose  of  their  pro- 
perty according  to  his  own  pleasure,  appropriatmg  it  allj  if  such  was  his  inclination, 
to  himself  When  crime  was  thus  sanctioned  by  the  strict  letter  of  the  law,  what  a  host 
of  evils  must  have  been  let  loose  by  its  spirit! 

The  remonstrants  add  that,  even  by  churchmen  among  the  English,  the  killing  of  an 
Irishman  was  not  regarded  as  a  crime;  and  they  refer  to  several  instances  of  natives 
having  been  murdered  with  impunity;  some  of  them,  they  say,  under  circumstances  too 
atrocious  to  be  easily  credited.  Among  other  proofs  of  the  feeling  of  the  English  clergy, 
on  this  point,  it  is  stated  that  a  certain  brother  Simon,  who  was  of  the  order  of  the  friars 
minors,  and  also  a  near  relation  of  the  bishop  of  Connor,  had  been  heard  to  say,  but  the  year 
before,  in  the  court  and  presence  of  Edward  Bruce,  that  he  thou^rht  it  no  sin  to  slay  an 
Irishman;  and  that,  if  he  himself  were  to  commit  such  an  act,  he  should  not  the  less 
celebrate  mass  after  it.|| 

From  a  total  dissimilarity,  as  they  allege,  between  the  English  and  themselves,  not  only 
in  race  and  language,  but  in  every  other  respect, — a  dissimilarity  greater,  they  declare, 
than  word  or  pen  can  adequately  describe, — there  appeared  no  longer  the  slightest 
hope  that  they  could  ever  live  peacefully  together.  So  great  was  the  pride  and  lust  of 
governing,  on  one  side,  and  sucli  the  resolution,  on  the  other,  to  cast  off  the  intolerable 
yoke,  that,  as  there  never  yet  had  been,  so  never,  in  this  life,  would  there  be,  peace  or 
truce  between  the  two  nations.il    They  add,  that  they  themselves  had  already  sent  letters 

'  *  "  Per  ministros  eniin  regis  Aiiglife  in  Iliberrlia  cilantur,  arrestantur,  capiiintur,  et  incarcerantur  indif- 
ferenter  episcopi  et  praelati." 

t  "  Quod  sancta  et  coliimbina  ejus  siinplicitas.ex  eorum  cohabitatione  et  cxemplo  reprobo,  in  serpentinam 
callidltatem  mirabiliier  est  mutata." 

t  "  duod  onini  honiini  nnn  Ilibernico  licet  super  quncunque  indifffTenter  actione  convenin;  Hibernicutn 
queracunque;  sed  Hibernicus  quilibet  sive  clericus  sit,  sive  laicus,  solis  pralatis  exceptis,  ab  oinni  repellitur 
actiotieeo  ipso." 

§  "  Quando  aliquis  Aiiglicus  perfide  et  dolose  interfecit  hominem  Hibernicum,  quantumcunque  nobilem 
et  innocentem,  sive  clericiiin,  sive  laicum,  sive  regularem,  sive  secularein.etiam  si  prielatus  Hibernicus  inter- 
fectus  fuerit,  nulla  correct io  vel  einenda  fit  indicta  curia  de  tali  nefario  occisorc.'' 

II  "  Q,uod  non  est  peccatuin  hominem  Hibernicum  interficere,  et  si  ipseniet  istud  cominitteret,  non  minus 
ob  hoc  missam  celebraret." 

V  "  Quod  sicut  nee  fuit  hactenus,  nee  unqiiam  de  cirtero  inler  nos  et  illos  sincera  concordia  esse  vel  tier! 
poterit  in  hac  viia." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  335 

to  the  king  and  his  council,  through  the  hands  of  John  Hothum,  now  bishop  of  Ely,  re- 
presenting the  wrongs  and  outrages  they  had  so  long  suffered  from  the  English,  and 
proposing  a  settlement  by  which  all  such  lands  as  were  known  to  be  rightfully  theirs 
should  be  secured,  in  future,  to  them,  by  direct  tenure  from  the  crown;  or  even  agreeing 
in  order  to  save  the  farther  effusion  of  blood,  to  submit  to  any  friendly  plan  proposed 
by  the  king  himself,  for  a  fair  division  of  the  lands  between  them  and  their  adver- 
saries. 

To  this  proposition,  forwarded  to  England  two  years  before,  no  answer,  they  say,  had 
been  returned.  "  Wherefore,"  continue  they,  "  let  no  one  feel  surprise  if  we  now  en- 
deavour to  work  out  our  own  deliverance,  and  defend,  as  we  can,  our  rights  and  liberties 
against  the  harsh  and  cruel  tyrants  who  would  destroy  them."  In  conclusion,  they  an- 
nounce to  the  pope,  that,  for  the  more  speedy  and  effectual  attainment  of  their  object 
(this  spirited  remonstrance  having  been  addressed  to  his  holiness  before  the  Scottish  war,) 
they  have  called  to  their  aid  the  illustrious  earl  of  Carrick,  Edward  de  Bruce,  a  lord 
descended  from  the  same  ancestors  with  themselves,  and  have  made  over  to  him,  by  let- 
ters patent,  all  the  rights  which  they  themselves,  as  rightful  heirs  of  the  kingdom,  respec- 
tively possess, — thereby,  constituting  him  king  and  lord  of  Ireland. 

By  some  of  those  writers,  who  allow  the  spirit  of  religious  partisanship  to  infect  their 
views,  even  of  those  periods  in  our  history  when  the  same  creed  prevailed  in  both  islands, 
this  memorable  Remonstrance  of  the  chiefs  and  gentry  of  Ireland  has  been  represented 
as  really  issuing  from  the  Irish  prelates  and  clergy.*  It  is,  however,  manifest,  that  the 
real  object  of  this  spirited  document  was  to  denounce,  and  indignantly  protest  against, 
that  ultramontane  party,  in  the  Irish  church,  which  was  now  leagued  with  the  Roman 
court  in  abetting  the  English  king's  projects  for  the  subjugation  of  Ireland. f  The 
impressive  passage  in  which  this  servility,  on  the  part  of  the  church,  is  so  bitterly  branded, 
sufficiently  sets  aside  the  perverse  notion  that  the  native  clergy  took  any  leading  share  in 
drawing  up  the  document. 

At  the  commencement  of  this  reign,  the  cruel  persecution  and  spoliation  to  which,  in 
consequence  of  their  great  wealth,  the  religious  order  of  Knights  Templars  had  been 
subjected  in  most  parts  of  Europe,  was  also  extended,  though  in  a  more  mitigated  shape, 
to  England  and  Ireland  ; — the  combined  influence  of  the  pope  and  Philip  le  Bel  (the  latter 
the  chief  author  of  the  conspiracy)  having  been  exerted  to  prevail  on  Edward  to  join  in 
their  unprincipled  scheme.  To  what  extent  the  order  of  Knights  Templars  had  esta- 
blished themselves  in  Ireland  does  not  very  clearly  appear;  but  the  orders  for  their  seizure 
and  imprisonment  were  issued  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign  ;  and  in  the  year  130S,  all  the 
Knights  Templars  in  England  and  Ireland  were  apprehended  on  the  same  day.  The 
process  against  them  lasted  for  three  years,  and  was  conducted  in  Dublin  with  great  so- 
lemnity t^fore  Richard  Balbyn,  minister  of  the  order  of  the  Dominicans,  friar  Phiip  de 
Slane,  lecturer  of  the  same  order,  and  friar  Hugh  St.  Leger.  The  charges  brought 
against  them  appear  to  iiave  been  most  feebly  supported  ;  but  already  the  general  voice 
of  Europe  had  pronounced  their  condemnation,  and  the  lands  and  possessions  belonging  to 
them  in  Ireland  were  bestowed  upon  a  rival  order,  the  Knights  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem, 
long  established  at  Kilmainham.f 

*  See  Phelan's  History  of  the  Policy  of  the  Church  of  Rome  in  Ireland.  This  writer,  however,  thus  eloquently  does 
justice  both  to  the  matter  and  the  manner  of  the  Irish  Remonstrance:—"  When  it  urges,  on  their  behalf,  that, 
•  besides  the  sufferers  by  famine  and  disease,  50.000  of  their  countrymen  had  already  suffered  by  the  Saxon 
sword ;'  and, '  that  there  is  no  longer  a  spot  in  their  native  country  which  the  arrogance  of  the  strangers 
will  allow  them  to  call  their  own;'  it  makes  an  appeal,  the  truth  of  which  is  supported  by  our  wretched 
annals,  and  the  force  acknowledged  by  liuman  nature." 

t  "  Here  again,"  says  Dr.  O'Connor  (ColumManus  ad  Hibernos,  No.  2  ,)  "  the  ultramontanes  interfered;  and 
England,  being  then  in  amity  with  Rome,  they  confederated  with  her  and  with  the  Roman  court,  against 
their  native  country." 

i  Archdall,  Monast.  Hibem.  228. 


336  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

EDWARD    III. 

State  of  Ireland  on  the  accession  of  Edward  III. — Dissensions  among  the  great  English 
families. — Irish  again  petition  for  tiie  advantages  of  English  huv — again  without  success. — 
Massacre  of  English  by  Englisli  in  Lcinster  and  Munster. — Maurice  Fitz-Thomas  created 
carl  of  Desmond. — Lavish  grants  of  Palatinates. — O'Brian  takes  the  field  in  great  force. — 
Feuds  between  the  De  Burghs  and  the  earl  of  Desmond. — Severe  measures  of  Sir  Anthony 
Lucy. — Desmond  refuses  to  attend  Parliament-^-is  arrested  and  thrown  into  prison. — Lord 
William  Berminghani  executed. — Announced  intention  of  the  king  to  visit  Ireland — his 
real  purpose  an  expedition  against  Scotland. — Murder  of  the  young  earl  of  Ulster — adoption 
of  Irish  laws  and  usages  by  the  Do  Burghs  and  other  English. — The  lord  of  Kerry  joins 
the  Irish — is  taken  prisoner  by  the  earl  of  Desmond, — Severe  Measures  against  the  English 
Born  in  Ireland — announced  resumption  of  all  grants  and  gifts  made  to  them. — General 
indignation  of  the  old  English  settlers. — A  parliament  summoned,  which  Desmond  and 
other  lords  refuse  to  attend. — A  convention  Imld  by  these  lords  at  Kilkenny — remonstrance 
addressed  by  them  to  the  king. — Administration  of  Sir  Ralph  Ufford — takes  summary  mea- 
sures against  the  refractory  lords — his  treacherous  seizure  of  the  earl  of  Kildare. — Ufford's 
death  and  character.-^  Earl  of  Kildare  released  from  prison — attends  the  king  at  Calais,  and 
is  knighted  for  his  valour — gracious  conduct  of  Edward  to  him  and  the  earl  of  Pesmond. — 
Desmond  appointed  lord  justice — his  death. — Useful  ordinances  for  Ireland. — Disqualifying 
Laws  against  the  natives. — The  Duke  of  Clarence,  the  king's  son,  made  lord  lieutenant — 
his  prejudices  against  the  English  settlers — succeeds  in  defeating  the  Irish  forces,  and 
returns  to  England — sent  over  again  as  lord  lieutenant,  and  holds  a  parliament. — The 
famous  statute  of  Kilkenny — its  tyrannical  enactments. — Administration  of  Sir  William 
Windsor— wanton  acts  of  power  committed  by  him. — Miscellaneous  notices. 

During  the  reigns  of  the  first  and  second  Edwards,  the  power  of  the  English  crown,  in 
Ireland,  had  considerably  declined.  Even  in  its  best  time,  the  footing  gained  in  that 
realm  was  but  partial  and  \ocn],  and  a  large  portion  even  of  this  limited  sovereignty  fell 
away  during  the  reigns  that  followed,  from  the  crown.  The  wars  of  Henry  IIL  and  the 
two  succeeding  princes,  in  France  and  Scotland,  left  no  disposable  force  or  treasure  for 
the  reduction  of  Ireland  ;  and  even  of  the  portion  of  tliat  kingdom  already  conquered, 
the  greater  part  had  been  withdrawn  from  the  royal  jurisdiction,  by  those  lavish  grants 
to  a  few  favoured  individuals,  beginning  with  the  first  adventurers,  which  had  been  the 
means  of  wantonly  parcelling  out,  among  nine  or  ten  English  lords,  almost  the  whole  of 
the  kingdom. 

The  reign  of  the  third  Edward  will  be  found  to  differ  but  little  from  those  of 
1^07'  his  predecessors,  in  the  odious  picture  it  presents  of  a  cruel  and  rapacious  aris- 
tocracy let  loose  upon  a  defenceless,  because  divided,  people.  It  would  seem, 
indeed,  almost  incredible  that,  in  the  chivalrous  days  of  the  Edwards,  there  should  have 
been  found  so  many  of  high-born  and  warlike  English  noblemen  to  take  a  part  in  the 
rude  and  inglorious  frays  of  Anglo-Irish  warfare.  But,  besides  the  temptations  so  fertile 
a  field  of  plunder  held  forth,  a  nearer  insight  into  the  homes  and  habits  of  the  English 
nobility  of  that  period  might  warrant  the  conclusion,  that  they  themselves  were  still  very 
backward  in  civilization  ;*  and  that,  not  only  in  the  general  outline,  but  in  some  of  the 
features  also  of  their  social  condition,  they  difl^jred  not  very  much  from  those  great  Irish 
chieftains  against  whom  they  were  now  employing  all  the  worst  arts  of  buccaneering 
warfare.  Like  the  chieftain,  the  English  baron  of  that  day  was  a  kind  of  independent 
potentate,  regarding  only  the  conventional  law  of  his  own  class,  and  submitting  but  by 
force  to  any  other;  while  constantly  surrounded  by  idle  and  ruffianly  retainers,  ever 

*  The  following  is  the  character  given  hy  Hume,  of  the  Etiglish  baron  of  this  period  : — "  The  produce  of 
his  estates  was  consumed  in  rustic  hospitality,  hy  himself  or  his  officers.  A  great  number  of  idle  retainers, 
ready  for  any  disorder  or  mischief,  were  maintained  by  him:  all  who  lived  upon  his  estate  were  absolutely 
at  his  disposal.  Instead  of  applying  to  courts  of  justice,  he  usually  sought  redress  by  open  force  and  violence. 
The  great  nobility  were  a  kind  of  independent  potentates,  who,  if  they  submitted  "to  any  regulations  at  all, 
were  less  governed  by  the  municipal  law  than  by  a  rude  species  of  the  law  of  nations." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  337 

ready,  at  his  bidding,  for  rapine  and  mischief,  he  bore,  like  the  Irish  cliief,  too  close  an 
affinity  to  the  worst  species  of  king,  to  be  ever  expected  to  prove,  under  any  circum- 
stances, a  good  subject. 

During  the  administration  of  Thomas  Fitz-John,  earl  of  Kildare,  who  was  the  lord 
justice,  at  the  commencement  of  this  reign,*  there  broke  out  violent  hostilities  between 
Maurice  Fitz-Thomas,  afterwards  earl  of  Desmond,  assisted  by  the  Butlers  and  Berming- 
hams,  and  the  lord  Arnold  Poer,  having  on  his  side  the  powerful  family  nf  tlie  Do  Burghs. 
The  cause  alleged  for  the  general  quarrel  which  thus  committed  tliem,  in  battle  array, 
against  each  other,  only  shows  how  combustible  must  have  been  the  state  of  feeling 
which  so  slight  an  insult — for  insult,  we  are  told,  it  was  deemed — could  provoke  into  ex- 
plosion. The  lord  Arnold  Poer,  it  seems,  had  called  Maurice  Fitz-Thoma9,+  in  derision, 
"a  rhymer;"  and  hence  the  summons  of  the  forces,  on  both  sides,  to  the  held.  The  con- 
sequences of  the  battle,  to  the  Poers  and  the  De  Burghs,  were  most  disastrous  ;  great  num- 
bers of  both  these  families  were  slain,  while  others  were  driven  into  Connaught,  and 
their  lands  despoiled  and  ruined.  In  vain  did  the  lord  justice  endeavour  to  conipose  this 
senseless  strife;  his  efforts  proved  wholly  unavailing.  The  unlucky  aggressor,  Arnold 
Poer,  fled  into  England, — leaving  the  field  to  the  triumphant  Butlers  and  their  confede- 
rates, who,  after  having  wreaked  their  vengeance  by  laying  Wcaste  his  lands,  were  pro- 
ceeding to  extend  their  ravages  still  farther,  when  at  length  the  government,  taking 
alarm,  strengthened  the  guards  of  the  cities  and  towns,  and  made  preparations 
for  their  defence.  Mandates  were  issued  also  by  the  king,  on  hearing  of  the  re-  -i.j.W 
bellious  spirit  manifested  by  these  barons,  in  w.hich,  expressing  his  surprise  and 
displeasure  at  the  accounts  that  had  reached  him,  he  enjoined  the  immediate  submission  of 
both  parties  to  his  representative,  the  lord  justice.^ 

Before  the  arrival,  however,  of  this  mandate,  the  confederates  themselves  had  already 
adopted  the  course  it  enjoined,  and,  despatching  an  envoy  to  the  justiciary,  had  assured 
him  they  meant  no  injury  to  the  king  or  his  cities,  but  had  assembled  solely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  avenging  themselves  on  their  enemies.  They  now  added,  that  they  were  ready 
to  make  their  appearance  before  him  at  Kilkenny,  and  there  defend  themselves  against 
the  charge.^  Accordingly  they  met,  in  that  city,  the  lord  justice  and  the  king's  council, 
and  humbly  sued  for  a  charter  of  pardon  or  peace;  but  their  offence  having  been  much 
too  serious  to  admit  of  such  easy  remission,  farther  time  was  taken  by  the  council  for  the 
consideration  of  their  suit. 

Mean  while,  the  Irish  of  Leinster,  taking  advantage,  in  their  turn,  of  the  dissensions 
of  their  rulers,  had  set  up  Donald  Mac  Art  Mac  Morrough,  a  descendant  of  the  ancient 
princes  of  that  province,  to  be  their  king  and  general;  and,  making  an  irruption  into  the 
English  settlement,  advanced  with  a  numerous  force  within  two  miles  of  Dublin;  where, 
being  attacked  by  sir  Henry  Traherne,  they  were  all  put  to  rout,  and  their  chief,  Mac 
Morrough,  himself,  made  prisoner.  The  English  general  consented,  for  the  sum  of  200^, 
to  spare  this  chieftain's  life;  and  he  was,  soon  after,  enabled  to  escape  from  the  castle  of 
Dublin,  through  the  help  of  another  Englishman,  Adam  Nangle,  who  conveyed  to  him 
a  rope  for  that  purpose.  This  kindness,  however,  proved  fatal  to  Nangle  himself;  for  he 
was  tried  for  the  act,  and  executed. jl 

On  the  death  of  the  earl  of  Kildare,  the  second  of  that  title,  at  Maynooth,ir 
Roger  Outlaw,  prior  of  Kilmainham,  and  also  lord  chancellor  of  Ireland,  was  ap-  joog' 
pointed  to  the  office  of  lord  justice.     In  the  same  year,  James  Butler,  second  earl 
of  Carrick,  was  created  earl  of  Ormond,**  having,  at  the  same  time,  granted  to  him  the 
regalities,  liberties,  knights'  fees,  and   other  royal  privileges  of  the  county  of  Tipperary, 
with  all  the  rights  of  a  palatine  in  that  county,  for  life.     During  the  administration  of 
Roger  Outlaw,  the  lords  Arnold  Poer  and  William  de  Burgh  having  returned  into  Ire- 
land, the  principal  leaders  of  the  late  disgraceful  baronial  feuds  were  induced,  through 
the  interposition  of  the  lord  justice,  to  consent  to  terms  of  peace ;  and  between  the  Poers 
and  De  Burghs  on  one  side,  and  the  Butlers,  Geraldines,  and  Berminghams  on  the  other, 
a  reconciliation  was  happily  effected,  in  celebration  of  which  the  earl  of  Ulster 
gave  a  great  feast  in  the  castle  of  Dublin  ;   and,  on  the   following  day,  the  lord  -io-jq' 
Maurice  Fitz-Thomas  commemorated  the  event  by  a  similar  banquet  in  St.  Patrick's 
church  ;  though,  as  the  chronicler,  somewhat  scandalized,  remarks,  it  was  then  the  holy 
season  of  Lent.fl- 

*  See  Rymer,  torn.  iv.  295.,  for  a  writ  addressed  to  the  earl  of  Kildare,  at  this  lime,  concerning  the  custody 
of  the  castles  near  the  marches. 
t  Annal.  Hibern. 

i   Rymer,  iv.  356.  §  Annal.  Hibern.  |(  Ibid. 

V  Lodge.  **  Carle,  Introduu.  tt  Annal.  Hibern. 

42 


339  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Though  80  frequently  repulsed  in  their  efforts  to  obtain  the  protection  of  English  law, 
the  natives  again,  in  the  second  year  of  this  monarch's  reign,  preferred  a  petition  to  the 
crown,  praying  that  the  Irish  might  be  permitted  to  use  the  law  of  England  without  being 
obliged  to  purchase  charters  of  denization  to  qualify  them  for  that  privilege.*  The  writ 
of  the  king  recommending  this  prayer  to  the  "  unprejudiced"  attention  of  the  lord  justice 
differs  little  in  phrase  or  tone, from  those  of  his  predecessors  on  the  same  point;  nor  is 
any  thing  more  said  of  the  petition  or  its  significant  prayer,  during  the  remainder  of  this 
king's  reign. 

Under  the  government  of  sir  John  Darcy  new  insurrections  broke  forth  in  the  pro- 

vinces  of  the  soutli ;  and  while  Mac  Geoghegan  took  the  field  at  the  head  of  his 
1329    ^'^'^o^^'^'"^  '"  Westmeath,  O'Brian  of  Thomond  held  forth  the  signal  of  insurrection 

to  the  septs  of  Munsler.  At  this  critical  juncture,  the  infatuated  Enghsh  were 
employed  in  murdering  each  other;  and  a  treacherous  massacre  which  took  place  in  Or- 
giel,  exhibited  the  frightful  spectacle  of  not  less  than  160  Englishmen,  among  whom 
were  the  earl  of  Louth,  Talbot  of  Malahide,  and  many  more  gentlemen  of  rank,  lying 
basely  butchered  by  tlieir  own  countrymen,  the  Gernons,  Savages,  and  others.  Almost 
at  the  same,  time  the  Barrys,  Roches,  and  other  English  in  Munsler,  were  guilty  of  a  no  less 
atrocious  and  sweeping  act  of  carnage  upon  the  lord  Philip  Bodnet,  Hugh  Condon,  and 
about  140  of  their  followers,  all  of  whom  were,  at  one  fierce  swoop,  made  victims  to 
the  factious  rage  and  perfidious  cruelty  of  their  own  countrymen. 

It  was,  assuredly,  but  just  retribution  that,  in  the  fair  and  open  field  of  fight,  the  curse 
of  defeat  should  light  upon  the  arms  of  those  who  had  dishonoured  the  name  of  soldier 
by  such  base  and  craven  cruelty  ;  and,  in  every  direction,  discomfiture  and  disaster  ap- 
pear to  have  attended  the  course  of  the  English  troops.  The  force  marched  by  lord 
Thomas  Butler  into  West  Mealh  was  put  to  rout  near  Mullingar,  with  considerable  loss, 
by  the  chief,  Mac  Geoghegan.  Sir  Simon  Gcnevil,  in  like  manner,  suffered  a  signal  de- 
feat at  Carbery,  in  the  county  of  Kildare  ;  while  Brian  O'Brian  ravaged,  at  will,  over 
the  whole  country,  and,  among  other  achievements,  burnt  down  the  towns  of  Athassel 
and  Tipperary. 

Unable  to  cope  witii  so  general  a  spirit  of  insurrection,  the  lord  justice  saw  that  he 

was  left  no  other  resource  than  to  call  in  tiie  aid  of  that  powerful  and  popular  no- 
joof)  bleman,  Maurice  Fitz-Thomas,  who  had  a  few  months  beforef  been  created  earl 

of  Dui^mond,  with  a  grant,  at  the  same  time,  of  all  the  regalities,  liberties,  and 
other  royal  privileges  of  the  county  of  Kerry.  J 

Thus  were  two  more  powerful  seignories  added  to  tlie  many  already  created,  empower- 
ing a  proud  and  upstart  oligarciiy  to  domineer  over  tlie  whole  land.  The  distracting 
oppression,  indeed,  of  petty  kingship  under  which  the  country,  in  its  old,  independent 
state,  groaned,  was  now  but  replaced  by  a  form  of  toparchy  still  more  insulting  and 
odious,  inasmucii  as  the  multitbld  scourge  had  passed  from  the  hands  of  natives  into  those 
of  aliens  and  intruders.  'I'he  palatinate  now  granted  to  Desmond  formed  the  ninth  of 
those  petty  sovereignties  into  which  the  kingdom  had  been  wantonly  parcelled  in  order 
to  enrich  and  exalt  a  few  favoured  individuals,  not  more  to  the  injury  of  the  people  than 
to  the  usurpation  and  abuse  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  crown. ^  For,  in  fact,  these  pala- 
tine lords  had  royal  jurisdiction  througiiout  their  territories;  made  barons  and  knigiits, 
and  erected  courts  for  civil  and  criminal  causes,  as  well  as  for  the  management  of  their 
own  revenues,  according  to  the  forms  in  which  the  king's  courts  were  established  in  Dub- 
lin.||  They  made  their  own  judges,  sheriff's,  and  coroners ;  nor  did  the  king's  writ  run  in 
the  palatinates,  thou^i^h  they  comprised  more  than  two  parts  of  the  English  colonies.lf 

In  compliance  with  the  desire  of  the  government,  and  under  a  promise  from  them  of 
king's  pay,  Desmond,  at  the  head  of  nearly  10,000  men,  having  the  O'Brians  for  his 
allies,  took  the  field  against  the  combined  septs  of  Leinster,  the   O'Nolans,   O'Mor- 

*  Prynne.aoO.  t  Lodge. 

t  Willi  llie  exception,  as  usual,  of  tlio  four  pleas  thus  parlicutarized  in  tlie  words  of  the  palenl:  "Quatiior 
placitis,  videlicet,  inccndw,  rapfu.forcstaV,  et  thesauro  iiivenlo.  ac  etiam  proficuo dc croccis,'d\inVd\a.t  exceplis." 

§  "Of  this  sort  are  the  Rianls  of  counties  palatine  in  Ireland,  which  though  at  liist  were  granted  upon 
good  consideration  when  they  were  tirst  conquered,  for  that  those  lands  lay  then  as  a  very  border  to  the  wild 
Irish,  suhject  to  continual  invasion,  so  as  it  was  needful  to  give  them  great  privileges  for  the  defence  of  the 
inhabitants  thereof;  yet  now  that  il  is  no  more  a  border,  nor  fronliered  with  enemies,  why  should  such  a 
privilege  be  any  longer  continued  ?"— Spenser,  J^iew  of  the  State  vf  It  eland. 

II  Davins. — According  to  Lynch,  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Irish  seignories  was  not  quite  so  extensive  as  it  is 
represented  by  sir  John  Davies.  "It  is  not  easy  (he  says)  to  determine  precisely  the  jurisdiction  belonging  to 
fialatinatis,  or  'conies  paleis;'  but  if  il  was  thought  that  in  Ireland  there  at  any  time  existed  such  a  paiati- 
iiate  as  that  of  Chester,  where  a  subject  created  his  own  barons,  held  his  own  parliament,  &c.,  such  an  oiiiitioi* 
will  prove  whi(<ly  untenable."— Kifio  of  the  Legal  Insti:uUoiis,  &.C. 

U  Ibid. 


HISTOUY    OF    IRELAND.  339 

roughs,  and  O'Dempsys;  and  laying  waste  all  thoir  lands,  compelled  them  to  submit  and 
give  hostages,  having  retaken  the  castle  of  Ley  from  the  O'Dempsys.  The  funds  of  the 
government  being  found  insufficient  to  defray  the  expenses  of  this  war,  or  discharge  the 
king's  pay  promised  to  Desmond,  that  lord  had  recourse,  for  the  subsistence  of  his  troops, 
to  the  old  Irish  exaction  of  coyne  and  livery, — a  mode  of  taxation  which  he  himself  had 
first  brought  into  use  among  the  English  (having  resorted  to  it,  in  the  preceding  reign, 
for  the  support  of  the  war  against  Bruce,)  and  which  his  cousin  the  carl  of  Kildare,  now 
readily  adopted,  after  his  example. 

The  following  year  was  but  a  repetition  of  the  same  violent  scenes,  with  the  same  tur- 
bulent actors  on  both  sides  engaged  in  them;  and  under  the  two  sevcrnl  heads  of  Eng- 
lish dissension  and  Irish  insurrection,  may  be  classed  all  that  we  find  recorded  of  its 
stormy  course.     The  unconquered  Mac  Geoghegans  were  again  up  in  the  county  of 
Meath ;  but  being  attacked  by  the  earls  of  Ulster  and  Ormond,  they  were  put  to  flight, 
after  a  spirited  resistance,  leaving  the  sons  of  three  Irish  kings  among  the  slain. 
Scarcely  had  the  Mac  Geoghegans  been  thus  dispersed,  when  a  yet  more  troublesome  i  ooq' 
enemy,  O'Brian  appeared  in  the  field;  and  a  parliament  was  held  fortiiwith  in  Kil- 
kenny, at  which  there  were  present,  besides  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  the  earls  of  Ulster 
and  Ormond,  the  lord    William  Bermingham,  and  the  lord  Walter  de  Burgh  of  Con- 
naught;   each   bringing   with   him  a  considerable  force,  for   the  purpose  of  marching 
against  O'Brian,  and  dislodging  him  from  a  strong  post  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cashel, 
of  which  he  had  got  possession.* 

But,  even  while  thus  engaged  on  a  great  public  service,  there  were  some  of  these  self- 
willed  and  contentious  lords  who  could  not  refrain  from  indulging  their  own  personal 
vengeance;  and  the  De  Burghs,  on  their  way  to  Limerick  in  pursuit  of  O'Brian,  wan- 
tonly wasted  and  plundered  the  earl  of  Desmond's  lands,  carrying  away  with  them  con- 
siderable booty.  This  outrage  aroused  all  the  animosity  between  the  two  families;  and 
to  such  alarming  lengths  did  their  feuds  proceed,  that  the  lord  justice  found  himself  com- 
pelled to  seize  on  the  heads  of  both  factions,  and  to  commit  the  two  lords,  Maurice  of 
Desmond  and  the  earl  of  Ulster,  to  the  custody  of  the  marshal  of  Limerick.f 

During  these  feuds  of  the  English  among  themselves,  the  wretched  natives,  taking  ad- 
vantage of  the  general  confusion,  and  perhaps  intoxicated  with  opening  prospects  of 
revenge,  committed,  in  Lienster,  one  of  those  savagely  cruel  acts  which  occur  but  too 
commonly  in  their  history,  and  show,  as  contrasted  with  the  general  kindliness  of  the 
national  temper,  of  what  anomalous  ingredients  humin  character  may  be  com- 
posed.  While  pursuing  their  course  of  ravage,  this  mob  found  assembled,  at  their  i<^.>i' 
devotions,  in  the  church  of  Freinston,  about  fourscore  people;  who,  perceiving  that 
their  own  doom  was  inevitable  thought  only  of  saving  the  priest,  and  earnestly  besought 
of  the  soldiers  to  spare  his  life.  These  ruffians,  however  deaf  to  all  entreaties,  inter- 
posed their  javelins  to  prevent  the  holy  man's  escape,  though  he  hold  the  Host  in  his 
hand;  and  then,  setting  fire  to  the  building,  completed  their  work  of  sacrilege  by  burn- 
ing church,  priest,  and  congregation  together.  But  this  inhuman  rabble  was  not  suffiired 
to  go  unpunished.  The  English  citizens  of  Wexford,  gathering  courage  from  despair,  ven- 
tured to  attack  their  brute  force,  and  putting  four  hundred  of  them  to  the  sword,  spread  such  a 
panic  among  the  remainder,  that  they  all  fled  in  confusion,  and  were  most  of  them  drowned 
in  the  river  Slaney. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  following  year,  we  find  the  king,  by  his  writ,  appoint- 
ing the  earl  of  Ulster,  to  be  his  lord-licutenant;  while,  at  the  same  tunc,  sir  An- 
thony  Lucy,  a  man  of  high  reputation  in  England,  but  of  a  severe  and  unbending  looi' 
ciiaractcr,  was  sent  over  as  lord  justice,  bringing  with  him  the  lord  Hugh  de  Lacy, 
who  had  been  pardoned,  and  was  now  restored  to  some  share  of  favour.  The  adminis- 
tration of  this  governor  commenced  under  favourable  auspices.  Little  more  than  a  week 
liad  elapsed,  from  the  time  of  his  arrival,  before  a  great  victory  was  gained  over  the  Irish, 
at  a  place  called  Finnagli,  in  Meath.  The  new  lord-justice,  however,  had  come  strongly 
prepossessed  with  those  jealous  prejudices  and  suspicions  which  used,  in  former  times,  to 
be  harboured  only  against  the  natives,  but  which,  of  late,  had  begun  to  be  extended  to 
those,  also,  among  the  old  English,  who,  whether  from  interest,  love  of  popularity,  or 
some  more  generous  motive  sought  to  recommend  themselves  to  the  good  will  of  the  op- 
pressed native  population.  Among  the  most  distinguished  of  these  Anglo-Irish  was  Mau- 
rice, earl  of  Desmond,  whose  popular  qualities,  added  to  his  great  wealth  and  station,  gave 
him  an  influence  throughout  the  country  which  was  found,  in  many  instances,  so  power- 
ful as  to  throw  the  authority  of  the  government  itself  into  the  shade.  To  sir  Anthony 
Lucy,  who  had  come  prepared  to  uphold  sternly  the  powers  entrusted  to  him,  this  rival 

*  Aiinal.   Hibfirn.  t  Aniial,  Flibern..— Marlcbtinoiigh's  Chronicle. 


340  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

ascendency  was  of  course,  peculiarly  obnoxious,  and  the  jealousy  it  excited  in  his  mind 
soon  found  an  opportunity  of  exploding. 

A  parliament,  siiinmoned  by  him  to  meet  at  Dublin  shortly  after  his  arrival,  having  ex- 
hibited but  a  tliin  attendance  of  great  lords,  he  thougiit  right  to  adjourn  it  to  the  7th  of 
July,  when  it  was  held  at  Kilkenny;  and  there  Thomas,  earl  of  Kiidare,  with  other  lords 
and  gentlemen  who  had  on  the  former  occasion  absented  themselves,  gave  their  attend- 
ance and  were  freely  pardoned;  having  first  been  sworn  on  the  Holy  Evangelists,  and  the 
relics  of  the  saints,  to  bear  allegiance  and  keep  the  peace  for  the  future.  There  were, 
however,  many  of  the  powerful  lords,  and,  among  the  rest,  Maurice  of  Desmond,  who 
had  pointedly  withheld  their  presence ;  and  an  outbreak  of  the  Irish  at  the  same  time  in 
Leinster,  wliere  they  burnt  the  castle  of  Ferns,  having  appeared  to  the  lord  justice  to 
indicate  concert  between  these  rebels  and  the  disaffected  lords,  he  proceeded  summarily 
to  act  upon  this  suspicion.  In  the  month  of  September  the  lord  Henry  Mandeville  was, 
by  warrant  from  the  chief  justice,  apprehended;  and  in  the  following  month  the  earl 
of  Desmond  was,  under  the  same  authority,  arrested  at  Limerick;  and  being  brought 
from  thence  to  Dublm,  was  there  made  prisoner  in  the  castle.*  Several  other  arrests 
took  place  under  the  same  suspicion,  and,  in  some  instances,  it  would  appear, 

•100.2'  ^^^  without  just  grounds;  as  the  lord  William  Bermingham,  who,  together  with 
his  son,  was  seized  at  Clonmel  in  the  February  following,  was,  notwithstand- 
ing his  splendid  military  career,  executed  at  Dublin; — his  son  Walter  only  escaping  the 
same  fate  in  consequence  of  his  being  in  holy  orders.f 

Shortly  after  the  new  lord  justice's  arrival,  articles  were  sent  over  by  the  king  for  the 
reformation  of  the  state  of  Ireland. |  It  was  not  the  fault,  as  we  have  seen,  either  of 
this  monarch  or  of  his  predecessors,  that  the  great  benefits  of  English  law  had  not  been 
extended  to  the  natives  in  general  ;  and  one  of  the  ordinances  now  transmitted^  was 
framed  with  a  view  to  this  wise  policy,  being  couched  in  the  following  terms: — "That 
one  and  tiic  same  law  bo  observed  to  the  Irish  and  the  English  ;" — an  exception  being 
added,  in  the  case  of  betages,^  who,  like  the  English  villain,  were  entirely  in  the  power 
of  their  lords.  But  this  royal  mandate,  like  all  the  rest,  in  the  same  liberal  spirit,  that 
had  preceded  it,  was  rendered  null  by  the  blind  selfishness  of  the  magnates  to  whom  it 
was  addressed.  Another  of  these  ordinances  was  directed  against  that  standing  evil, 
absenteeism. 

The  public  announcement  at  this  time,  by  the  king,  of  his  intention  to  pass 

■jooi*  over  into  Ireland, |1  and  apply  himself  personally  to  the  task  of  reforming  the  slate 
'      '  of  that  realm,  might  well  be  classed  with  those  other  dawnings  of  better  fortune 

iqoo  which  now  and  tiien  opened  upon  hnples.^  Ireland,  merely  to  close  again  in  dark- 
ness were  it  not  manifest  that  all  the  preparations  made  ostensibly  for  the  king's 
Irish  visit  were  but  as  a  blind,  to  divert  attention  from  the  formidable  expedition  then  pre- 
paring against  Scotland.  But,  although  the  advantage  of  the  king's  presence  was  lost 
to  the  Irish, ^  the  very  steps  taken  in  contemplation  of  his  visit  were  such  as,  by  quicken- 
ing the  zeal  of  the  subordmate  authorities,  and  directing  their  attention  to  abuses  likely 
to  bo  sifted,  could  not  fail  to  be  of  at  least  temporary  service.  Thus,  among  other  politic 
measures,  it  was  commanded  that  all  persons  possnssing  lands  in  Ireland  should  repair 
thither  for  the  advantage  and  defence  of  that  kingdom  ;  and  likewise  that  search  should 
be  made  through  the  kino-'s  records,  to  learn  what  steps  had  been  taken  for  the  amend- 
ment of  the  state  of  the  Irish.** 

The  king  had  sent  writs  to  the  earl  of  Ulster  and  other  great  lords,  announcing  his 
intention  of  coming ;  and  his  summons  to  the  absentees,  dated  January  28th,  1332,  re- 
quiring them  to  accompany  him,  and  recover  their  possessions  out  of  the  hands  of  the  rebels, 
is  addressed  to  Thomas,  earl  of  Norfolk,  and  twenty-two  other  English  lords  and  gentle- 
men. But  the  secret  scheme  wliich  had  been  all  this  time  maturing  against  Scotland 
was  now  ripe  f(jr  execution ;  and  the  mask  he  had  worn  towards  both  countries  might 
with  impunity  be  cast  aside.  All  the  supplies,  therefore,  that  had  been  granted  for 
his  pacific  visit  to  Ireland,  he,  without  any  scruple,  appropriated  to  his  memorable  Scot- 


*  Annal.  Hil)prn.  t  [lanmer.— Marlcburrougli's  Clironicle. 

\  Pryiine,  2(i7.— Cov. 

§  "Ciuod  una  ni  eailcm  lex  fiat  tain  riibernicis  qiiam  Anglicis;  excepta  servitiite  Betaijionim,  penes 
dominos  suns,  endpin  iiindo  (|iio  usilaluni  est  in  Anglia  de  Villaiiis."  Ttie  term  Bclageis  tlius  explained  liy 
Harris: — "  It  would  seem  \i>  apppar  that  villains,  natives,  originaries  ov  origival  tenants,  and  betages  import 
miioh  the  same  lliiiii,';  and  that  Wv  Kiiglish  villaiii  and  Irish  betagh  in  \\\e  sinMe  person."— Ware,  .^»«i?''i- 
lies,  S(c.,  chap  20. 

II  Rymer,  '■  De  Passacio  Rp^is  in  Hil)Prniam  meditato,"  t.  iv.  p.  .'SOU. 

IT  RyiiUT,  "  lie  Passagin  licgis  ail  paries  Hihernim  prnrogato,"  lorn.  iv.  p.  rtO.T  *♦  Cox. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  341 

tisli  warfare;  and  found,  in  tlio  brilliant  victory  at  Halidon  Hill,  a  result  far  more  suited 
to  his  chivalrous  tastes  than  any  that  the  precious,  but  slow  and  remote,  triumphs  of  the 
legislator  could  furnish. 

The  only  measure  which  appears  to  have  been  taken  by  him  towards  the  pacification 
of  Ireland,  was  the  issue  of  writs  to  the  lord  justice,  and  other  public  authorities,  em- 
powering them  to  admit  to  the  king's  peace  all  disaffected  persons,  as  well  English  as  Irish, 
upon  such  terms  as  the  lord  justice  and  his  council  should  deem  honourable  and  expe- 
dienf. 

In  the  month  of  June,  this  year,  William  de  Burgh,  the  third  earl  of  Ulster, 
was  treacherously  murdered  near  Carrickfergus  by  his  own  servants; — an  event  -iooq' 
which,  far  more  from  the  youth  and  exalted  station  of  the  particular  victim,  than 
from  any  rarity  of  such  crimes,  excited  a  strong  and  general  sensation  throughont  the  coun- 
try.* One  feature  of  savage  life  that  marked  this  murder  was  the  great  number  of  persons 
engaged  in  it.     The  lord  justice,  we  are  told,  on  hastening  to  Carrickfergus  to  see  the 
delinquents  duly  punished,  found  that  the  country  people  had  anticipated  his  purpose,  and 
killed  300  of  the  murderers  and  their  abettors  in  one  day.     For  a  long  time  after  the  fol- 
lowing clause  used  to  be  inserted  in  all  pardons,  "  With  the  exception  of  the  death  of  the 
late  earl  of  Ulster."t 

The  young  lord,  who  was  thus  cut  off  in  his  twenty-first  year,  left  an  only  child,  a 
daughter,  the  heiress  of  his  great  possessions,  who  was  married,  in  the  year  1.3-52,  to  Lionel, 
third  son  of  king  Edward  III.  This  prince  was  then  created,  in  her  right,  earl  of  Ulster, 
and  also  lord  ofConnaught;  and,  after  him,  these  titles  and  possessions  were  enjoyed, 
through  marriage  or  descent,  by  different  princes  of  the  royal  blood  ;  until  at  length,  in 
the  person  of  Edward  IV.,  they  became  the  special  inheritance  and  revenue  of  the  Eng- 
lish crown. 

The  usual  process  by  which  foreign  settlers,  in  a  country  already  well  peopled,  become 
by  degrees  intermixed  and  incorporated  with  the  great  mass  of  the  population,  and  which, 
in  all  cases  save  that  of  Ireland,  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  a  natural  and  salutary 
result,  was,  at  the  period  where  we  are  now  arrived,  in  rapid  progress  among  the  Anglo- 
Irish  ;  and  in  the  instance  of  the  powerful  family  of  the  De  Burghs,  received  a  more 
quickening  impulse  onward  from  motives  of  rapacity  and  ambition.  Immediately  on  the 
earl's  death,  the  chiefs  of  the  junior  branches  of  the  family,  then  residing  in  Connaught, 
fearing  the  transfer  of  his  large  possessions  into  strange  hands  by  the  marriage  of  the 
heiress,  took  advantage  of  the  opportunity  now  offered  of  seizing  upon  his  estates;  and 
the  two  most  powerful  of  the  family,  sir  William,  or  Ulick,  the  progenitor  of  the  earls 
of  Clanricarde,  and  sir  Edmond  Albanach,  the  ancestor  of  the  earls  of  Mayo,  having 
confederated  together,  and  declared  themselves  independent,  took  possession  of  the  entire 
territory  ; — the  town  of  Galway,  together  with  the  country  as  far  as  the  Shannon,  falling 
to  the  lot  of  sir  William.  Still  more  to  enlist  the  sympathy  of  the  natives  on  their  side, 
they  renounced  the  English  dress  and  language,  and  adopted  those  of  the  country;  car- 
rying the  metamorphosis  so  far  as  even  to  change  their  names, — sir  William  taking  the 
title  of  Mac  William  Eighter,  and  sir  Edmond  that  of  Mac  William  Oughter.]: 

The  example  set  by  these  "degenerate  English,"  as  they  came  to  be  styled,  began, 
from  this  period,  to  be,  very  extensively  followed.  Among  the  inferior  branches  of  the 
Do  Bnrgh  family,  one  named  itself  Mac  Hubbard,  and  another  Mac  David.  Similar  in- 
stances of  degeneracy,  or  rather  defection,  became  common  throughout  the  whole  king- 
dom :  and  the  frequent  occurrence  of  the  words  "  English  rebels"  in  the  legal  records  of 
this  reign  shows  that  disaffection  to  the  crown  was  now  no  longer  confined  to  mere  "  Irish 
enemies." 

In  the  spring  of  this  year,  the  earl  of  Desmond,  after  having  been  imprisoned  in  the 
castle  of  Dublin  for  more  than  eighteen  months,  was  released  from  his  confinement;  and, 
in  a  parliament  held  soon  after,  almost  all  the  chief  noblemen  of  the  land  engaged  them- 

*  The  following  particulars  of  tliis  murder  are  given  by  Lodge: — "  He  was  murdered  on  Sunday,  June  G, 
1333,  by  Robert  Fitz  llicliard  Mandeville  (who  gave  him  his  first  wound,)  and  others  his  servants,  near  to  the 
Fords,  in  going  towards  Carrickfergus,  in  the  21st  year  of  his  age,  at  the  instigation,  as  was  said,  of  Gyle 
de  Burgh,  wife  of  sir  Richard  Mandeville,  in  revenge  for  his  having  imprisoned  her  brother  Walter  and 
others." 

t  In  some  of  these  charters  of  pardon,  the  crime  of  adherence  to  the  Scottish  enemies  is  coupled,  as  an  ex- 
ception, with  that  of  the  murder  of  the  earl  of  Ulster .— "  Morte  nup'er  com'  Ulton.  et  adherencia  Scotis  ini- 
micis  except." 

I  Hardiman's  ITistory  of  Galway. — "  In  the  same  province,"  says  sir  John  Davios,  "  Bremingham,  baron  of 
Athenry,  called  himself  Mac  Yoris;  Dexecester,  or  De'exon,  was  called  Mac  Jordan  ;  Mangle,  or  De  Anguin, 
took  the  name  of  Mac  Costello.  In  Munster,  of  the  great  families  of  the  Geraldines  planted  ihere,  one  was 
called  Mao  Morice,  chief  of  the  house  of  Lixnaw,  and  another  Mac  Gibbon,  who  was  also  called  liie  White 
Knight.  The  chief  of  the  baron  of  Dunboyne's  house,  who  is  a  branch  of  the  house  of  Ormond,  took  the 
surname  of  Mac  Pheris." 


342  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

selves  and  their  estates  as  surety  for  iiis  future  fealty.  We  find  him  summoned  also  to 
attend  the  king,  in  his  expedition  into  Scotland  ;  and  a  writ  of  liberate,  dated  Drogheda, 
1336,*  shows  that  he  then  received  1001.  for  the  expenses  he  had  incurred  in  bringing 
his  men  at  arms,  hobellars  and  foot-soldiers,  from  different  parts  of  Leinster  to  Drogheda, 
and  there  waiting  a  whole  montii  for  shipping  to  convey  them  to  Scotland. 

From  a  grant  made  at  this  time,  of  estates  in  England,  to  Matilda,  countess  of  Ulster, 
the  widow  of  the  late  murdered  earl,  it  appears  that  this  lady  having  felt  a  very  natural 
dread  of  visiting  Ireland,  and  no  returns  from  her  Irish  possessions  having  been  received 
by  her,  the  government  had  taken  all  her  castles,  lands,  and  tenements  there  into  their 
own  hands,  and  assigned  for  her  dowry  estates  of  equal  value  in  England. f 

No  event  much  worthy  of  notice  occurs  in  the  records  of  the  few  following  years  ; 
with  the  doubtful  exception  of  a  most  marvellous  victory  gained  by  the  English  over  the 
natives  in  Connaught,  in  which,  with  the  loss  to  themselves,  as  it  is  said,  of  but  one  man, 
they  slew,  10,000  of  the  enemy  ;J  thus  bearing,  in  its  result,  a  suspicious  resemblance  to 
two  of  the  great  battle-fields  of  this  reign, — Crecy,  and  Halidon  Hill.^ 

In  the  year  1339,  the  Irish  were  again  up  in  arms,  throughout  the  whole  kingdom  ; 
more  especially,  as  usual,  in  Munster,  where  the  earl  of  Desmond,  attacking  the  insur- 
gents of  Kerry,  slew  1200  of  their  force,  and  took  prisoner  Maurice  Fitz-Nicholas,||  fourth 
lord  of  Kerry,  who  had  joined  the  ranks  of  the  Irish,  and,  being  now  cast  into  prison  by 
Desmond,  there  ended  his  days. IT  This  nobleman  had,  in  the  year  1325,  been  tried  and 
attainted  by  the  Irish  parliament  for  a  crime,  the  violent  nature  of  which,  as  well  as  the 
remission  of  the  capital  punishment  adjudged  to  it,  mark  significantly  the  lawless  cha- 
racter of  the  times.  Bearing  a  grudge,  in  con.sequence  of  some  past  dispute,  to  Desmond 
Mac  Carthy,  son  and  heir  to  Mac  Carthy  More,  this  lord  attacked  him,  as  he  sat  on  the 
bench,  in  the  court  of  assize,  at  Tralee,  and  laid  him  dead  at  the  judge's  feet.** 

No  less  active  against  the  Irish  than  Desmond,  the  earl  of  Kildare  now  attacked  those 
of  Leinster,  pursuing  the  O'Dempsysff  so  closely  that  many  of  them  were  drowned  in  the 
river  Barrow;  while  a  booty,  richer,  it  is  said,  than  had  ever  been  taken  in  that  country, 
was  brought  by  the  lord  justice, — at  that  time  Charlton,  bishop  of  Hereford, — from  Idrone, 
in  the  county  of  Carlow.  In  the  same  year,  the  chief  governor  just  mentioned  resigned 
his  post  to  the  prior  of  Kilmainham,  Roger  Outlaw,  who  now,  for  the  fourth  time,  held  that 
high  office ;  but  died  at  the  beginning  of  the  following  year,  having  constituted  Sir  John 
Darcy  lord  justice  of  Ireland  for  life.  But  Darcy,  unwilling,  perhaps,  to  be  made  the 
instrument  of  measures  so  rigorous  as  those  now  about  to  be  adopted,  sent  over  as  his 
deputy  sir  John  Morris,  a  gentleman  yet  untried  in  the  field  of  Irish  politics. 

The  object  of  the  policy  about  to  be  enforced  by  the  king  and  his  English  advisers  was, 
not  merely  to  reduce,  but,  if  possible,  break  up  and  disperse,  that  enormous  mass  of  wealth 
and  power  which  had  been  accumulated,  in  the  course  of  nearly  two  centuries,  by  the 
descendants  of  the  first  English  conquerors  of  Ireland  ;  and  the  earliest  intimation  given 
by  Edward  of  such  a  design  had  been  during  the  administration  of  sir  Anthony  Lucy,  in  the 
Articles  of  Reform  transmitted  to  that  governor.  In  this  instrument  he  had  threatened 
that,  if  the  great  landholders  were  not  more  attentive  totheir  duties,  he  would  be  compelled 
to  take  their  lands  and  possessions  into  his  own  hands.  1+  There  was  no  attempt,  probnbly,  at 
that  time,  to  carry  this  threat  into  execution,  as  we  meet  with  no  farther  mention  of  it. 

On  the  arrival,  however,  of  the  present  lord  justice,  the  very  appointment  of 
tWi  ^^'^0"'''  ^  mere  knight,  was  viewed  as  an  insult  by  the  great  lords,  it  appeared  that 
still  more  sweeping  and  arbitrary  measures  were  about  to  be  enforced  against  the 
old  English;  and  among  the  first  was  a  general  resumption  of  all  the  lands,  liberties, 
seignories,  and  jurisdictions  that  had  been  granted,  in  Ireland,  not  by  Edward  himself 
only,  but  by  his  father.  In  all  cases,  likewise,  whether  in  his  time  or  that  of  his  pre- 
decessors, where  debts  due  to  the  crown  had  been  cither  remitted  or  suspended,  it  was 
now  declared  that  all  such  indulgences  were  revoked,  and  that  these  debts  must  be  strictly 
levied  without  any  delay. ^J     This  rigorous  measure  he  endeavoured  to  e.xcuse  by  alleging 

*  Close  Roll,  10  Ell.  Til.  t  Rymer,  torn.  v.  ad  ann.  13:58. 

J  Marlehiirrough's  Chronicle. 

§  At  Ualidon  Mill  30,(100  of  the  Scots  were  killed;  wliilo  tliere  fell,  on  the  Ensrlish  side,  only  1  knight,  1 
esquire,  and  13  privali>  soldiers.     At  Crecy,  the  disparity  of  loss  was  still  more  remarkable. 

II  Lodge.— Accordins  to  Cox,  he  was  named  NiclioIasFilz-Maurice. 

ir  Annal.  Hibern.  '  lie  was  put  in  prison  (says  the  annalist,)  where  he  died  for  want  of  meat  and  drink 
for  his  allowance  was  but  very  little,  because  he  had  rebelled,  with  tlie  Irish,  a!,'ain.st  the  king  and  the  earl  '  ' 

**  Lodge. 

tt  The  O'Dempsys  were  onoof  the  septs  inhabiting  the  territory  called  anciently  Ilyfalgia,  comprising  apart 
of  the  county  of  Kildari!,  part  of  the  King's  (bounty,  and  part  of  the  Queen's  County.  Among  the  other  sepia 
coTTtposing  this  unifm  were  the  O'Malones,  O'Dalys,  O'Mulloys,  Mac  Loghlin's,  &c.  &c.— Ware,  Autiq.;  Seward, 
Topograph,  lliherii. 

\\  I'rynne,  2fi7.  §5  lb.  272. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  343 

the  necessity  which  he  found  himself  under  of  providing  for  the  expenses  of  the  war 
just  then  renewed  with  France.  Among  the  ordinances  put  forth  by  hitn,  there  were  some 
for  the  correction  of  official  abuses,  more  especially  those  of  the  king's  exchequer,* 
which,  had  they  not  so  openly  formed  a  part  of  one  fixed  and  general  design  to  dislodge 
from  its  strongholds  the  ascendency  of  the  Anglo-Irish,  and  plant  in  its  place  a  purely  Eng- 
lish dominion,  would  have  been  welcomed  as  sound  and  rational  reforms. 

But,  could  any  doubts  have  been  entertained  as  to  the  real  object  of  legislation,  ^    ^ 
they  must  have  been  removed  by  an  ordinance  issued  in  this  year,t  wherein,  ad-  -^3^2* 


married  and  possessing  estates  only  in  Ireland,  he  therefore  ordered  that  his  justiciary, 
after  diligent  inquiries,  should  remove  all  such  officers  as  were  married  and  held  estates 
in  Ireland,  and  replace  them  by  fit  Englishmen  having  lands,  tenements,  and  benefices  in 
England. 

This  open  announcement  of  the  royal  purpose  to  exclude,  in  future,  from  all  share  in 
the  government,  the  descendants  of  those  who  had  conquered  that  realm,  as  well  as  of 
those  who  had  ever  since  struggled  to  retain  it,  produced,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
a  burst  of  indignant  feeling  throughout  the  whole  of  the  old  English  population.  The 
jealousy  long  felt  by  the  crown  towards  those  great  Anglo-Irish  lords,  whom  its  own 
reckless  favours  had  nursed  into  such  portentous  strengtii,  and  who  were  now,  compara- 
tively, at  least,  with  the  king  and  his  nobles,  become  the  natural  heads  of  the  land, 
had  already,  in  more  than  one  instance,  declared  itself.  But  it  was  not  until  now  that 
this  feeling  had  found  vent  for  itself  in  the  law;  or  that  the  distinction  between  the 
two  races,  the  English  by  blood  and  tiie  English  by  birth,  was  resorted  to  as  a  reason 
or  pretext  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  old  colonists  to  the  new.  It  was  now  too  late,  however, 
to  think  of  dislodging  an  evil  so  long  and  so  firmly  entrenched ;  and  the  only  effect  of 
the  unwise  aggression  was,  to  render  the  party  attacked  more  sensible  of  their  own  power. 

To  allay  the  excitement  caused  by  tliis  measure,  a  parliament  was  summoned  ^  ^ 
by  the  lord  justice,  to  meet  at  Dublin  in  October;  but  the  earl  of  Desmond,  and  1042* 
the  lords  of  his  party,  refused  peremtorily  to  attend  it;  and,  conTederating  with 
other  great  nobles,  as  well  as  some  cities  and  corporations,  they  appointed,  of  themselves, 
without  any  reference  to  the  head  of  the  government,  a  general  assembly  to  meet,  in 
November,  at  Kilkenny.  This  convention,  at  which  were  present  neither  the  lord  justice 
nor  any  other  of  the  king's  officers,  made  itself  memorable,  not  only  by  tiie  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances under  which  it  met,  but  also  by  a  long  and  spirited  petition  to  the  king,  which 
was  the  result  of  its  deliberations,  and  which,  though  not  expressly  pretending  to  parlia- 
mentary authority,  purports  to  be  the  act  of  the  prelates,  earls,  barons,  and  commons  of 
Ireland.]:  To  understand  clearly  the  complaints  made  by  tiiese  petitioners  of  the  en- 
croachments, as  they  chose  to  consider  tliem,  of  the  natives,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that,  during  the  troubled  reign  of  Edward  II.,  and  in  the  first  years  of  the  present,  the 
Irish  had  succeeded,  in  more  than  one  instance,  in  regaining  possession  of  their  ancient 
territories;  and  that  the  greater  part  of  the  lands  of  Leinsler  had  been,  for  some  time, 
in  the  hands  of  Mac  Morrough  and  O^JMoore,  the  descendants  of  the  original  princs  of 
that  province. 5 

The  petition,  which  is  in  old  Norman  French,  begins  by  complaining  that,  in  conse- 
quence of  mal-administration  and  the  unguarded  state  in  which  the  country  had  been  left, 
more  than  a  third  part  of  tiie  lands  conquered  by  the  king's  progenitors  had  been  taken 
possession  of  by  his  Irish  enemies;  in  consequence  of  which  iiis  liege  English  subjects 
had  become  so  impoverished  as  to  be  even  in  want  of  the  means  of  subsistence.  The 
great  castles  and  fortresses  which,  while  held  by  the  crown,  formed  the  safeguards  of  the 
land,  were  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Irish;  chiefly,  as  the  petitioners  allege,  through 
the  misconduct  of  the  king's  treasurers,  who  had  delayed,  and  frequently  embezzled  the 


*  PrynnR.  274,  275.  t  Close  Roll,  15  Ed.  III.    See  Prynne,  p.  274.  t  Pyrnne,  279. 

§  Baron  Finglas,  Breviate  of  Ireland.  It  was  about  the  beginning  of  Edward  the  Second's  reign  that  this 
resumption  of  the  lanils  of  Leinsler  took  place.  The  English  lord  who  then  held  the  territory  of  I.«y  having 
appointed  one  of  the  O'Moores  to  be  his  captain  of  war  in  that  territory,  this  chief  look  possession  of  the 
country  for  himself, — "  de  servo  doniinus,  de  subjecto  |)rincpps  eftectus,"  as  friar  Clyniie  states  it.  And  a 
similar  appointment,  about  the  same  time,  enabled  Mac  Morrough,  the  captain  or  chief  of  the  CavenaghK, 
to  possess  himself  of  the  county  of  Carlow,  and  of  the  greater  part  of  the  county  of  Wexford.— See  Davies, 
p.  104. 


344  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

pay  of  the  constables  and  warders.     The  castles  of  Roscommon,  Rathdown,  Athlone,  and 
Bunratty  had,  from  this  and  other  causes,  been  abandoned  to  the  enemy. 

After  a  number  of  other  such  charges  against  the  officers  of  the  royal  exchequer, 
accusing  them  of  fraud  and  overreaching  in  almost  all  their  transactions,  and  prayinn^  of 
the  king  to  apply  a  remedy  to  these  evils,  they  proceed  to  notice  the  grasping  covetous- 
ness  of  his  ministers,  in  holding  each  a  number  of  lucrative  posts ;  and  entreat  that  in 
future  none  should  be  allowed  to  hold  more  than  one  office.*  But  the  late  order  issued 
by  the  king,  for  the  resumption  of  all  grants  made  in  Ireland  by  himself  and  his  royal 
progenitors,  was  naturally  the  grievance  on  which  their  resentments  and  recollections 
were  most  alive.  Recalling  to  his  mind  the  gallant  devotion  of  his  liege  English  of  Ire- 
land, when,  at  their  own  cost,  they  joined  the  banner  of  his  royal  ancestor,  in  the  wars  of 
Gascony,  Scotland,  and  Wales,  they  contrasted  this  devotion  with  the  conduct  of  the 
English,  who  had  been  sent  over  to  rule  them,  and  who,  wanting  in  means  or  resources 
of  their  own,  and  wholly  ignorant  of  the  country,  came  but  to  enrich  themselves  disho- 
nourably at  the  expense  of  a  people  whom  they  misgoverned.  "  In  return  sire,"  say  the\', 
"  for  trusty  and  loyal  services,  you  and  your  progenitors  granted  to  divers  English  people 
of  this  realm  lands,  tenements,  franchises,  and  remissions  of  debt,  of  which,  by  virtue  of 
your  charters,  they  have  long  remained  in  quiet  possession.  But  now,  sire, your  ministers 
inform  us  that,  by  a  late  mandate  from  England,  all  these  royal  gifts  and  grants  have 
been  revoked."  This  act  they  calmly,  but  firmly,  pronounce  to  be  unjust  and  contrary 
to  reason ;  as  neither  by  their  ancestors  nor  by  themselves  had  their  claim  to  the  favours 
of  the  crown  been  ever  forfeited  :  and  they  therefore  pray  of  the  king  that,  according  to 
the  provisions  of  the  Great  Charter,  they  may  not  be  ousted  of  their  freehold  without 
being  called  in  judgment.f 

There  are  yet  a  number  of  other  abuses  and  grievances  complained  of  by  them, — 
such  as  the  seizure  of  lands  by  the  king's  escheators,  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  fee  they 
received  on  again  restoring  them;  the  great  hardship  of  persons  indicted  for  felonies,  in 
Ireland,  being  compelled  to  appear  and  answer  for  them  before  the  king  in  England;  the 
seizure  of  victuals  and  carriages  by  the  king's  ministers,  on  their  own  sole  authority, 
and  without  paying  any  money  for  them.  On  these,  and  some  other  subjects  of  com- 
plaint, the  petitioners  pray  of  the  king  to  institute  searching  inquiries,  and  apply  just  and 
prompt  remedies. 

Of  the  nature  of  the  answer  returned  by  Edward  to  this  earnest  remonstrance  we  are 
left  in  entire  ignorance;  the  only  notice  of  it  that  appears  to  be  extant  being  found  in  a 
writ  addressed  by  him  to  the  remonstrants  ;|  wherein,  acknowledging,  in  most  gracious 
terms,  the  receipt  of  their  petition,  he  acquaints  them  that  his  answer  to  its  several 
prayers  had  been  sent  under  the  great  seal  to  John  March  the  chancellor,  and  Thomas 
de  Wogan.  He  concludes  this  writ  by  informing  them  of  his  intention  to  pass  into  France 
with  a  large  force,  and  asking  their  aid  towards  his  expedition. 

In  the  same  year,  sir  Ralph  Ufford,  who  had  married  the  countess  dowager  of 
1S4'V  Ulster,  was  appointed  to  the  office  of  lord  justice;  and,  by  his  harsh  and  rigorous 
measures,  made  himself  so  odious  throughout  tiie  country,  that  the  long  course  of 
tempestuous  weather  which  happened  to  prevail   during  his  administration,  was,  by  the 
superstition  of  the  people,  laid  to  his  charge.^     The  first  act  of  this  lord  justice's  govern- 
ment was  to  put  down  the  aspiring  pretensions  of  Desmond,  who,  assuming  his  former 
attitude  of  defiance,  had  refused  to  attend  a  parliament  summoned  by  Ufford,  atDublin  and 
appointed  an  assembly  of  his  own  friends  and  confederates,  at  the  town  of  Callan. 
■j.i^r*  But  the  new  governor,  by  his  determined  conduct,  defeated  this  bold  design.     The 
other  great  lords  of  Desmond's  party,  on  being  prohibited  by  the  king's  writ,  de- 
clined their  leader's  soummons;  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  lord  justice,  marching  a  force 
into  Munster,  seized  on  that  earl's  lands,  and  farmed  them  out  at  a  rent  payable  yearly  to 
the  king.     Getting  possession  also,  by  stratagem,  of  the  castles  of  Iniskelly  and  Island, 
he  hanged  three  knights,  sir  Eustace  Poer,  sir  William  Grant,  and  Sir  John  Cottrel,  who 
had  held  the  command  of  them,  and  against  whom  the  charge  was  that  they  had  practised 
the  grievous  and  foreign  exaction  of  coyne  and  livery.jl 

*  "  Ensement,  siie,  pur  ces  qe  voz  ministres  Dirlaund  embrassont  plusours  offices  de  pur  covetisie  daver 
multz  des  foes,  voillez  sire  pur  vostre  profit  ordiner,  qe  nul  de  vos  ministres  illoeqes  ne  eyt  qe  un  office  soule- 
nient." 

t  "  Pur  quei  sire  vous  pleise  ordiner,  qe  cux  ne  soient  ostsez  de  lour  franc  lenenieniz  sanz  eslre  appele  en 
jugenient,  comela  Grande  Cliartre  voet." 

J  Close  Roll,  16  Ed.  III.  §  Annal.  Hibern. 

II  By  the  taxes  called  coyne  and  livery,  was  meant  food  and  entertainment  for  the  soldiers  and  forage  for 
the  horses.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Spenser,  thai  great  injustice  was  done  to  the  Irish  landlords  by  the  pro- 
hibition of  the  custom  called  coigny  or  coyne ;  "  for  all  their  tenants  (he  says)  being  commonly  but  tenants 
at  will,  they  use  to  lake  of  them  what  victuals  they  list;  for  of  victuals  ihcy  were  wont  to  make  small 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  345 

In  consequence  of  these  strong  measures,  Desmond  surrendered  himself  to  the  lord  jus- 
tice, and  was  let  to  bail  on  the  recognizances  of  the  earls  of  Ulster  and  Ormond,  and  four 
and  twenty  knights.  But  as  (through  fear,  it  is  supposed,  of  the  severity  of  the  lord  jus- 
tice) he  failed  to  appear,  according  to  the  condition  of  the  recognizance,  his  sureties  were 
left  to  answer  for  his  unworthy  default,  whereby  eighteen  of  the  knights  lost  their  estates 
and  were  utterly  ruined.* 

While  thus  successful  in  curbing  and  humbling  the  proud  Desmond,  Ufford  was  equally 
fortunate  in  his  proceedings  against  tiie  other  groat  leader  of  the  Anglo-Irish,  Thomas, 
earl  of  Kildare  ;  though  the  means  employed  by  hini  for  this  obj'^ct  present  such  a  train 
of  mean  and  elaborate  perfidy  as  no  success,  however  important,  should  be  suffered  to 
sanction  or  excuse.  Under  the  pretence  of  summoning  Kildare  to  join  the  monarch  with 
his  forces,  sir  William  Burton  was  sent  into  Munster,  with  two  writs, — one  containing 
the  royal  summons,  and  the  other  secretly  empowering  sir  William  to  seize  and  imprison 
the  earl.  So  quickly,  however,  on  Kildare's  announcement  of  the  king's  summons,  did 
his  followers  crowd  to  the  royal  standard,  that  to  produce  the  secret  writ,  with  any  hope 
of  being  able  to  execute  it,  would  have  been  a  worse  than  vain  attempt.  In  this  difficulty, 
the  only  resource  left  to  the  treacherous  envoy,  was  that  of  prevailing  upon  the  earl  to 
suspend  his  levy  of  troops  until  he  should  have  coiisnltcd  with  the  king's  council.  To 
this  proposal  Kildare  unsuspectingly  assented  ;  and  having  accompanied  sir  William  to 
Dublin,  for  the  pretended  purpose,  was  there,  while  consulting  with  the  council,  in  the 
exchequer,  suddenly  arrested  and  thrown  into  prison. f 

In  the  month  of  April,  this  year,  the  administration  of  Sir  Ralph  Ufford,  was  brought 
to  a  close,  by  his  death, — leaving  behind,  as  we  are  told,  one  general  feelinor 
of  abhorrence  for  his  memory.  Nor  had  this  odium,  in  his  case,  been  compensated  i.j^^f?* 
by  any  of  those  worldly  advantages  which  too  often  wait  on  a  life  of  oppression 
and  rapine,  as  he  died  in  necessitous  circumstances;  and  his  lady,  says  the  chronicler, 
who  had  been  received  like  an  empress,  and  lived  like  a  queen,  was  obliged  to  steal 
away  through  a  postern  gnte  of  the  castle  to  avoid  the  curses  of  her  enemies  and  the 
clamour  of  her  creditors.  Such  are  the  portraits  given  in  our  annals  of  these  two  un- 
popular personages;  but  with  every  appearance,  however,  of  having  been  exaggerated 
and  over-coloured  by  party  malice.  Coming  on  a  mission  so  odious  and  formidable  to 
the  fierce  oligarchs  of  the  realm,  and  carrying  his  measures  with  such  a  high  hand 
as  even  the  king  himself  shrunk  from  enforcing,  it  was,  perhaps,  fortunate  for  Ufford 
to  be  thus  rescued,  even  by  death,  from  the  storm  of  hatred  and  persecution  that  would 
have  assailed  him  on  his  retirement.  The  whole  period  of  Ufford's  government  did 
not  extend  beyond  a  year  and  nine  months ;  and  the  state  of  poverty,  in  which  he  is 
said  to  have  died,  seems  rather  inconsistent  with  the  course  of  extortion  and  peculation 
attributed  to  him. 

There  was  now  a  succession  of  no  loss  than  three  chief  governors  in  the  short  space 
of  two  months,  under  one  of  whom,  sir  John  Morris,  the  earl  of  Kildare,  who  had  been 
kept  arbitrarily  for  nearly  a  year  in  prison,  was,  on  the  recognizance  of  twenty-four  lords 
and  gentlemen,  released  from  confinement. 

By  a  similar  act  of  gracinusness,  and  through  the  interposition  of  sir  Walter  Berming- 
hara,  then  lord  justice,  Desmond  was  permitted  to  proceed  to  England,  to  lay  his  com- 
plaints at  the  foot  of  the  throne  ;  and  was  not  only  graciously  received,  but,  in  prosecu- 
ting his  claims  for  redress  of  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  him  by  Ufford,  was  allowed 
twenty  shillings  per  diem  for  his  expenses,  by  the  king.  All  the  estates,  too,  of  those 
who  had  become  bound  for  him,  while  in  prison,  v\'fere  by  letters  patent  restored  to 
them. I 

In  the  year  1344,  on  the  renewal  of  hostilities  with  France,  the  king  had  addressed  a 
writ  to  the  magnates  of  Ireland,  summoning  them  to  join  him  with  their  forces  ;5    .    „ 
and,  in  the  present  year,  the  earl  of  Kildare  went  with  thirty  men  at  arms  and  -ioaj 
forty  hobilliers,]!  to  serve  the  king,  at  the  siege  of  Calais,  where,  for  his  gallant 
conduct,  Edward  bestowed  upon  him  the  honour  of  knighthood. 

There  now  ensued  a  period  of  tranquillity,  for  some  years,  such  as  rarely  the  course  of 
our  annals  presents;  and  the  causes  assigned  for  tiiis  unusual  calm,  namely  the  favour 
extended  by  Edward  to  the  two  popular  Anglo-Irish  lords,  and  the  daily  expectation  of 

recltoning.  Neither  in  this  was  tlie  tenant  wronged,  for  it  was  an  ordinary  and  known  custom,  and  his  lord 
commonly  used  so  to  covenant  with  him,  which  if  at  any  time  the  tenant  dislil<ed,he  might  freely  depart  at  his 
pleasure.  But  now,  by  this  statute,  the  said  Irish  lord  is  wronged,  for  that  he  is  cut  off  from  iiis  customary 
services." — View  of  the  State  of  Ireland. 

*  Cox.— For  the  names  of  Desmond's  mainprisers,  see  Annal  Hibern.  ad  ann.  1345. 

t  Annal.  Hibern.  t  Annwl.  Hibern. — Cox. 

§  Rymer,  torn.  v.  p.  417  ||  Rymer,  torn.  v.  p.  544. 

43 


346  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

seeing  the  resumed  lanJs  and  jurisdictions  restored,  show  in  what  quarter  the  active  ele- 
ments of  political  strife  and  disorder  principally  lay.     During  this  period  the  office  of 
lord  justice  was  filled  by  five  or  six  successive  personages;  of  one  of  whom,  sir  Thomas 
Rokeby,  a  homely  saying  is  recorded,  characteristic,  we  are  told,  of  the  simple  and  sound 
integrity  of  the  man.     When  reproached  by  some  one  for  suffering  himself  to  be  served 
in  wooden  cups,  he  answered,  "  I  had  rather  drink  out  of  wood  and  pay  gold  and 
•foco'  silver,  than  drink  out  of  gold  and  make  wooden  payment."*     It  was  during  Roke- 
by"s  second  administration,  as  far  as  any  certainty  on  the  point  can  be  attained, 
that  the  crown,  after  a  short  and  vain  struggle  against  the  power  it  had  itself  created, 
thouglit  fit  to  restore  all  the  estates  and  jurisdictions  which  it  had  resumed.-}- 

So  well  had  Desmond  succeeded  in  ingratiating  himself  with  the  king,  that  he  was  now 

thought  worthy  not  only  of  being  entrusted  with  the  government  of  Ireland,  but 

^^;-^•  of  holding  that  high  and  responsible  office  for  life.     He  survived  but  five  months, 

*  however,  to  enjoy  this  honour;  and,  dying  in  the  castle  of  Dublin,  was  taken  from 

thence  and  interred  in  the  church  of  the  Friars  Preachers  at  Tralee. 

In  the  time  of  his  successor,  sir  Thomas  Rokeby,  who  resumed,  on  his  death,  the  helm 
of  the  state,  an  important  writ  was  issued,  ordering  that,  for  the  future,  the  parliament 
of  Ireland  should  lake  cognizance  of  erroneous  proceedings  in  the  king's  courts  of  that 
country,  instead  of,  as  hitherto,  putting  the  suhjf^ct  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  pro- 
secuting a  writ  or  error  in  England.]:  This  useful  reform  was  followed,  at  an  interval 
of  about  two  years,  by  a  series  of  ordinances,  most  of  them  equally  judicious  and  useful 
in  their  several  provisions,  for  the  better  government  of  the  church  and  state  in  Ireland, 
and  the  maintenance  of  the  English  laws  and  statutes  established  in  that  realm. 5 

Among  the  offences  and  abuses  denounced  in  these  ordinances  are,  the  intermarriage 
and  fostering  of  the  English  with  the  Irish;  the  depredations  committed  by  the  kerns,  or 
idle  men  ;  the  manifold  extortions  and  oppressions  practised  by  the  king's  officers,  more 
especially  those  of  the  exclicquer  and  court  of  wards.  In  reference  to  the  recent  dis- 
sensions between  the  old  and  new  English,  the  ordinance  enjoins  that,  in  every  such  case, 
the  lord  justice  shall,  after  diligent  inquiry  into  all  the  circumstances  of  the  feud,  cause 
due  process  to  be  served  on  the  delinquents;  and  shall,  on  conviction,  punish  them  by 
imprisonment,  severe  fines,  or  other  such  just  infliction. 

During  the  administration  of  James,  earl  of  Ormond,  who,  from  his  heing  the  grandson 
of  king  Edward  I.,  v^'as  styled,  usually,  "the  noble  earl,"  a  considerable  advance  was 
made  in  that  sure  system  of  warfare  against  the  Irish,  which  needed  no  weapons  for  its 
purpose,  but  those  which  the  law  so  readily  supplied,  by  the  issue  of  a  mandate  ordering 
that  no  "mere  Irishman"  should  be  made  a  mayor,  or  bailifl^,  or  other  officer  of  any  town 
within  the  English  dominion;  nor  be  received,  through  any  motives  of  consanguinity, 
affinity,  or  oilier  causes,  into  holy  orders,  nor  be  advanced  to  any  ecclesiastical  benefice  or 
promotion.il  A  modification  of  this  severe  edict  took  place  in  the  following  year,  when 
the  king  explained,  by  iiis  writ,  that  it  was  not  meant  to  extend  to  any  Irish  clerks  who 
had  done  him  service,  or  given  proofs  of  their  loyalty. 

The  earl  of  Ormond  having  been  called,  for  a  short  time,  to  England,  the  office  of 
lord  justice  was  mean  while  held  by  Maurice  Fitz-Gerald,  carl  of  Kildare,  with  the 
usual  salary  of  500/.  per  annum,  out  of  which  he  had  to  maintain  nineteen  horsemen  .')e- 
sides  himself.TT 

In  the  following  year,  the  important  announcement  was  made  to  both  countries,  of  the 
king's  intention  to  send,  as  deputy  to  Ireland,  his  third   son,  Lionel,  duke  of 
vim    Clarence.     This  young  prince,  who  married  the  daughter,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the 
late  William,  ear!  of  Ulster,  had  become,  in  her  right,  possessed  of  that  earldom, 
together  with  the  lordship  of  Connaught;  and,  as  the  maintenance  of  the  king's  power 
in  Ireland  was  now  the  common  cause  of  all  who  held  possessions  in  that  kingdom, 
Edward  summoned  all  such  persons  to  appear  before  him  and  his  council,  either  per- 
sonally or  by  proxy,  and  concert  measures  for  the  preservation  and  defence  of  that  realm. 

•  Campion,  llisiorie.  &;c. — Ilolinslied. 

■f  In  Ihe  case  o(  James,  carl  of  Ormond,  the  reftitiition  took  place  nmcli  earlier,  as  the  king,  in  considera- 
tion of  this  earl's  consangiiiniiy  to  himself,  restored  to  him  the  palatinate  of  Tipperary,  in  Ihe  year  1338. — 
Carte's  History  of  the  Life  of  the  Duke  of  Orm  vde,  Introduct. 

X  Close  Roll,  2'J  i:d.  Ill      t!,,'e  rryiine,  p.  2ctj. 

^  Ordinalio  de  Siatu  HilTrn  .  cited  by  Prynne  (p.  2S7..)  ont  of  the  Statute  Foil  in  the  Tower. 

(!  Rymer.  t.  vi.  32().  T'his  mctnoiahle  mandate  well  merits  to  he  given  at  full  lenctli — '•  (iiiod  nullus  mere 
Hibernicns,  lie  nalione  llil)enii<;'i  e.\i?tpns,  fiat  Major,  liallivus,  janitor  aiil  alius  otliciariut; -sen  minister  in 
.'iliqno  loco  nohis  suhjecto.  Nee  quod  aliqnis  archiepiscopus,  episcopus,  abbas,  prior,  aut  aliquis  alius  ad  fidenj 
iiostram  existens,  sub  forit-factiiia  omnium  qua;  nobis  forisfacere  pos^set,  aliquein  mere  Hiberiiicum,  de  na- 
tione  Hibernica,  ut  pr.Tmittitur,  e,\ist('ntem,  causa  consanguinilatis,  affinitatis.  atit  alio  niodo  quociinquc, 
in  canonicuin  recipiat,  vcl  ad  ali'iuod  bciRrnJuin  ucclcsiaslicuiii  inter  Anglicos  promoveat  vel  admjttat."' 

IT  Frynuc,  p  2'.>5. 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND.  347 

The  causes  assigned,  in  the  king's  writ,  for  the  state  of  affairs  they  are  called  upon  to 
remedy,  are,  first,  the  increased  violence  of  the  incursions  of  the  Irish  enemy;  next,  the 
inability  of  his  loyal  subjects  to  make  head  against  these  aggressions;  and,  lastly,  the 
absence  of  so  many  great  English  proprietors,  who  drew  all  they  could  from  their  Irish 
estates,  but  took  no  trouble  whatever  for  their  defence.*  Among  the  absentees  required 
to  contribute,  on  this  occasion,  to  the  raising  of  a  military  force,  are  found,  Marif,  coun- 
tess of  Norfolk,  Agnes,  countess  of  Pembroke,  Margery  de  Roos,  Anna  le  Despenser,  and 
several  other  great  ladies. 

The  result  that  followed  on  all  this  show  of  preparation  was  by  no  means  worthy  either 
of  the  occasion  or  the  effort;  as  an  army  consisting  of  but  fifteen  hundred  men  was 
the  whole  of  the  force  with  which  Lionel  proceeded  to  Ireland,  having  under  him  Ralph, 
earl  of  Stafford,  James,  earl  of  Ormond,  sir  John  Carew,  sir  William  Windsor,  and  other 
distinguished  knights. 

Although,  in  more  judicious  hands,  a  force  even  thus  small  might  have  been  rendered 
efficient  by  a  skilful  mode  of  employing  it, — especially  if  seconded  by  a  system  of  policy 
at  once  firm  and  conciliatory, — no  such  prosperous  results  were  to  be  looked  for  from  a 
leader  like  the  young  duke,  who,  besides  his  inexperience,  carried  too  openly  with  him  into 
his  new  sphere  of  power  all  those  prejudices  against  the  old  English  settlers  which  were 
then  so  prevalent  among  his  countrymen,  and  which,  in  a  land  already  convulsed  by 
faction,  had  opened  lately  a  new  and  ominous  chasm  of  strife.  In  order  to  enable  him, 
in  his  Irish  wars,  to  dispense  with  the  assistance  of  the  old  English  altogether,  it  was 
ordered  by  proclamation,  before  his  departure,  that  all  who  held  lands  in  Ireland  should, 
on  pain  of  forfeiture  of  their  possessions,  repair  thither  with  all  the  force  they  could  raise ; 
and  he  caused  it  now,  with  still  more  direct  avowal  of  his  object,  to  be  proclaimed  that 
none  of  the  old  English  inhabitants  should  be  allowed  to  join  his  army,  or  even  approach 
his  camp.f 

This  open  and  deliberate  insult  to  those  who  were  the  progeny  of  the  first  conquerors 
of  the  land,  and  who  had,  themselves,  fought  and  toiled  to  preserve  it,  could  not  fail  to 
be  deeply  and  indignantly  resented  ;  and,  had  so  rash  a  course  of  policy  been  persevered 
in,  the  realm  would  have  been  lost  most  probably  to  both  of  the  usurping  parties.  The 
young  prince,  however,  was  soon  made  sensible  of  the  mischievous  consequences  of  such 
conduct.  The  insurgents  of  Munster  being  those  whose  ravages  were  found  most  ha- 
rassing to  the  English  province,  the  first  measure  of  the  royal  duke  was  to  march  his 
army  against  O'Brian  of  Thomond.  But,  being  unacquainted  with  the  local  bearings  of 
the  country,  and  having  no  guides  or  means  of  intelligence,  he  lost,  in  this  ill-advised 
expedition,  a  great  number  of  his  troops.  Perceiving  how  hopeless,  therefore,  was  any 
endeavour  to  dispense  with  the  aid  of  the  Anglo-Irish,  he  hastened  to  retrieve  his  rash 
outset  by  the  issue  of  a  second  proclamation,  inviting  and  requiring  them  to  join  his  stan- 
dard without  farther  delay.  As  they  were  themselves  too  deeply  interested  in  the  success 
of  his  arms  to  regard  punctilio  in  such  an  emergency,  they  readily  ranged  themselves 
under  his  banner,  and  the  result  of  their  union  was  the  total  dispersion  of  the  Munster 
chieftain's  force. 

Returning  to  Dublin  after  this  success,  the  prince  conferred  the  honour  of  knight- 
hood upon  many  of  his  followers,  both  of  the  new  and  the  old  English  race.  He  like- 
wise removed  the  exchequer  to  Carlow,  and  expended  .50tW.  on  the  walling  of  that 
town;  by  which,  and  a  few  other  acts  of  the  same  nature,  he  so  far  pleased  the  country 
in  general  that  both  clergy  and  laity  concurred  in  granting  to  him  two  years'  revenue 
of  all  their  lands  and  tithes,  towards  the  maintenance  of  the  Irish  war.  To  this  prince 
is  also  attributed,  the  merit  of  having  been  the  first  who  kept  the  army  in  any  tolerable 
state  of  discipline,  and  prevented  them  from  being,  as  heretofore,  a  grevious  burden  to 
the  community. 

After  having  held,  for  nearly  three  years,  the  office  of  lord  lieutenant,  the 
duke  of  Clarence  returned  to  England,  without  having  gained  in  that  time  a  i^ofu* 
single  important  advantage  over  the  natives,  or  enlarged  the  scanty  boundaries  of 
the  English  power. 

In  the  course  of  the  three  following  years  we  find  him  twice  again  entrusted  with  the 
same  office ;  though  on  both  occasions  fur  a  very  limited  period.     It  was  during  his 
last  administration,  in  the  year  1387,  that  the  memorable  parliament  was  held  at  y^^' 
Kilkenny,  in  which  the  two  estates,  as  we  are  told,  sat  together,^:  and  which 

•  "Commodum  dictarum  terrarutn  siiarumab  eadem  terra  capiunt.et  defensjonem  aliquam  non  faciunt."— 
Close  Roll,  35  Ed.  HI. 

t   Cox. 

I  "The  opinion,"  gays  Dr.  Lingard,  speaking  of  ihia  reign,  "  thai  the  several  esUites  sate  and  voXeJ 
together,  derives  no  support  from  the  language  of  the  rolls." 


348  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

passed  the  cekbrated  act  known  generally  by  the  name  of  the  Statute  of  Kilkenny. 
This  remarkable  ordinance,  though  directed  chiefly  against  those  old  English,  or,  more 
properly,  Anglo-Irish,  who  had  adopted  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  natives,  contain3 
also,  in  reference  to  the  latter,  some  enactments  full  of  that  jealous  and  penal  spirit  which 
continued  for  centuries  after  to  pervade  and  infect  the  whole  course  of  English  legisla- 
tion respecting  Ireland.  The  following  are  the  principal  provisions  of  this  statute  :  — 
That  intermarriages  with  the  natives,  or  any  connexion  with  them  in  the  way  of  fostering 
or  gossipred,*  should  be  considered  and  punished  as  high  treason  : — that  any  man  of  En- 
glish race,  assuming  an  Irish  name,  or  using  the  Irish  language,  apparel,  or  customs, 
should  forfeit  all  his  lands  and  tenements  : — that  to  adopt  or  submit  to  the  Brehon  law 
was  treason  : — that  without  the  permission  of  the  government,  the  English  should  not 
make  war  upon  the  natives: — that  the  English  should  not  permit  the  Irish  to  pasture  or 
graze  upon  their  lands,  nor  admit  them  to  any  ecclesiastical  benefices  or  religious 
houses,  nor  entertain  their  minstrels,  rhymers,  or  news-tollers.  There  were  also  enact- 
ments against  the  oppressive  tax  of  coyne  and  livery;  against  the  improper  use  made  of 
royal  franchises  and  liberties  in  allowing  them  to  be  sanctuaries  for  malefactors,  and  one 
or  two  other  such  manifest  abuses. 

It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  direct  attention  to  the  cruel  and  iniquitous  spirit  of  some 
of  these  items.  While  all  of  the  lower  classes  of  Irish  are  prohibited  from  pasturage 
within  the  English  limits, — almost  the  only  employment  which  the  backward  state  of  their 
agriculture  then  afforded, — all  the  better  ranks  are  entirely  excluded  from  that  great 
road  to  wealth  and  honour,  the  church  ;  and  thus  both  classes  are  alike  subjected  to  one 
common  ban  of  exclusion  and  proscription,  as  if  wholly  unworthy  to  live  or  consort  with 
their  fellow  men. 

Such  arbitrary  measures  are,  in  general,  for  the  time,  efficacious,  whatever  reaction 
their  insolent  defiance  of  the  laws  of  nature  and  justice  must  ultimately  provoke.  Com- 
bined with  the  presence  of  the  royal  governor,  so  calming  an  effect  did  this  rigorous 
statute  produce,  that  from  thenceforth  the  king's  writ  ran  m  Ulster  and  Connaught,  and 
the  revenues  of  both  those  provinces  were  regularly  accounted  for  in  the  exchequer-! 

Throughout  the  remainder  of  this  long  reign,  there  occur  few  events  deserving  of 

more  than  a  cursory  notice.      After  closing,  satisfactorily,  the  session  of  his  parliament, 

the  duke  of  Clarence  returned  to  England,  and  was  succeeded   in   his  office  by  Gerald, 

earl  of  Desmond,  called,  from  his  skill  in  writing  verses,  the  Poet  who,  in  the  year  1369, 

gave  place  to  sir  William  de  Windsor.     During  the  government  of  this  lord  lieutenant,— 

or  custos,  as  we  find  him  styled, — the   unusual   tranquillity  which   had  for  some 

-jooq'  time  prevailed  was  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  rising  of  the  O'Tooles  and  other 

rebels  of  Leinster.     Having  attacked  them  with  complete  success,  De  Windsor 

was  following  up  his  advantage,  when  suddenly  he  found  his  attention  called  away  to 

another  quarter,  by  an  event,  distressing  alike  both  on   public  and   private  grounds.      A 

sanguinary  affray  had  just  taken  place  in  the  county  of  Limerick,  near  the  the  monastery 

of  Mayo,  in  which  O'Connor  and  O'Brian,  getting  the  better  of  their  English  an- 

137o'  t^^o^is'^^'  'i^*^  s'^'"   *h^  6^'"'  ^^  Desmond,  and  taken   John   Filz-Nicholas,  lord  of 

Kerry,  and  the  lord  Thomas  FitzJohn,  prisoners.  J;     No  time,  therefore,  was  to  be 

lost  in  marching  to  the  defence  of  Monster;  and  the  lord  lieutenant,  by  a  prompt  and 

decisive  movement,  prevented  any  farther  spread  of  the  revolt. 

Some  arbitrary  acts  are  recorded  of  this  ciiiof  governor,  which  deserve  notice,  as  being 
characteristic  of  those  times.  In  the  year  1370,  when  a  parliament  was  held  by  him  in 
Dublin,  the  two  knights  elected  for  Louth  county  were  cast  into  prison  by  him  for  re- 
fusing to  grant  a  subsidy ;  and  in  the  following  year,  having  convoked  a  parliament  at 
Baldoyle,  a  place  where  there  were  no  buildings  except  a  small  chapel,  he  assigned  as 
his  reason  for  this  inconvenient  arrangement,  that  the  commons,  finding  themselves  so  ill 
lodged  and  entertained  in  that  town,  would  be  the  sooner  disposed  to  grant  the  required 
subsidies.^ 

*  For  the  abuses  of  the  lie  of  gossipred,  or  coniiiatcrnity,  in  Ireland,  see  Davics,  Ppenser,  sir  Jainea 
\yare,  &c.  &c.  The  practice  of  /ottering'  was  also  complained  of  as  tending  to  produce  those  ties  and  rela- 
tionships with  the  native  Irish,  which  it  was  the  great  object  of  the  English  legislators  to  intercept  and  pre- 
vent. The  warmheartedness,  however,  of  the  people  they  had  to  deal  with,  baffled,  in  this,  as  in  many  other 
finch  antisocial  schemes,  all  their  unnatural  contrivances.  "  Fostering."  says  Davies,  "  hath  always  been  a 
stronger  alliance  than  blood  ;  and  the  foster  children  do  love  and  are  beloved  of  their  foster  father.s  and  their 
sept  more  than  of  their  own  natural  parents  and  kindred;  and  do  participate  of  their  means  more  frankly, 
and  do  adhere  unto  them  in  all  fortunes,  with  more  atfeclion  and  constancy." 

\  Cox— Davies. 

j  Holinshed— Annal.  Hibern.— Mac  Geogheean.  According  to  Lodge  and  Lynch,  Gerald,  the  fourth  earl  of 
Desmond,  lived  for  more  than  twenty  years  after  the  period  assigned  bv  the  clironiclers  for  his  murder. 

§  Lynch  [Legislative  Inslilutions,  Sir  ,)  who  rites  as  his  authority,  Original  Inquisitions  in  the  Tower  of 
London. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  349 

The  trite  and  true  maxim,  that  "  moral  wrong  brings  with   it  its  own  punishment," 
needs  no  more  striking  illustration  than  the  page  of  Irish  history  furnishes,  in  all  that 
liideous  harvest  of  hate  and  revolt  which  the  English  satraps  of  Ireland  were  now  reap- 
ing as  the  natural  product  of  tlieir  own  rapacity  and  misrule.     Even   in  those  objects  of 
which  the  attainment  depends,  in  general,  on  mere  force,  so  completely  had  their  grasping 
views  been  hitherto  baffled,  that  of  all  the  fruits  of  their  boasted  "conquest,"  there  re- 
mained subject  to  them,  at  the  time  we  are  now  treating  of,  only  the  four  shires  of  the 
English  Pale  ;* — all  the  other  parts  of  Ireland,  including  as  well  their  Anglo-Irish  as  their 
native  population,  having  fallen  away  from  the  crown  of  England. f     A  proof  of  the  pro- 
gress made  by  the  Irish  "  rebels,"  as  they  wore  styled,  in  recovering  their  own 
patrimonial  lands,  is  afforded  in  a  writ  issued  at  this  time  by  the  king,  in  conse-  ^.Uo* 
quence  of  a  petition  addressed  to  him  by  the  English  settlers,  praying  for  relief 
from  the  payment  of  scutage  "  on  all  those  lands  of  which  the  Irish  enemy  had  despoiled 
them."]: 

In  a  country  thus  circumstanced,  the  office  of  chief  governor,  however  alluring  it 
might  have  been  in  the  first  palmy  days  of  plunder  and  usurpation,  had  now  become  so 
arduous  and  undesirable  a  post,  that  sir  Richard  Pembridge,  one  of  the  king's  servants, 
and  warden  of  tlie  Cinque  Ports,  on  being  ordered  to  go  over  to  Ireland  as  lord  justice, 
positively  refused.  Nor  was  his  refusal,  however  ungracious,  adjudged  to  be  illegal;  it 
being  held  tiiat  even  so  high  an  appointment,  in  Ireland,  was  no  better  than  an  honourable 
e.xile,  and  that  no  man  could  be  forced  by  law  to  abandon  his  country,  except  in  the  case 
of  abjuration  f)r  felony,  or  by  act  of  parliament. ^  The  king  sent  over,  therefore,  in  his 
stead,  sir  William  de  Windsor,  already  once  before  lord  lieutenant,  who  undertook 
to  carry  on  the  government  for  11,213/.  6s.  Sd.  per  annum, — a  sum  exceeding  -i-U/ 
(says  sir  John  Davies)  the  whole  revenue  of  the  realm  of  Ireland,  which  did  not 
at  that  time  amount  to  10,000/.  annually,  "  even  though  the  medium,"  he  adds,  "  be  taken 
from  the  best  seven  years  during  this  long  reign."  By  De  Windsor  an  order  was  obtained 
from  the  king  and  council,  that  all  those  who  had  lands  in  Ireland  should  repair  thither 
without  delay,  or  else  send  in  their  place  men  competent  to  defend  the  country,  under 
pain  of  forfeiting  their  estates.  Notwithstanding,  however,  all  this  preparation,  so  little 
had  the  government  of  that  kingdom  to  do  with  the  Irish  people,  that,  according  to  De 
Windsor's  own  confession,  he  had  never,  during  the  whole  course  of  his  service  there, 
been  able  to  get  access  to  the  natives,  or  even  discover  their  secluded  places  of  abode. 

The  successor  of  De  Windsor  in  the  office  of  lord  justice  was  James,  the  second 
earl  of  Ormond,  under  whom  a  parliament  was  called  to  provide  for  the  exigen-  -i-j-yo' 
cies  of  the  government,  but  refused  to  grant  the  supplies.      In  this  emergency  * 

writs  were  issued  to  the  bishops  and  the  commons,  requiring  them  to  choose  representa- 
tives to  be  sent  to  the  parliament  of  England, 1| — there  to  treat,  consult,  and  agree  with 
the  king  and  his  council  on  the  measures  necessary  for  the  support  and  safety  of  the 
government  of  Ireland.  In  complying,  reluctantly,  with  this  order  of  the  crown,  the 
clergy,  nobles  and  commons  declare  that,  according  to  the  rights,  laws,  and  customs  of 
the  land  of  Ireland,  from  the  lime  of  the  conquest  thereof,  they  never  had  been  bound  to 
elect  or  send  any  persons  out  of  the  said  land  to  parliaments  or  councils  held  in  England, 
for  any  such  purposes  as  the  writ  requires.1[ 

The  same  sort  of  struggle  between  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  judicatures,  as  had  been 
maintained  so  long  in  England,  and  the  same  unceasing  demands  and  exactions  on  the 
part  of  the  pope,  under  the  various  forms  of  Peter's  pence,  first  fruits,  and  other  such 
papal  taxes,**  were  experienced  likewise,  during  this  century,  in  Ireland.     In  the  reign 

*  It  speins  by  no  means  certain  at  what  period  the  territory  occupied  by  the  English  colonies  began  to  be 
distinguished  by  the  appellation  of  "  the  Pale  ;"  but  it  is  generally  supposed  to  have  been  about  the  time  we 
are  now  approaching. 

f  Davies.  |  Close  Roll,  46  Ed.  IIT.     See  Prynne,  302.  §  Cox. 

Il  Prynne,  p.  305.  According  to  Prynne.  it  was  not  to  the  parliament  but  to  the  king's  council,  that  these 
representatives,  or  rather  commissioners,  were  summoned,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Scottish  "  Community" 
elected  commissioners  to  repair  to  England  in  the  thirty-third  year  of  the  reign  of  Edward  I.— See  Ryley, 
Placit.  Parliament,  p,  242,  243. 

IT  A  similar  case  occurred  in  the  thirty-third  year  of  Edward  I.,  when  persons  were  elected  by  the  re- 
spective counties,  cities,  and  boroughs  in  Ireland, — whether  as  members  of  parliament  or  commissioners,  isa 
point  disputed, — to  repair  to  England,  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  respecting  Irish  affairs.  It  is  allowed, 
indeed,  by  Molyneux,— rather  injuriously  to  his  general  argument, — that  through  the  greater  part  of  the  reigns 
of  the  three  tildwards,  representatives  from  Ireland  came  over  to  sit  in  the  English  parliament. 

**  For  an  account  of  ttiese  different  taxes,  see  L.\n%a.Ti\,  HUt.  of  England,  chap.  xix.  "In  the  obstinacy,"  says 
Dr.  Lingard,  "  with  which  the  court  of  Rome  urged  the  exercise  of  these  obnoxious  claims,  it  is  difficult  to  dis- 
cover any  traces  of  that  political  wisdom  for  which  it  has  been  celebrated.  Its  conduct  tended  to  loosen  the  ties 
which  bound  the  people  to  the  head  of  their  church,  to  nourish  a  spirit  of  opposition  to  his  authority,  and  to 
create  a  wiliiiierness  to  listen  to  ihe  declamations  and  adopt  the  opinions  of  religious  innovator.  ' 


350  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

of  Henry  III.,  we  find  the  pope's  nuncio,  master  Stephen,  sent  to  demand  of  both  clergy 
and  laity,  in  England,  Ireland,  and  Wales,  no  less  than  a  tenth  of  all  their  moveables, 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  struggle  his  holiness  was  then  engaged  in  with  the  emperor 
Frederick;*  and,  at  different  intervals  during  the  same  reign,  two  other  papal  legates, 
Petrus  de  Supino  and  Johannes  Rufus,  extorted  from  Ireland  the  value  of  the  twentieth 
part  of  the  land,  and  sums  of  money  amounting  to  7500  marks.f  In  the  time  of  De  Lon- 
dres,  archbishop  of  Dublin,  so  daring  had  been  the  encroachments  of  the  spiritual  authority, 
that  the  king,  notwithstanding  that  prelate's  high  character  and  services,  was  forced  to 
issue  a  writ,  reprehending  strongly  his  conduct,  and  threatening  measures  still  more 
severe,  should  he  persist  in  such  practices.^ 

What  with  the  exactions,  indeed,  of  the  pope's  agents  on  one  side,  and  the  frequent, 
and  pressing  demands  of  the  crown  on  the  other,  the  laity  of  both  kingdoms  were  al- 
lowed little  rest  from  extortion.  The  ready  aid,  too,  which  these  great  drainers  of  the 
public  purse  generally  lent  to  each  other's  fiscal  enterprises,  rendered  their  hold  on  its 
contents  more  stringent  and  sure.  Thus,  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Edward 
J.,  the  pope  made  a  grant  to  that  king  of  the  tenth  of  ail  ecclesiastical  revenues  in 
Ireland,  and  this  was  followed  soon  after  by  a  grant  of  a  fifteenth  from  the  tempo- 
ralty.5 

An  event  which  occurred  in  the  nineteenth  year  of  Edward  III.,  shows  to  what 
aspiring  heights,  even  under  a  prince  so  powerful,  the  haughty  churchmen  of  this 
period  carried  the  pretensions  of  their  order.  The  king  had  obtained  a  vote  from  parlia- 
ment, for  the  grant  of  a  subsidy,  to  be  levied  on  church  lands,  as  well  as  on  those  of  the 
laity.  But  the  archbishop  of  Cashel,  Ralph  Kelly,  a  native  of  Ireland,  resolved  to  op- 
pose the  levying  of  this  subsidy  within  his  province ;  and,  being  supported  by  his  suf- 
fragans of  Limerick,  Emly,  and  Lismore,  issued  a  decree  that  all  beneficed  clergymen 
who  contributed  to  this  subsidy  should,  by  the  very  act,  be  deprived  of  their  benefices, 
and  rendered  incapable  of  future  preferment  within  that  province.  Such  of  their  lay 
tenants,  also,  as  contributed,  were  to  be  excommunicated,  and  their  descendants,  to  the 
third  generation,  excluded  from  holy  orders.  To  give  more  solemnity  to  these  decrees, 
the  archbishop,  attended  by  the  other  prelates,  and  ail  dressed  in  their  pontifical  robes 
presented  themselves  in  the  streets  of  Clonmell,  and  there  solemnly  pronounced  an  ex- 
communication upon  the  king's  commissioner  of  revenue,  and  upon  all  persons  con- 
cerned in  advising,  contributing  to,  or  levying  the  subsidy.|| 

For  this  daring  conduct,  informations  were  exhibited  against  the  prelates;  who  pleaded, 
in  their  defence.  Magna  Charta, — by  which  it  was  provided,  they  said,  that  the  church 
should  be  free,  and  that  all  who  violated  its  immunities  should  be  punished  with  excom- 
munication. The  cause  was  given  against  the  archbishop  and  his  confederates ;  but 
these  sturdy  lords  refused  to  appear  in  arrest  of  judgement,  and,  as  there  occurs  no  farther 
mention  of  tiie  transaction,  obtained,  in  the  end,  we  may  conclude,  a  virtual  triumph. 

Much  of  the  opposition  thus  siiown  to  tlie  government  by  the  Irish  clergy,  proceeded, 
doubtless,  from  political  divisions  within  the  church  itself; — as,  even  at  that  period, 
when  all  were  of  one  faith,  the  cliurch  of  the  government  and  the  church  of  the  people, 
in  Ireland,  were  almost  as  much  separated  from  each  other  by  difference  in  race,  language, 
political  feeling,  and  even  ecclesiastical  discipline,  as  they  have  been,  at  any  period  since, 
by  difference  in  creeds.  The  attempt  made  by  the  synod  of  Cashel,  in  that  year,  to  assimi- 
late the  Irish  church,  in  its  rites  and  discipline,  to  that  of  England,  entirely  failed  of  its 
object ;  and  tlie  native  clergy  and  people  continued  to  follow  their  own  ecclesiastical 
rules,  as  if  the  decrees  of  that  memorable  synod  had  never  been  issued. IT  Disheartening 
as  may  be  some  of  the  conclusions  too  plainiy  deducible  from  this  fact,  it  clearly  shows 
at  least,  that  the  establishment  of  the  reformed  church,  in  that  kingdom,  was  not  the  first 
or  sole  cause  of  the  bitter  hostility  between  its  two  races. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  the  second  Edward  that  a  university  was,  for  the  first  time, 
founded  within  the  city  of  Dublin.**  A  bull  had  been  obtained  for  this  object,  from  pope 
Clement  V.,  by  John  Lech,  archbishop  of  Dublin  ;  and  the  task  of  carrying  it  into  effect 
devolved  upon  his  successor,  Alexander  de  Bicknor,  by  whom  statutes  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  university  were  established.!)-     To  all  students  frequenting  this  university, 

♦  Maihevv  Paris,  483.  t  Mathew  Paris,  961. 

t  Ware.— D'Alton's  Memoirs  of  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.  §  Cox. 

II  Ware.— U'Alton.  tt   Lanigtui.  **  Ware's  j?rt<i}ui/i«i,  chap,  xxxvii.  sec.  3. 

tt  One  of  the  rulc;s  laid  down  for  the  goveniineut  of  this  projected  seminary  would  be  thought,  at  the  present 
day,  rather  i-tartiiigly  liberal : — "  We  ordain,  also,  that  we  and  our  successors  may  choose  a  secular  regent 
in  divinity,  of  any  order  of  worship  or  religion  whatsoever  {de  quacumque  religione,)  who  may  actually  read 
lectures  on  the  Bible,  in  our  church  of  St.  Patrick,  without  any  contradiction  or  calumny  from  any  person 
\vhat.'?oever." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  351 

which  was  founded  in  St.  Patrick's  cathedral,  protection  was  extended  by  Edward  III.  ;* 
and  in  the  year  1364.,  his  son  Lionel,  dulie  of  Clarence,  granted  to  the  dean  and  chap- 
ter an  acre  of  land  at  Stachallane,  and  the  advowsons  of  the  church,  to  provide  for  the 
payment  often  marks  a-year  to  a  person  of  the  order  of  St.  Augustine,  to  deliver  a  lec- 
ture upon  divinity  in  the  scholar's  room.f 

An  ordinance  passed  by  the  Englisli  parliament,  in  the  fifth  year  of  this  reign,  "  that 
there  should  be  one  and  the  same  law  for  the  Irish  and  the  English,"  is  frequently  referred 
to  in  the  once  interesting  controversy  with  which  Molyneux,  the  friend  of  Locke,  con- 
nected his  name.  There  is  also  another  inquiry  bearing  upon  the  same  question,  which  has 
no  less  divided  our  historical  antiquaries, — namely,  at  what  period  Ireland  began  to  have 
a  parliament  of  her  own  ;  and  it  seems  to  be  agreed  upon  by  the  best  authorities,  that 
until  the  reign  of  Edward  II.,  all  the  deliberative  meetings  held  in  that  kingdom,  by 
whatsoever  name  they  may  have  been  called,  were  rather  general  assemblies  of  the  great 
men,  than,  properly,  parliaments.^  That  they  were  sometimes  considerable  in  numbers, 
as  well  as  in  rank,  appears  from  a  parliament  of  this  description,  held  in  the  year  1302, 
at  which  were  present  no  less  than  156  persons ;  and  in  the  following  reign,  a  general 
assembly,  or  parliament,  was  convened,  which,  in  addition  to  all  the  English  nobility  in 
Ireland,' included  likewise  tlie  four  archbishops,  ten  bishops,  the  abbot  of  St.  Thomas,  the 
prior  of  Kilmainham,  and  the  dean  and  chapter  of  Dublin.  There  were  likewise  pre- 
sent, on  this  ocasion,  several  great  Irish  lords,  among  whom  are  the  following,  and  thus 
designated,— O'Hanlan,  duke  of  Oriel,  O'Donell,  duke  of  Tyrconnel,  O'Neill,  duke  of 
Tyrone. 

Until  the  period  when  regular  parliaments  began  to  be  held  in  Ireland,  it  was  usual 
to  transmit  thither,  from  time  to  time,  the  laws  made  by  the  English  legislature,  to  be 
there  proclaimed,  enrolled,  and  executed,  as  laws  also  of  Ireland;  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  what  was  then  styled  a  parliament  in  that  kingdom,  was  no  more  than  the 
summoning  of  the  great  men  of  the  realm  together,  reading  over  to  them  the  law  or 
laws  transmitted  from  England,  and  enjoining  that  they  should  obey  them. J 

Among  the  last  notices,  respecting  Ireland,  that  occur'in  the  records  of  this  reign,  a 
curious  entry  in  the  Issue  Roll  for  the  year  1376  may  for  its  quiet  significance  de- 
serve to  be  noticed: — Richard  Dere  and  William  Stapolyn  came  over  to  England  to  in- 
form the  king  how  very  badly  Ireland  was  governed.  The  king  ordered  them  to  be  paid 
ten  pounds  for  their  trouble.!! 

*  The  king,  in  granting  the  desired  protection,  declares  strongly  his  sense  of  the  benefit  of  such  studies  ; 
adding  that,  by  those  wlio  most  cultivate  them,  morality  and  virtue  are  most  cherished,  and  peace  in  the 
land  best  presetved.— Patent  Roll.  32  Ed   III. 

t  History  and  Antiquities  of  St.  Patrik'cs  Cathedral,  by  William  Monck  Mason  ;— a  most  valuable  contribu- 
tion to  our  antiquarian  literature. 

X  Speech  of  sir  John  Davies,  when  speaker  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons,  published  by  Leland,  vol.  ii. 
Appendix. 

§  The  mandate  issued  by  Henry  III.,  in  transmitting  to  his  Irish  deputy,  Richard  de  Burgh,  the  laws  and 
charter  of  king  John,  shows  how  simple  was,  at  that  time,  the  process  by  which  English  statutes  were  made 
binding  upon  Ireland  :—"  Mandamus  vobis  firmiler  prscipientes,  quatenus  certa  die  et  loco  facialis  venire 
coram  vobis  archiepiscopos,  episcopos,  abbates,  priores,  comites,  et  barones,  roilites  et  libere  tenenles,  et  bal- 

livos  singulorum  comitatuum,  et  coram  eis  publice  legi  faciatis  Cartam  doniini  J.  Regis  patris  nostri 

et  praecipiatis  eis  ex  parte  nostra,  quod  leges  illas  et  consuetudines  in  Carta  pra;dicta  contentas  de  CEEtero 
firmiter  teneant  et  observent." — Close  Roll,  12  Hen.  III. 

U  Issues  of  the  Exchequer. 


352  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHArXER  XXXVIII. 

RICHARD   11. 

Council  of  regency  during  Ihc  king's  minority. — Act  against  absentees. — Commission  of  sir 
Nicholas  Dagworth. — Edmund  Mortimer,  carl  of  March,  appointed  lord  lieutenant — suc- 
ceeded by  his  son,  Roger  Mortimer. — Government  of  Philip  de  Courtenay,  the  king's  cousin 
— his  oppression  and  exactions — is  disposed  of  his  office,  and  punished. — The  king's  favour- 
ite, Robert  de  Vcre — is  created  successively  marquis  of  Dublin  and  duke  of  Ireland — is 
invested  by  the  king  with  the  sovereignty  of  Ireland — ends  his  days  in  misery  at  Louvain, 
Duke  of  Gloucester  accepts  the  office  of  lord  lieutenant— his  departure  countermanded  — 
The  king  resolves  on  an  expedition  to  Ireland — his  supposed  motives  for  this  step. — Sub- 
misfion  of  the  Irish  chieftains — the  king  entertains  tliem_.in  Dublin — confers  on  them  the 
lionour  of  knighthood. —  Salutary  reforms  commenced  and  projected  by  him — is  obliged  to 
return  to  England — commits  the  government  to  the  young  earl  of  Marcii. — Revolt  of  the 
Irish  chieftains  on  the  king's  departure. — The  earl  of  March  slain  in  a  battle  with  the  na- 
tives.— The  king  resolves  on  another  expedition  to  Ireland — is  accompanied  by  3'oung 
Henry  of  Monmouth,  afterwards  Henry  V. — Difficulties  encountered  by  the  royal  army. — 
Mac  Morough  refuses  to  make  submission. — The  army  distressed  for  provisions. — Unsuc- 
cessful parley  with  Mac  Morough. — The  king  retreats  to  Dublin — receives  intelligence 
of  the  landing  of  Henry  of  Bolingbroke — embarks  with  his  army  for  Milford  Haven. 

The  intention  expressed,  in  a  preceding  chapter  of  tliis  work,  to  pass  rapidly  over  the 
reigns  of  the  first  English  kings  of  Ireland,  it  has  not  been  in  my  power  to  accomplish. 
Though  wanting  in  almost  every  quality  that  lends  grace  and  glory  to  history,  this  period 
of  my  narrative,  I  found,  could  hardly  be  thus  despatched  without  doing  injustice  to  the 
demands  of  the  subject.  It  was,  in  fact,  in  these  very  titnes,  and  more  especially  during 
the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  that  the  foundations  were  laid  of  that  monstrous  system  of  mis- 
government  in  Ireland,  to  which  no  parallel  exists  in  the  history  of  the  whole  civilized 
world  ; — its  dark  and  towering  iniquity  having  projected  its  shadow  so  far  forward  aa 
even  to  the  times  immediately  bordering  upon  our  own. 

Enough,  however,  has,  I  trust,  been  related  of  these  few  eventful  reigns,  to  convey  a 
clear  notion  of  the  spirit  of  the  law  and  its  administration  during  that  period,  as  well  as 
of  the  condition  of  the  country,  in  consequence  of  that  spirit;  and  likewise  to  show  that, 
as  great  power  may  be  administered  without  tyranny,  so  is  it  possible  for  enormous  ty- 
ranny to  exist  without  any  real  power. 
On  the  death  of  Edward  III.,  the  crown  devolved,  without  question  or  contest,  to 
Richard  of  Bordeaux,  son  and  heir  of  the  Black  Prince ;  and  the  young  king  being 
■•o^J  then  but  in  his  eleventh  year,  a  council  of  regency  was  chosen,  "in  aid  of  the 
chancellor  and  treasurer,"  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  the  government,  during  the  mi- 
nority of  the  king.* 

The  first  measure  relating  to  Ireland  which  demands  our  attention,  during  this  reign, 
was  an  act  or  ordinance  against  absenteeism, — one  of  the  earliest  as  well  as 
.jor-n'  most  permanent  of  the  many  grievances  attendant  on  that  country's  anomalous 
position.  By  this  measure, — the  first  ever  enacted  on  the  subject, f  and  passed  by 
the  parliament  of  England,  in  consequence  of  a  petition  from  Ireland, — it  was  ordained 
that  all  who  possessed  lands,  rents,  or  oflices  in  that  kingdom  should  forthwith  repair  thi- 
ther and  become  residents,  for  the  purpose  of  watching  and  defending  them;  or,  in  case 

*  Lingard. 

t  "  Tlieii  waa  the  first  Btalute  made  against  abscnteea."— IJaries 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  353 

they  could  allege  any  sufficient  cause  for  their  absence,  they  were  then  to  send,  or  find 
in  that  country,  responsible  persons  to  act  as  their  deputies,  and  defend  their  possessions; 
otherwise  two  thirds  of  their  Irish  revenues  were  to  be  contributed  by  them  towards  that 
object.  Some  exceptions  were  made  to  this  law  in  favour  of  persons  in  the  kings  service, 
of  students  in  tlie  universities,  and  of  those  absent  for  reasonable  causes,  by  special  li- 
cence under  the  great  seal  of  England;  from  all  of  whom  there  was  only  required,  for 
the  defence  of  the  land,  one  third  of  the  yearly  profits  of  their  estates.  Another  step 
taken  with  a  view  to  reformation,  was  tlie  appomlment  of  sir  Nicholas  Dagworth  to  pro- 
ceed to  Ireland,  furnished  with  instructions  and  powers  to  survey  the  possessions  of  the 
crown,  and  call  to  account  the  officers  of  the  Irish  revenue.* 

About  the  same  time  leave  was  granted  by  the  king,  in  consequence  of  a  petition  to 
that  effect,  for  a  free  trade  in  "  wines  and  other  merchandises,"  between  Ireland  and 
Portugal. t 

In  the  third  year  of  Richard's  reign,  Edmund  Mortimer,  earl  of  March  and  Ulster, 
and  son  to  Lionel,  duke  of  Clarence,  was  sent  over  to  Ireland  as  lord  lieutenant; 
and,  about  the  same  time,  a  number  of  French  and  Spanish  gallies,  which  had  done  -incr^ 
much  mischief  on  the  coasts  of  Ireland,  having  been  driven  by  the  English  fleet 
into  the   harbour  of  Kinsale,  were  there  attacked,  with   much  bravery,  by  a  combined 
force  of  English  and  Irish,  and  sustained  a  complete  defeat;  their  chief  captains  were  all 
taken,!  400  of  the  sailors  slain,  and  a  great  number  of  their  barges  captured. 

On  the  death  of  the  earl  of  March, 5  in  the  second  year  of  his  government,  the  prelates, 
magnates,  and  commons  of  the  realm  were  immediately  summoned  to  meet  at  Cork  for 
the  purpose  of  electing  a  worthy  successor  to  the  vacant  office  ;||  and  the  choice 
falling  unanimously  upon  John  Colton,  then  chancellor  of  Ireland,  this  distin-  -looj* 
guished  ecclesiastic,  who  became  afterwards  archbishop  of  Armagh,  was  raised  to 
the  post  of  lord  justice.     He  remained,  however,  but  a  few  weeks  in  this  station,  being 
succeeded,  towards  the  end  of  January,  by  the  young  Roger,  earl  of  March,  son 
of  the  former  lord  lieutenant;  and,  this  prince  being  still  under  age,  the  affairs  of  ^iRo 
the  realm  were  administered,  in  his  name,  by  his  guardian  and  uncle,  Thomas 
Mortimer;  so  that,  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  in  England,  the  executive  power  of  the  realm 
was,  at  this  time,  in  tutelage. 

The  laudable  desire  evinced  by  the  council  of  regency,  at  the  outset  of  Richard's 
reign,   for  a   searching  inquiry  into  the  administration  of  Irish  affairs,  and  a   vigorous 
reform  of  the  abuses  prevailing  in  all  its  departments,  was  now  farther  shown  by  the 
firmness  of  their  measures  against  Philip  de  Courtenay,  cousin  of  the  king,  who 
had  succeeded  the  young  earl  of  March  as  lord  lieutenant.     Being  the  possessor  i-ioo' 
of  a  considerable  estate  in  the  country,  he  was  thought  to  be  therefore  peculiarly     '    '  * 
suited  to  the  office;  and  by  special  favour,  a  grant  was  made  to  him  of  this  high  post  for 
the  space  of  ten  years.     Presuming,  doubtless,  on  this  long  tenure  of  power,  he  con- 
ducted himself  with  such  utter  disregard  to  law  and  justice,1T  that,  by  order  of  the  Eng- 
lish authorities,  he  was  taken  into  custody,  while  in  the  exercise  of  his  vice-regal  func- 
tions, and  not  only  dispossessed  of  his  high  office,  but  severely  punished  for  the  oppres- 
sions and  gross  exactions  of  which  he  had  been  guilty.** 

The  direct  agency,  however,  of  the  youthful  monarch,  was  now  beginning  to  make 
itself  felt  in  the  public  councils;  and  that  fatal  mixture  in  his  character,  of  vehement 

*  Davies. — According  to  an  entry  in  the  Issue  Roll  of  this  year,  the  mission  of  Dae[vvorth  was  "  for  the 
purpose  of  inquiring  concerning  the  estate  and  eovernment  of  the  land  ;  and,  also,  of  the  estate,  conduct, 
and  condition  of  the  men  at  arms,  archers,  and  others  dwelling  there,  at  the  king's  charge,  for  the  protection 
of  the  land." — Pell  Records. 

t  Pat.  Roll,  3  Ric.  II.— Prynne,  308. 

I  "  Virtute  et  aniraositate  Anglicorum  et  Hibernicorum  capti  sunt  duces  eorum." — Walsingham.  The  par. 
ticulars  of  this  action,  as  given  by  Walsingham,  maybe  found  translated  in  Holinshed.  See  also  Smith, 
Historij  of  Cork,  book.  ii.  chap  3. 

§  This  lord  wetit  to  the  trouble  of  having  some  oaks  transported  to  Ireland  from  his  woods  in  Monmouth- 
shire, for  the  purpose  of  building  a  bridge  over  the  river  Eanne,  "  jiixta  villam  ile  Kollerolh." — Priorat  de 
Wigmore,  Monasi.  Anglican.  He  also  supplied  the  monastery  of  Wigmore,  to  which  he  was  much  attached, 
with  oxen,  cows,  sea  lish,  &c.  from  Ireland,  as  well  as  a  share  of  the  plunder  acquired  by  him  in  his  military 
capacity  in  that  country,—"  militari  fortuna  sibi  in  praedam  cedentia." — Priorat.  de  Wigmore. 

II  Pat.  Roll,  5  Ric.  II. — In  his  History  of  the  Bishops,  Ware  incorrectly  represents  Colton  as  having  been 
appointed  lord  justice  the  day  after  the  earl  of  March's  death,  wholly  omitting  the  important  point  of  the 
summoning  of  a  parliament  for  his  election.  There  must  have  intervened  nearly  a  fortnight  before  his  ap- 
pointment 10  the  office. 

IT  Hymer,  tom.  vi.  p.  504. 

■**  Davies. — In  the  Issue  Roll  of  the  thirteenth  year  of  this  reign,  we  find  entries  of  payments  made  to  sir 
Philip  Courtenay,  in  recompense  of  damage  done  to  his  goods  and  chattels  by  the  officers  of  Robert  de  Vere, 
from  which  it  would  appear  that,  of  the  two  personages,  Courtenay  was  much  the  more  injured.— See  Issues 
of  the  Exchequer,  edited  by  Edward  Devon. 

44 


354  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Bclf-will  and  passion,  with  but  a  limited  share  of  judgment,  which  led  ultimately  to  his 
ruin,  was  now  shown  in  the  favours  showered  by  him  on  his  young  favourite,  Robert  de 
Vcre,  earl  of  Oxford,  whom  he  created  successively  marquis  of  Dublin  and  duke  of  Ire- 
land, and  bestowed  on  him  the  entire  sovereignty  of  that  kingdom  during  his  life,  to  be 

held  by  him  as  fully  and  perfectly  as  by  Richard  himself,  or  any  of  his  royal  pro- 
*■  ^'  genitors.*  That  the  transfer,  thus,  of  an  ancient  and  once  independent  kingdom, 
loco,  gijouid  have  been  treated  as  a  matter  of  child's  play  between  a  young  king  and  his 
youthful  minion,  can  hardly  be  a  subject  of  much  wonder;  but  the  solemn  sanction  of  an 
act  so  puerile,  and  moreover,  illegal,  by  the  grave  prelates,  peers,  and  commons  of  an 
English  parliament,  only  shows  how  unscrupulous  may  be  the  decisions  of  a  large  body 
of  councillors  acting  in  concert,  and  under  a  responsibility  scarce  felt  from  being  divided 
among  so  many.  Tiiis  parliament,  aleo,  with  the  view,  doubtless,  of  ridding  themselves 
of  the  favourite's  presence,  allotted  the  sum  of  30,000t  marks  for  his  intended  expedition 
to  his  new  kingdom,  besides  a  force  of  500  men-at-arms,  and  1000  archers. 

Accompanied  by  Richard  himself,  De  Vere  proceeded  ns  far  as  Wales  on  his  way  to  Ire- 
land ;  but  there  the  monarch,  either  unwilling  to  part  with  his  favourite,  or  seeing  other 

emergencies  arise  in  which  his  aid  would  be  required,  abandoned  the  intention  of 
■joQQ   sending   him  to  Ireland,  and  appointed  sir  John  Stanley  to  be  lord  deputy  of  that 

realm.  While  Stanley  held  this  office,  the  great  northern  chieftain,  O'Neill,  and 
his  sons,  sent  in  their  submission  to  the  government  in  writing,  renounced  all  claim  to  the 
bonaghtj  of  Ulster,  and  gave  oaths  and  hostages  for  their  future  allegiance. 

On  the  death  of  the  duke  of  Ireland,  who  ended  his  days  in  exile  and  misery  at  Louvain, 

James,  the  third  earl  of  Ormond,  was  made  lord  justice;  and,  in  a  sharp  action 
1392  ^'^"S'l'  '^y  ^™  ^^''^''  some  Irish  septs  at  a  place  called  Tascoffin  in  the  county  of 

Kilkenny,  slew  GOO  of  their  force.J 
Though  of  such  details  as  would  afford  any  insight  into  the  internal  state  of  the  coun- 
try, the  records  of  this  period  are  even  more  than  usually  barren,  the  single  fact  that,  in 
almost  every  parliament  held  in  England  during  this  reign,  the  king  applied  for  aid  to 
carry  on  the  war  in  Ireland,  sufficiently  shows  the  sort  of  relationship  in  which,  after  a 
lapse  of  more  than  two  centuries,  the  rulers  and  the  ruled  of  that  land  still  continued  to 
stand  towards  each  other.  When  such  was  the  habitual  condition  of  the  country,  it  is 
by  no  means  surprising  that  laws  to  compel  people  to  reside  in  it  should  be  of  frequent 
occurrence  in  the  statute  book  ;  or  that  neither  by  these  laws,  nor  by  their  own  stake  in 
the  soil,  could  land  proprietors  be  brought  to  remain  on  their  Irish  estates.  To  so  great 
an  extent  did  this  abuse  prevail  in  the  first  years  of  the  present  reign,  that  the  province 
of  the  Pale  was  left  nearly  depopulated  by  the  great  concourse  of  Irish  landholders  into 
England;  and  as,  owing  to  this  state  of  affairs,  the  king's  revenue  had  been  much  re- 
duced, while  the  power  and  daring  of  the  Irish  rebels  were  daily  increasing,  it  was 
thought  expedient  to  revive  the  law  against  absentees,  and  to  put  forth  a  proclamation, 
requiring  all  persons  whose  homes  were  in  that  kingdom  to  repair  thither  without 
delay. 

The  duke  of  Gloucester,  the  king's  uncle,  a  prince  who  combined  in  himself  both  the 
high  rank  to  which  the  Iris!)  were  supposed  to  be  partial, ||  and  the  vigour  of  character 

fitted  for  supreme  command,  consented  to  accept  the  office  of  lord  lieutenant;  and 
I'ioQ   ^^^^  already  preparing  to  embark  with   an   army  for  the  seat  of  his  government, 

when  a  royal  order  reached  him,  countermanding  his  departure,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  acquainting  him  with  the  king's  intention  to  conduct  an  expedition  into  Ire- 
land in  person. 

For  the  adoption  of  this  project  so  suddenly  by  Richard,  various  motives  have  been 
conjecturally  assigned,  each  of  them  likely  enough  to  have  had  some  share  in  inducing 
him  to  form  his  determination.  Besides  the  natural  hope  that  his  presence  with  a  large 
force  would  do  much  townrds  curbing  and  pacifying  the  Irish,  the  grievous  loss  he  had 
lately  sustained  by  the  death  of  his  consort,  the  "good"  queen  Anne,  had  cast  a   cloud 

*  "  Aden  plene,  integre  et  peifectp,  siciit  nos  ea  teniiimus  ct  hnbuimus  lenuermit  et  haliufnint  progenito- 
riim  nostrditiin  aliqni,"  &c.  For  the  leiters  patent  granting  to  this  young  lord  the  title  of  Marquis  of  Dub- 
lin, the  coat  of  arm?,  aznrp,  with  tliree  golden  crowns,  &c  ,  see  I'rvnne,  p.  87. 

t  The  sum  allotted  I'or  this  piirpo.'se  was  a  debt  to  the  amount  of' HO  OHO  marks  due  from  the  king  of  France. 

t  Bonanht  was  an  exaction  imposed,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  lord,  for  the  maintenance  of  liis  soldiers. 
"  There  were."  says  Harris,  "  (wo  sorts  of  this  imposition,  viz.  Bonaghlbiir  which  was  free  quarter  at  dis- 
cretion, and  Bonaght-licg.  which  was  a  commutation  for  it  in  money  or  provisions,  according  to  agreement 
with  the  lord."— Harris's  Ware,  Jliuiq.  cha().  ]'2. 

§  Co.x 

II  VValsingham.— "  All  the  Irishry,"  says  Davies,  "  were  rcadv  to  submit  themselves  before  hiscomint!;  so 
much  the  very  name  of  a  great  per.-onage,  especially  a  prince  of  the  blood,  did  ever  prevail  with  this  people." 
'I'he  government  of  Inland  was  again,  at  a  siil)?equeut  period,  olf'red  to  (;ioucester  ;  but  he  declined  accept- 
ing it,  taying,  that  Ireland  was  a  country  in  uhich  he  could  reap  neither  wealth  nor  glory. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  355 

over  his  spirits  which  the  excitement,  it  was  hoped,  of  so  new  and  stirring  a  scene  would 
tend  to  dissipate.  But  among'  these  conjectures  as  to  his  motive  for  so  sudden  an  enter- 
prize,  none  seems  more  probable  than  that  which  attributes  it  to  the  mortifying  repulse 
lately  experienced  by  him,  in  his  ambitious  effort  to  be  elected  emperor  of  Germany.* 
On  that  occasion,  when  his  ambassadors  solicited  for  him  the  imperial  crown,  they  were 
told  that  the  electors  did  not  hold  a  prince  to  be  worthy  of  that  dignity  who  could  neither 
keep  what  his  ancestors  had  gained  in  France,  repress  the  insolence  of  his  English  sub- 
jects, nor  reduce  to  obedience  his  rebellious  vassals  in  Ireland,  This  bitter  taunt,  which 
it  is  not  improbable  may  have  added  a  spur  to  his  present  enterprize,  was,  as  far  as  it  re- 
garded Ireland,  perfectly  founded  in  truth  i  and  not  with  reference  merely  to  its  state 
under  Richard  himself,  but  to  the  condition  of  its  people  throughout  every  reign,  from 
the  time  of  the  first  landing  of  an  English  king  upon  their  shores. 

How  little  had,  during  that  interval,  been  really  effected  towards  their  subjection,  is 
virtually  acknowledged  in  the  letters  patent  conveying  Ireland  to  the  royal  favourite, 
Robert  de  Vere; — the  object  of  the  powers  thereby  intrusted  to  him  having  been,  in 
express  terms,  the  "  conquest"  of  that  land.  For  this  yet  unaccomplished  purpose, 
the  army  now  landed  by  Richard  at  Waterford,  which  consisted  of  4000  men-at-  ^^qa 
arms,  and  30,000  archers,  might  appear  to  have  been  more  than  a  sufBcient  force. 
But  there  hung  a  spell  about  the  "  Isle  of  Destiny,"!  which  continued  to  baffle  and  put  to 
shame  the  arms  and  counsels  of  her  invaders.  With  such  a  force  to  command  submission, 
there  was  only  wanting  sufficient  wisdom  to  lay  the  foundations  of  social  improvement, 
by  extending  the  protection  of  English  law  to  the  whole  native  population,  and  thus  giving 
them  that  interest  in  the  peace  and  well-being  of  the  community  which  a  right  to  partici- 
pate ia  all  its  safe-guards  and  advantages  is  sure  to  inspire.  Had  such  a  course  of  policy 
been  adopted  by  Richard,  it  is  fair  to  conclude,  from  the  petitions  addressed  to  some  of 
his  predecessors,  as  well  from  large  bodies  of  the  natives  as  from  individuals,  praying 
for  the  benefits  of  the  English  law,  that  a  measure  granting  this  desired  boon  to  the 
whole  kingdom,  and  even  enforcing  its  general  acceptance,  would  have  been  hailed  with 
joy  and  thankfulness  by  the  great  mass  of  the  Irish  people,  and  might  have  abridged,  by 
many  centuries,  the  dominion  of  anarchy  in  that  realm. 

But  such,  unluckily,  was  not  the  policy  which  this  young  monarch,  though  with  means 
so  ample,  and  having,  to  a  certain  extent,  clear  views  of  his  regal  duty,  was  far-sighted 
enough  to  adopt.  A  merely  outward  show  of  submission  and  allegiance,  such  as  had 
been  proffered  to  his  progenitors,  John  and  Henry  II.,  was  all  that  his  superficial  and 
liasty  ambition  aimed  at;  and  this  the  present  race  of  chieftains  were  fully  as  ready  to 
proffer  and  promise  as  their  ancestors,  and,  it  may  be  added,  with  quite  as  little  intention 
of  adhering  to  their  engagements.  On  the  first  alarm  of  his  arrival,  at  the  head  of  so 
numerous  a  force, — the  largest  ever  yet  landed  upon  the  Irish  shores, — the  natives  had  fled 
to  those  natural  fastnesses  which  a  country  intersected  with  woods  and  morasses  afforded 
to  them,|  and  so  were  enabled  to  elude  the  invader's  approach.  But  all  intention  of  of- 
fering resistance  to  so  powerful  a  force  was  soon  abandoned  ;  and,  it  being  understood 
that  the  submission  of  the  chieftains  would  be  graciously  received,  O'Neill,  and  other 
lords  of  Ulster,  met  the  king  at  Drogheda,  and  there  did  homage  and  swore  fealty  with 
the  usual  solemnities, — laying  aside  their  girdles,  skeins,  and  caps,  and  then  falling  upon 
their  knees  at  his  feetj 

In  the  mean  while,  Mowbray,  earl  of  Nottingham,  and  lord  marshal  of  England,  had 
been  specially  commissioned  by  the  king  to  receive  the  homage  and  oaths  of  fealty  of 
the  Irish  of  Leinster.  On  the  open  plain,  at  Balligory,  near  Carlow,  an  interview  was 
held  by  this  lord  with  Art  JMac  Morough,  the  heir  of  the  ancient  kings  of  Leinster,  and 
several  other  southern  chiefs,||  wlio  there  went  through  the  same  ceremonies  of  submis- 
sion as  had  been  performed  in  the  king's  presence,  at  Drogheda;  after  which  the  lord 
marshal  gave  to  each  of  them  the  kiss  of  peace.     They  were  likewise  bound  severally,  by 

*  Davies. — Cox.  t  Inisfail,  an  ancient  name  of  Ireland. 

X  "  But  I  shewe  you,  bycause  ye  should  knows  thp  truth,  Ireland  is  on  of  the  yvell  countries  of  the  world 
to  make  warre  upon,  or  to  bring  under  subjection,  for  it  is  closed  strongely  and  wydely  with  high  forestes, 
and  great  waters  and  niaresshes  and  places  inhabytable;  it  is  harde  to  entre  to  do  them  of  the  country  anie 
domage;  now  ye  shall  fyude  no  towne  nor  persone  to  speke  withal;  for  the  men  drawe  to  the  woodes  and 
dwell  in  caves  and  small  cottages,  under  trees,  and  among  busshes  and  hedges,  lyke  wylde  savage  beestes. 

For  a  man  of  arms  beyng  never  so  well  horsed,  and  ron  as  fast  as  he  can,  the  Yrisshemen  vvyll 

ryn  afote  as  faste  as  he,  and  overtake  hyra,  yea,  and  leaps  up  upon  his  horse  behynde  him,  and  drawe  hym 
from  his  horse." — Froissart. 

§  Davies. 

if  The  names  of  the  chiefs  who  submitted  to  Richard  are  thus  strangely  metamorphosed  by  Otterbourne:  — 
•*  Perterriti  eorum  reguli  se  regi  submisserunt,  viz.  Power,  cum  filio  suo  juxta  Waterford  ;  Ocell,  Onelon,  cum 
rilio  suo  Abron  ;  Macmourlh,  cum  presbytcro,  Powerest,  Dymell,  Dagvviih,  de  Demisin,  et  Arcay." — Chronic. 
Reg.  AnglicE. 


366  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

indentures,  and  in  larg'e  penalties,  payable  in  the  apostolic  chamber,  not  only  to  continue 
loyal  subjects,  but  to  answer,  for  themselves  and  all  their  swordsmen,  that  they  would,  on 
a  certain  fixed  day,  surrender  to  the  king  and  his  successors  all  the  lands  and  possessions 
held  by  them  in  Leinster,  taking  with  them  only  their  moveable  goods.  They  also 
pledged  themselves  to  serve  him  in  his  wars  against  all  other  Irish.* 

In  return  fur  this  total  surrender  of  their  ancient  rights  and  patrimonies,  they  were  to 
be  taken  into  the  pay  of  the  crown,  and  receive  pensions  during  their  lives,  together  with 
the  inheritance  of  all  such  territories  as  they  could  seize  from  the  rebels  in  other  parts 
of  the  realm;  thus  giving  to  these  wretched  chieftains,  as  a  sort  of  salve  for  the  injuries 
perpetrated  on  themselves,  full  license,  and  even  encouragement,  to  inflict  the  same 
enormities  upon  others.  The  pension  of  eighty  marks,  bestowed  on  Mac  Morough, 
the  captain  of  the  Cavanaghs,  at  this  time,  was  continued  to  his  posterity  till  the  time  of 
Henry  VIII. 

Neal  O'Niell,  who  in  the  letters  addressed  by  him  to  the  king,f  styles  himself  prince 
of  the  Irish  of  Ulster,  was  bound,  in  the  indenture  agreed  upon  between  them,  not  only 
to  remain  faithful  to  the  crown  of  England,  but  to  restore  to  the  earl  of  Ulster  the  bo- 
naght,  or  war  tax,  of  that  province,  which  the  family  of  the  O'Neills,  it  was  alleged,  had 
usurped.  It  appears,  from  the  enrolments  still  preserved  of  these  different  indentures 
and  submissions,  that  the  number  of  chieftains  who  proffered  their  homage  and  oaths  of 
fidelity,  was  no  less  than  seventy-five, — a  fact,  in  itself,  abundantly  showing  what  a  scene 
of  contusion  must  have  been  the  country  in  which  such  numbers  of  rude  and  petty  poten- 
tates contributed  each  his  share  of  despotism  and  misrule. 

From  the  correspondence  that  passed  between  Richard  and  his  council  in  England, 
during  this  expedition,  it  is  clear  that  he  regarded  the  submission  of  O'Neill  and  M'Mo- 
rough  as  a  signal  success  gained  by  his  presence;  while  the  council,  in  replying  to  his 
account  of  his  "noble  voyage,  as  they  styled  it,  return,  like  skilful  courtiers,  an  echo  to 
his  own  opinion  of  it.  In  one  important  respect,  these  letters  reflect  credit  on  the  mo- 
narch's memory,  as  showing  him  to  have  had  sense  enough  to  discover  that  English  mis- 
rule was  the  main  cause  of  Irish  revolt,  and  manly  candour  enough  to  acknowledge  so 
new  and  unpopular  an  opinion.  "There  are,  in  this  our  land,"  he  writes  from  Uublin,J 
"  three  classes  of  persons, — wild  Irish,  or  enemies,  Irish  rebels,  and  English  subjects ;  and, 
considering  that  the  rebels  have  been  made  such  by  wrongs,  and  by  the  want  of  due  at- 
tention to  their  grievances,  and  that,  if  they  be  not  wisely  treated,  and  encouraged  by 
hopes  of  favour,  they  will  most  probably  join  themselves  with  our  enemies,  we  think  it 
right  to  grant  them  a  general  pardon,  and  take  them  under  our  especial  protection." 

In  their  reply  to  this  letter  of  the  king,  the  duke  and  the  council,  alter  significantly 
reminding  him  that  they  had  formerly  advised  the  adoption  of  severe  measures  against 
the  rebels,  add  that,  in  deference  to  his  wise  discretion,  and  the  greater  opportunity  he 
possessed  of  acquiring  information,  on  the  spot,  they  freely  assent  to  his  views, — provided 
that,  in  return  for  the  pardons  "ranted  to  the  rebels,  certain  large  fines  and  ransoms 
ehonld  be  paid  by  them  towards  the  charges  of  the  king's  voyage.^ 

It  was  evidently  gratifying  to  the  vanity  of  Richard  to  parade  thus  his  state  and  mag- 
nificence in  the  eyes  of  the  rude  but  proud  chiefs  who  followed  as  vassals  in  his  train. 
One  of  the  charges  against  him,  some  years  after,  on  his  deposition  by  parliament,  was, 
that  he  had  carried  away  the  crown  jewels  to  Ireland  ;  and  doubtless  the  pleasure  of  sur- 
prizing and  dazzling  these  minor  potentates  was  one  of  the  very  few  purposes  to  which 
he  could  have  found  occasion  to  apply  them.  Wishing  to  confer  upon  these  kings  the 
honour  of  knighthood,  he  placed  them  under  the  care  of  an  English  gentleman,  named 
Henry  Castide.JI  who,  having  married  a  native  woman  and  lived  for  many  years  in  the 

♦  Cox. 

t  Ego  Nelanus  O'Neil  senior,  tarn  pro  meipso,  quam  profiliis  meie,  et  tato  naiione  mea,  et  parentelis  meis, 
et  pru  omnibus  subditis  meis,  devenio  ligeiis  homo  vester,"  &c.  &c. 

I  '■  Pource  ensnmf  nt  qpii  notre  terre  Dirlande  sont  trois  nianers  des  geiitz,  cestassavoir  Trrois  savages  nos 
enemis,  Irroix  rohelx  el  Engleis  otieissantz  :  senible  a  nous  el  a  notre  counscil  esleant  entour  nous  que  con- 
siderez  que  Ws  diiz  Irroix  rehelx  se  sniint  par  ras  rehellez  pour  griefs  et  tortz  a  eux  faites  dune  part  et  par 
defaute  que  remedie  ne  lour  ad  estoz  fet  dauire  part  et  qe  ensetiient  8ils  iie  feiissent  sagemenl  tretez  et  inis 
en  hoii  tspoir  de  grace,  its  se  Vorroient  verisemhlablemenl  juindre  a  nos  <meniis,  &c.  &c. — See  Proceedings 
and  Ordinances  of  the  Privy  Covnril  of  England,  edited  by  sir  Norris  Harris  Nicholas. 

§  Procecdinss  and  Ordinanrcs,  Jj-r. 

II  Accordini;  to  some  reariidgs,  Crislal.  Tliis  gentleman  had  been  made  prisoner,  in  a  sitirmish  with  the 
Irish,  under  circumstances  which  he  himself  thus  described  ; — It  chanced  lliat  in  tliis  pur^iuit  my  horse  took 
fright,  and  ran  a  way  with  me.  in  spite  <if  all  my  effortSj  into  the  midst  of  the  enemy.  My  fiiends  could  never 
overtake  me  ;  and  in  passing  through  the  Irish,  one  of  them,  by  a  gretit  feat  of  agility,  leaped  on  the  back  of 
my  horse,  and  held  nie  tight  with  both  his  arAis,  but  did  me  no  harm  with  lance  or  knife.  .  .  .  He  seemed 
much  rejoiced  to  have  made  me  his  prisoner,  and  carried  me  to  his  house,  which  was  strong,  and  in  a  town 
surrounded  with  wood,  palisades,  and  siagnant  water.  The  gentleman  who  had  taken  me  was  called  Brin 
(•or  Brian)  Costetel,  a  very  handsome  mah.  1  have  frequently  made  inquiries  alter  him,  and  hear  that  he  in 
still  aliVe,  but  very  old.  This  Brian  Costeret  kept  me  with  him  seven  years,  and  gave  me  his  daughter  in 
■marriage,  by  whom  I  have  two  girls," — Froissnrt^  Johnes's  transtation. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  367 

country,  was  well  acquainted  with  the  Irish  languages,  desiring  that  he  would  instruct 
them  in  the  dress,  ceremonies,  and  manner  of  behaviour  which  would  be  required  of 
them  on  such  an  occasion.  When  informed  of  the  king's  intention  to  make  them  knights, 
according  to  the  usage  of  France,  England,  and  other  countries,  they  answered  that  they 
were  already  knights  and  needed  no  new  creation.  It  was  the  custom,  they  added,  of 
every  Irish  king,  to  confer  that  order  upon  his  sons,  when  very  young,  and  they  them- 
selves had  been  knights  since  they  were  seven  years  old;  their  first  attempts  at  justing 
having  been  to  run  with  small  light  spears  against  a  shield  set  upon  a  stake  in  a  meadow; 
and  the  more  spears  each  of  them  broke  the  more  honour  he  acquired.* 

According  to  the  account  given  of  these  chiefs  by  the  French  chronicler,  who  received 
his  information  from  their  instructor,  the  progress  made  by  them  in  the  forms  and  obser- 
vances of  courtly  society  was  by  no  means  very  promising.f  It  was  with  difficulty  he 
could  bring  them  to  relinquish  their  practice  of  dining  at  the  same  table  with  their  own 
minstrels  and  servants,  or  succeed  in  prevailing  upon  them  to  wear  breeches  according 
to  the  English  fashion.  Much  persuasion  also  was  necessary  before  they  could  be  induced 
to  exchange  the  simple  mantle  of  the  country,  for  robes  of  silk  trimmed  with  squirrel 
skin  or  miniver.  At  length,  by  the  intervention  of  the  earl  of  Ormond,  who  spoke  their 
language,  and  was  generally  respected  by  the  Irish,  they  consented  to  subnr>;l  to  the  re- 
quired forms.  Having  kept  watch  all  the  night  before  in  the  church,  they  were  knighted, 
on  Lady-day  in  the  cathedral  of  Dublin;  and  the  ceremony  was  followed  by  a  great 
banquet,  at  which  the  four  Irish  kings  attended  in  robes  of  state,  and  sat  with  king- 
Richard  at  his  table.J 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  parade  Richard  forgot  not  altogether  the  higher  duties  of  his 
kingly  station,  but  showed,  by  the  care  which  he  took  in  providing  the  courts  of 
justice  with  able  and  trustworthy  judges,  as  well  as  by  the  reforms  commenced  by  •f.jq/ 
him  in  legal  proceedings,  according  to  the  precedents  of  England,  that  ho  both  i.iqc-" 
knew  where  lay  the  true  causes  of  Ireland's  misrule,  and  was  fairly  disposed,  had 
the  state  of  his  English  dominions  allowed  him  leisure,  to  endeavour  to  correct  and  re- 
move them.     He  had  likewise,  with  a  view  to  the  peace  and  security  of  the  city  of  Dub- 
lin, projected  the  establishment  of  a  civil  plantation  in  the  mountains  of  VVicklow,  having 
covenanted  with  the  unquiet  septs  inhabiting  that  region,  for  their  removal  to  some  other 
quarter.^ 

But  these  wise  and  useful  projects  were  now  all  suddenly  interrupted.  The  council  had 
already  urged  his  speedy  return  to  England,  in  consequence  of  a  rumour  having  reached 
them  of  the  intention  of  the  Scots  to  break  the  present  truce. 1|  But  a  still  more  pressing- 
motive  presented  itself.  The  daring  atack  made  upon  the  revenues  and  discipline  of  the 
church  by  those  disciples  of  Wycliffe,  called  LoUnrds,  had  spread  much  alarm  among  the 
whole  body  of  the  clergy ;  and  the  archbishop  of  York  and  tlie  bishop  of  London  v/ere  de- 
puted to  hasten  to  the  king  in  Ireland,  and  represent  to  him  the  danger,  both  of  spolia- 
tion and  heresy  to  which  the  church  was,  at  that  moment,  exposed.  An  appeal  proceed- 
ing from  this  quarter  he  would  doubtless  regard  as  worthy  of  peculiar  attention  on  ac- 
count of  the  munificence  with  which  the  church  had  come  forward  to  contribute  to  the 
expenses  of  his  Irish  expedition  ;  most  of  the  prelates  (as  well  as  likewise  of  the  lords  of 
the  council)  iiaving  advanced  each  a  loan  of  one  thousand  pounds,  for  that  purpose; — not 
being  bound  thereto,  as  they  took  care  to  protest,  by  any  strict  right,  but  by  their  affec- 
tion for  their  king. IT 

In  consequence  of  all  this,  the  king,  after  passing  his  birth-day  in  Dublin,  and  accord- 
ing to  some  accounts,  holding  a  parliament  in  that  city,  returned  in  the  summer 
of  the  year  1395,  into  England,  leaving,  most  rashly,  his  young  kinsman,  Roger  i^oq^" 
Mortimer,  earl  of  March,  M'ith  ample  powers,  to  act  as  his  lieutenant.     This 
young  nobleman,  whose  hereditary  rank,  in  the  event  of  Richard  dying  without  issue, 
placed  him  nearest  in  succession  to  the  throne,**  had,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  at  Cork, 
in  1392,  been  left  a  minor  under  the  legal  guardianship  of  the  king;  and  though,  in  vio- 
lation of  this  trust,  some  minions  of  the  court  had  during  his  minority,  been"  admitted 
into  the  profits  of  the  estates.ff  his  property,  nevertheless,  on  his  coming  of  age,  was  im- 

♦  Froissart. 

t  '•  Kynge  Edwarde,  of  pnod  memory,  dyd  never  so  worke  upon  them  as  kynge  Ricliarde  dyd  in  this  voyage; 
the  honour  is  great,  but  the  profyte  is  but  lytell ;  for  though  they  be  kynges,  yet  no  man  can  deuyse  nor  speke 
of  ruder  personages." — fVoissart. 

I  Froissart.  §  Davics. 

II  "  Par  cause  r\e  les  Escotz  a  ce  qe  nous  avonsentenduz  ne  veullen  tenirnegarder  ces  presentes  trieues." — 
^cts  of  Privy  Council. 

IT  Walsinghain.  "Facta  prius  protestatione,  quod  ad  hoc  concedendum  non  tenebantur  de  stricto  jure, 
sed  sui  regis  effectoine.'' 

**  With  a  view  to  such  an  occurrence,  he  was  nominated  by  the  parliament  of  1.185  heir  presumptive  to 
the  crown. 

It  Walsingham. 


358  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

mense.  When  accompanying  the  king  to  Ireland,  he  liad  in  his  retinue  100  men-at-arms, 
of  wliich  two  were  bannerets,  and  eight  knights,  200  archers  on  horseback,  and  400 
archers  on  foot. 

It  soon  became  manifest,  that  the  Irish  chieftains,  in  their  late  specious  submissions, 
had  no  other  view  than  to  bow  temporarily  to  the  immediate  pressure  of  power,  and 
then  to  raise  again  their  heads  as  soon  as  the  storm  should  have  blown  over;  for  scarcely 
had  the  king  sailed  with  his  forces  from  the  shore,  when  fierce  incursions  were  made 
into  the  borders  of  the  Pale.  Thus  suddenly  attacked,  and  in  different  quarters  at  the 
same  time,  the  English  lords,  supplying  by  valour  what  they  wanted  in  numbers,  repulsed 
boldy  the  assailants;  and  a  force  commanded  by  sir  Thomas  de  Burgh  and  Walter  de 
Bermingham,  slew  600  of  the  Irish,  together  with  their  chieftain  Mac  Con.  The  lord 
lieutenant,  assisted  by  the  earl  of  Ormond,  was  no  less  successful  in  quelling  the  O'Byrnes 
of  Wicklow;  and  the  feat  of  storming  the  ancient  manor-house  of  the  chief  of  this  sept 
was  triumphantly  commemorated  within  its  walls,  by  the  creation  of  seven  knights.* 

A  summons  at  this  time,  to  attend  the  parliament,  at  Shrewsbury,  afforded  the  young 
viceroy  a  welcome  opportunity  of  displaying  the  pomp  and  pageantry  in  which  he  so  much 
delighted;  and  he  accordingly  made  his  appearance  there,  at  the  head  of  a  crowd  of  retain- 
ers, all  apparelled,  at  his  own  expense,  in  white  and  crimson. f  But  a  sad  reverse  awaited 
his  return  to  the  seat  of  his  government.  For,  while  engaged  in  a  conflict,  at  Kenli8> 
with  the  sept  of  the  O'Byrnes,  having  been  hurried  on,  by  his  impetuous  valour,  into  the 
ranks  of  the  enemy,  he  was  slain,  and,  it  is  said,  torn  to  pieces,  by  the  natives.^ 

In  the  year  1398,  Thomas  Holland,  duke  of  Surrey,  half  brother  to  the  king,  viras  sent 

over  to  Ireland  as  lord  lieutenant,  attended  by  a  foreigner,  named  Janico  d'Artois, 

T4qc   whose  name  occurs  frequently,  in  our  records,  during  this,  and  the  three  or  four 

■  following  reigns,  and  always  connected  with  the  charge  or  exercise  of  some  great 
public  trust,  military  or  civil. 

Nearly  five  years  had  now  elapsed  from  the  lime  of  Richard's  first  visit  to  Ireland, 
when,  under  circumstances  which  rendered  so  wild  a  scheme  of  adventure  almost  unac- 
countable, he  again  undertook  a  great  expedition  to  that  kingdom.  The  line  of  policy 
pursued  by  him,  in  England,  during  the  interval,  had  been  such  as  to  render  him  at  once 
powerful  and  odious;  to  remove  arbitrarily  out  of  his  way  all  individual  rivals  and  oppo- 
nents, but,  at  the  same  time,  to  array  against  him  the  combined  hatred  of  the  great  mass 
of  the  people.  Of  the  immense  power  that  had  accrued  to  the  crown,  during  the 
struggle,  he  was  but  too  fully  aware;  but  the  amount  and  strength  of  the  popular  reac- 
tion against  his  tyranny,  he  was  by  no  means  prepared  to  expect, — having  succeeded 
mean  while  in  lulling  himself  into  that  false  sense  of  security  from  which  successful  ly- 
raimy  is  in  general  awakened  but  by  its  downfal.  In  no  other  way  can  the  strange  fa- 
tuity be  accounted  for  which  led  him,  at  this  crisis  of  his  fortunes,  to  absent  himself  from 
his  high  post,  as  sovereign  of  England,  and  with  the  sole  view,  as  he  professed,  of  avenging 
the  death  of  his  cousin,  the  earl  of  March, ^  to  undertake  a  second  wild  and  wasteful  expe- 
dition against  the  rebellious  chieftains  of  Ireland. 

Having  appointed  his  uncle,  the  diike  of  York,  to  be  regent  during  his  absence,  the 
king,  after  assisting  at  a  solemn  mass  at  Windsor,  and  chanting  a  collect  himself,  took  wine 
and  spices,  we  are  told,  at  the  door  of  the  church,  with  his  young  queen,  who  was  then 
but  eleven  years  of  age,  and,  lifting  her  up  in  his  arms,  kissed  her  several  times,  saying, 
"  Adieu,  madan),  adieu,  till  we  meet  again. "||  He  then  proceeded,  attended  by  a  train 
of  lords,  to  Bristol,  where  some  reports  reached  him  of  plots  against  his  govorn- 
IQQq  "lent,  which  were  treated  by  him  with  disregard.     For  the  naval  part  of  the  ar- 

■  mament,  the  preparations  had  been  on  a  grand  scale.  Impressment  had  been 
resorted  to  for  the  manning  of  the  fleet;  and  vessels  were  ordered  to  assemble  at  Milford 
or  Bristol  from  all  ports  and  places  on  the  sea-coast  northward  as  far  as  Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne.  There  were  also  minstrels  attendant  upon  the  army;  and,  as  one  who  accompa- 
nied the  expedition  tells  us,  "  trumpets  and  the  sound  of  minstrels  might  be  heard  day 
and  night."     Joining  his  forces  at  Milford  Haven,  he  embarked  in  a  fleet  of  200  sail,  and 

*  Aniial.  Hibern. 

t  "  Etiatn  expensis  prnpriis,  pro  niajori  parto,  in  cnloribiia  suis,  scilicet  rubeo  et  albo  veatitis." 

j  Neqiiiter  occisus  et  inombratim  dilaceratus." — f^jta  U'egis  Ric.  In  answer  to  a  petition  of  the  earl  of 
Northumberland,  and  other  exerntors  of  this  young  lord  Tciose  Roll,  I  Hen.  IV.,)  he  is  said  to  have  been 
"  casualiler  nequiter  interffclns."  It  is  added,  in  some  accounts,  that  he  was  di:<guised,  on  this  occasion,  in 
the  habit  and  accoutreiuents  of  an  Irish  soMier. 

§  Walsingham. —  In  the  writ  ordering  the  preparations  for  this  voyage  he  thus  assigns  the  motives  of  his  ex- 
pedition :—'•  Propter  nialitiani  qiiornnduni  Hiberniconini  ininiicornm  nostrorum  qui  contra  nos,  ex  eoiinn 
protervia,  a  din  est,  rebell(!B  ct  inobedientes  accrcvernni." 

II  Lingard. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  359 

in  less  than  two  days,  arrived  in  sight  of  the  town  of  Waterford.  On  landing,  he  was 
received  by  the  merchants  and  other  citizens  with  a  cordial  welcome.*  The  king  had 
been  landed  but  a  few  days,  when  his  active  officer,  Janico  d'Artois,  taking  advantage  of 
the  approach  of  the  grand  army,  began  to  attack  the  Irish;  and,  in  a  conflict  with  them 
at  Kenlis,  in  the  county  of  Kildare,  slew  200  of  their  force.f 

After  remaining  about  a  week  in  Waterford,  the  king  marched  his  army  to  Kilkenny, 
where  he  was  detained  for  fourteen  days,  expecting  anxiously  the  arrival  of  the  duke  of 
Albemarle.  This  nobleman,  who  was  Richard's  cousin,  had  been  ordered  to  follow  with 
a  fleet  of  100  sail,  and  his  long  delay  was  afterwards  attributed  to  secret  concert  with 
the  king's  enemies. J  When  joined  by  this  force,  the  monarch,  though  straitened  for  want 
of  provisions  for  his  unwieldy  numbers,  directed  his  march  towards  the  chief  Mac  Mo- 
rough,  who,  retired  within  his  woods  and  fastnesses,  with  a  large  multitude  of  followers, 
bade  defiance  to  the  arms  of  the  invaders,  denounced  their  power  as  founded  in  force 
and  injustice,  and  declared  his  resolution  "  to  defend  the  land  unto  his  death." 

Relying  on  the  strengths  and  intrenchments  furnished  to  them  by  nature,  and  prefer- 
ring the  short  irregular  skirmish  to  the  set  battle,  the  Irish  seldom  afll)rded  an  opportunity 
of  judging  of  the  extent  of  their  whole  force.  The  narrator,  however,  of  the  events  of  this 
war — himself  an  eye-witness  of  much  that  he  describes^ — states  Mac  Morough's  army  to 
have  consisted  of  "  3000  stout  men  ;"  and  adds,  they  were  "  such  as  it  appeared  to  him  the 
English  marvelled  to  behold. "|i  But  notwithstanding  that  the  king's  army  remained  for 
some  time  drawn  out,  in  order  of  battle,  at  the  entrance  of  the  dense  woods  in  which  the  na- 
tives had  intrenched  themselves,  there  appeared  no  chance  of  provoking  the  latter  to  risk 
an  engagement  in  the  open  field.  All  that  remained,  therefore,  for  Richard,  was,  to  set 
fire  to  the  adjacent  villages,  and  employ  their  inhabitants  in  cutting  a  passage  for  the 
march  of  his  army  through  the  woods.  Having  taken  this  resolution,  the  king  advanced 
liis  standard,  and  created  under  it  several  knights,  among  whom  was  the  young  Henry 
of  Monmouth, — in  after  years,  the  victorious  Henry  the  fifth, — whom  a  spectator  of  the 
scene  describes  as  then  "a  young,  fair,  and  promising  bachelor."  The  king  had  taken 
this  youth  with  him  to  Ireland,  in  order  that  he  might  learn  there  the  rudiments  of  war, 
and  make  his  first  trial  of  arms;ir  and  on  the  present  occasion,  when  raising  him  to  the 
honour  of  knighthood,  Richard  is  said  to  have  thus  addressed  him, — "  My  fair  cousin,  be 
henceforth  preux  and  valiant,  for  you  have  some  valiant  blood  to  conquer." 

But  the  march  of  the  royal  army  was  beset  with  difficulties  and  delays,  the  road  being 
encumbered  with  fallen  trees,  and  in  many  places  so  boggy,  that  the  soldiers,  as  they 
marched,  sunk  into  it  up  to  the  middle;  while,  in  the  mean  time,  flying  parties  of  Irish, 
"  so  nimble  and  switl  of  foot,  that,  like  unto  stags,  they  ran  over  mountains  and  valleys," 
hovered  around  with  barbarous  howls,  in  every  direction,  cutting  off"  the  stragglers  and 
foragers,  and  hurling  their  darts  or  short  javelins  with  a  degree  of  force  that  no  coat  of 
arms  could  withstand. 

Though  M'Morough  himself  had  beheld  without  flinching  the  approach  of  the  assailants, 
there  were  others  of  the  Irish  chiefs,  and  among  those  his  own  uncle,  who,  panic-struck 

*  French  metrical  narrative  :— 

"Mainte  trompette  y  pouvoit  enoir, 
De  jour  de  nuit  nienestrelz  retentir,'' 

f  Ttiat  tliis  officer  had  already  distinguished  himself,  during  the  duke  of  Surrey's  government,  may  be  con- 
cluded from  the  manner  in  which  their  names  are  coupled  by  an  old  chronicler:—"  Virtus  ducis  Southrejaeot 
Janichnnis  Alemanni  in  Hihernia  clariut.'" — Chronic.  Tinemut.  in  Leland.  Colleclan.  Though  described  in 
this  extract  as  a  German,  he  is  generally  supposed  to  have  been  a  Gascon  gentleman. 

I  Lingard. — "He  was  kept  (says  stow)  tarrying  for  the  duke  of  Albemarle,  that  kept  not  the  right  course." 

I  The  writer  of  the  Histoire  du  Roy  d'Mnglelerre,  Richard, — an  account,  in  French  metre,  of  the  last  four  or 
five  months  of  Richard's  reign.  Of  this  curious  tract  there  exist  two  MSS.,  one  of  which  is  in  the  British 
Aluseum,  and  the  other  in  the  library  of  Lambeth  Palace.  A  translation  of  that  portion  of  the  story  which 
relates  to  Ireland  was  made  by  (he  eminent  sir  George  Carew,  lord  president  of  Munster  (see^Harris's  Hiber- 
nica  )  But  the  entire  narrative  has  found,  within  our  own  time,  an  accomplished  translator  and  commentator 
in  the  Rev.  J.  Webb.  Archaologia,  vol.  xx. 

II  Carew's  translation  ;  thus  translated  by  Webb: — "Wilder  people  I  never  saw  ;  they  did  not  appear  lo 
me  to  be  much  dismayed  at  the  English."     The  following  is  the  original  :— 

"Trois  mil  homes  qui  fonrent  moult  bardi, 
Et  si  apers,  conques  telz  gens  ne  vy ; 
Dangloiz  trop  pou  estoient  esbahi, 
Ce  mc  sembla." 

V  ■'  Ut  rem  militarem  diBceret  et  primum  exercerel."— Tit.  Liv.  f1«a  Hen.  V. 


360  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

by  the  numbers  of  the  enemy,  hastened,  with  halters  round  their  necks,  and,  falling', 
prostrate  at  the  king's  feet,  implored  of  him  mercy  and  peace.  A  grant  of  free  pardoti 
was  accordingly  vouchsafed  to  them,  on  condition  of  their  swearing  to  remain,  from 
thenceforward,  true  and  loyal  subjects.  At  the  same  time,  a  message  was  sent  by  the 
kinf  to  Mac  Morough,  summoning  that  chief  to  appear  before  him  in  a  like  suppliant 
euisp,  and  engaging  that,  if  he  would  thus  humbly  submit  himself,  not  only  should  mercy 
be  accorded  to  him,  but  the  king  would  bestow  upon  him,  as  the  reward  of  his  loyalty, 
ample  territories  and  towns. 

The  subtle  chief,  however,  knew  far  too  well  the  real  motive  of  these  plausible  offers, 
to  allow  himself  to  be  shaken,  for  a  moment,  from  his  plan  of  protracted  resistance.  He 
knew,  so  distressed  were  the  English  army  for  want  of  provisions,  that  numbers  of  the 
soldiers  had  already  perished  by  famine;  that  this  scourge  had  extended  also  to  the  officers, 
and  that  the  whole  camp  was  full  of  despondence  and  murmurs.  Emboldened,  there- 
fore, by  this  knowledge,  he  replied  to  the  king's  message,  that  "not  all  the  gold  in  the 
world  could  tempt  him  into  submission;  that  he  would  continue  still  to  carry  on  the 
war,  and  do  the  king  all  the  injury  in  iiis  power."  In  the  mean  time,  the  arrival  from 
Dublin  of  three  ships,  laden  with  provisions,  afforded  some  slight  relief  to  the  famished 
soldiers,  who  are  described  as  plunging  eagerly  into  the  sea  to  reach  the  vessels,  and 
even  wounding  each  other  in  their  fierce  contest  for  relief. 

The  kin""  was  now  left  no  other  alternative  than  to  decamp  and  march  immediately 
for  Dublin :  nor  even  this  was  he  allowed  to  effect  without  molestation,  as  the  Irish  ene- 
my hung  upon  his  rear,  and,  by  harassing  the  troops  by  constant  skirmishes,  delayed  and 
embarrassed  their  retreat. 

Having  performed  thus  the  only  duty  thnt  Ireland's  chiefs  were  now  lefl  the  power  to 
fulfil, — that  of  reminding  their  proud  masters  that  the  conquered  still  had  arms,  nor 
wanted  the  spirit  to  use  them, — Mac  Morough  sent  to  request  of  the  king  a  safe  conduct 
to  the  royal  presence,  for  the  purpose  of  tendering  his  humble  submission ; — or,  if  this  pro- 
posal should  be  found  displeasing,  suggesting  that  Richard  should  send  some  of  his  lords 
to  treat  with  the  chief  on  terms  of  peace.  The  news  of  this  overture  was  received  with 
delif^ht  in  the  English  camp,  where  all  were  weary  of  the  hard  service  they  had  lately 
been  engaged  in,  and  joyfully  welcomed  a  chance  of  rest.  By  advice  of  his  council,  the 
kino-  appointed  the  earl  of  Gloucester,  who  was  the  commander  of  his  rear-guard,  to  meet 
Mac  Morough  at  the  place  of  conference;  instructing  him  to  impress  on  the  chief  the 
enormity  of  his  wrongs  and  crimes  against  the  king's  lieges;  and  also  the  retribution  de- 
manded by  justice  for  his  many  gross  and  daring  breaches  of  faith. 

The  earl  took  with  him  to  this  singular  interview  a  guard  of  200  lances  and  1000 
archers;  and  among  the  personages  who,  from  mere  curiosity,  accompanied  him  to  the 
scene  of  the  conference,  was,  luckily,  the  writer  of  the  narrative  already  so  frequently  re- 
ferred to,  whose  lively  description  of  the  manner  and  appearance  of  the  Irish  chief  shall 
here  be  given,  as  nearly  as  translation  will  allow,  in  his  own  words.  "  From  a  mountain, 
between  two  woods,  not  far  from  the  sea,  we  saw  Mac  Morough  descending,  accompanied 
by  multitudes  of  the  Irish,  and  mounted  upon  a  horse  without  a  saddle,  which  cost  him, 
it  was  reported  400  cows.  His  horse  was  fair,  and,  in  his  descent  from  the  hill  to  us,  ran 
as  swift  as  any  stag,  hare,  or  the  swiftest  beast  I  have  ever  seen.*  In  his  right  hand  he 
bore  a  long  spear,  which,  when  near  the  spot  where  he  was  to  meet  the  earl  he  cast  from 
him  with  much  dexterity.  The  crowd  that  followed  him  then  remained  behind,  while 
he  advanced  to  meet  the  earl,  near  a  small  brook. f  He  was  tall  of  stature,  well  com- 
posed, strong  and  active;  his  countenance  fierce  and  cruel. | 

The  parley  that  then  ensued  was  maintained  for  a  considerable  time;  the  English  lord 

*  "  Eiitre  deux  bois,  assez  loing  de  la  mer 
Maquemore  la  inontaigne  avaler 
Vy,  et  dirloiz,  que  pars  ne  scay  nombrer, 
Y  ot  foison. 

Un  cheval  ot  sans  sele  ne  arcon. 
Qui  lui  avoil  couste,  ce  disoit  on, 
Quatreces  vaches  tant  estoit  bel  et  bon." 

t  "  Deulx  deux  fut  la  lassemblee  faite 
Pres  dun  ruissel. 

La  se  mainlint  masqucmore  :  asselz  bel 
Grans  horns  estoit,  a  merveillezysnel ; 
A  vous  dueil  sembloit  fort  fier  et  fel, 
Et  horns  defait." 

J  Metrical  J^arrative,  O'arew's  translation. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  361 

reproaching  the  chief  with  his  various  acts  of  perfidy,  his  murder  of  the  earl  of  March,* 
and  of  others  of  the  king's  loyal  subjects.  But  on  neither  side  was  there  any  advance 
made  towards  reconcilement,  and  the  conference  ended  in  leaving  the  parties  as  much 
asunder  as  when  it  commenced;  the  sole  conditions  on  which  the  king  would  admit  Mac 
Morough  to  his  peace  being  such  as  that  chief  had  haughtily  declared  he  would  never 
submit  to  while  he  had  life.  The  Leinster  prince  had  therefore  to  return  to  his  woods 
and  fastnesses;  while  Gloucester  hastened  back  to  report  the  result  to  his  royal  master, 
who,  thrown  into  a  violent  rage,  on  hearing  it,  swore  by  St.  Edward,  that  "  he  would 
never  depart  out  of  Ireland  until  he  had  Mac  Morough,  living  or  dead,  in  his  hands." 

But  the  unfortunate  monarch's  own  doom  was  fast  approaching.  He  had  reached 
Dublin,  with  his  army,  and  found  in  that  city  such  plenty  of  provisions,  that  even  the 
30,000  men  which  his  force  added  to  the  population  did  not  much  raise,  we  are  told,  the 
prices  in  the  market.f  Here  he  was  joined  at  last,  by  the  re-enforcements  under  the 
duke  of  Albemarle,  whose  arrival  he  had  been  so  long  expecting;  and,  having  resolved 
to  carry  on  the  war  vigorously  against  Mac  Morough,  he  divided  his  army  into  three  por- 
tions, with  the  view  of  surrounding  the  fierce  chief  in  his  woody  covert,  and  so  hunting 
him  into  the  toils.  He  had  also  proclaimed  that  whoever  would  deliver  him  into  his 
hands,  dead  or  alive,  should  receive  100  marks  of  gold. 

For  the  space  of  six  weeks  during  which  Richard  remained  in  Dublin,  passing  the  time 
in  a  round  of  gaieties  and  pomps,  there  prevailed  such  a  course  of  stormy  weather  and 
adverse  winds  that  all  communication  of  intelligence  from  England  was  interrupted ; 
"  which  appeared  fo  me,  tfndoubtedly,"  adds  the  authority  already  cited,  "  to  be  a  presage 
that  God  was  displeased  with  the  ki'ng."  At  last,  there  arrived  a  small  bark  in  the  port 
of  Dublin,  conveying  to  Richard  the'alarming  intelligence  that  Henry  of  Bolingbroke, 
duke  of  Lancaster,  had  taken  advantage  of  his  absence  to  land  in  England  ;  that  already 
some  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  English  barons  had  joined  his  banner,  as  well  as  a  large 
portion  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  that  this  spirit  of  disaffection  was  spreading  fast 
through  the  whole  kingdom.  The  first  act  of  Richard,  on  learning  this  ominous  news, 
was  to  give  vent  to  a  burst  of  petty  revenge  against  Lancaster,  by  ordering  his  unoffend- 
ing son,  the  young  lord  Henry,  to  be  imprisoned  in  the  castle  of  Trim,  together  with  the 
son  of  the  duke  of  Gloucester. 

The  advice  of  the  majority  of  Richard's  council  was,  that  he  should  proceed  with  all 
possible  speed  to  England;  but  Albemarle — who  possessed,  undeservedly,  as  it  proved, 
his  confidence, — opposed  this  opinion  of  the  council;  and  recommended  that,  for  the  pre- 
sent, there  should  only  be  sent  a  small  detachment,  under  lord  Salisbury,  into  Wales, 
there  to  form  a  point  of  union  for  the  king's  friends;  while,  in  the  mean  time,  sufficient 
shipping  might  be  collected  at  Waterford  to  convey  from  thence  the  king  and  the  main 
body  of  his  force.  This  ill-omened  advice  was  readily  adopted  ;  the  earl  of  Salisbury,  as 
he  reluctantly  embarked,  entreating  most  earnestly  of  his  royal  master  to  follow  without 
delay;  while  the  kingf,  in  promising  to  lose  no  time,  swore  also,  by  great  oaths,  that  "  if 
Lancaster  fell  into  his  hands,  he  would  cause  him  to  die  such  a  death  as  that  the  fame 
thereof  should  sound  as  far  as  Turkey."  Notwithstanding  all  this  show  of  spirit,  nearly 
three  weeks  elapsed  before  Richard  arrived  in  Milford  Haven;  and,  during  that  interval, 
the  last  feeble  chance  of  preserving  either  his  throne  or  life  had  vanished. 

It  may  be  worth  noticing  that,  in  answer  to  a  petition  from  Ireland,  in  the  third  year 
of  this  reign,  praying  for  leave  to  dig  mines,  the  king  gives  permission  for  every  one  to 
dig  in  his  own  grounds,  for  gold,  silver,  and  all  other'metals,  during  the  following  six 
ye'^rs,— paying  the  ninth  part  thereof  to  the  king,  and  sending  the  rest  to  the  king's 
mint,  at  Dubli°n4  Tlie  gold  mines  of  Ireland  had  been,  from  very  early  times,  a  subject 
of  speculation;  and  it  appears  from  a  writ  addressed,  in  the  year  1360,  to  James,  earl 
of  Ormond,  that  several  mines,  both  of  gold  and  silver,  were  at  that  time  supposed  to  have 
been  discovered.^ 

*  "  Quant  le  conle  de  la  MarcliR  couitoyz 
Firent  moiirir,  sans  jugemerit  ne  lois." 

The  epitliet  "  courteous"  here  bestowed  upon  the  young  earl  of  March,  is  fully  justified  by  the  character 
civen  of  him  in  a  record  cited  by  Mr.  Webb  :  "'  He  was  distinguished  by  the  qualities  held  in  estimation  at 
that  lime;  a  stout  tourneyer,  a  famous  speaker,  a  costly  feaster,  a  bounteous  giver,  in  conversation  affable 
and  jocose,  in  beauty  of  form  surpassins  his  fellows," 

t  "  Dublin,  a  good  citv,"  says  the  MetricalJVarrat.ive,  "  standing  upon  the  sea,  and  containing  such  great 
abundance  of  merchandise  and  provisions,  that  it  was  said  that  neither  flesh  nor  fish,  bread-corn  nor  wine, 
nor  other  store,  was  any  dearer  for  all  the  army  of  the  king.  I  know  full  well  that  they  were  more  than 
30,000  that  sojourned  therein  and  around." 

i  Prynne  p.  308.  j... 

§  "  Quia  datum  est  nobis  intelligi  quod  quamplunis  minas  auri  et  argenti,  in  dicta  terra  nostra  niDernia 
existunt,"  &c.— Rymer,  torn.  v.  ad  ann.  13G0. 

45 


362  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

HENRY  IV. 

Struggle  between  the  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster. — Beneficial  ultimately  to  England^ 
ruinous  to  Ireland. — Invasion  of  Scotland  by  Henry. — Predatory  attacks  on  the  Irish 
Coasts  by  the  Scots. — The  king's  son  made  lord  lieutenant. — Murder  of  the  sheriff  of  Louth 
by  four  English  gentlemen, — Right  of  the  sword  conferred  on  the  corporation  of  Dublin. — 
Submission  of  Irish  chiefs. — Parliament  held  at  Trim. — Expedition  against  Mac  Mo- 
rough — his  gallant  resistance  and  defeat. — The  king's  son,  Thomas  of  Lancaster,  again 
made  lieutenant — reforms  contemplated  by  him. — Arrest  and  imprisonment  of  the  earl  of 
Kildare. — The  lord  lieutenant  wounded  in  an  affray — summons  a  parliament — is  succeeded 
in  his  office  by  the  prior  of  Kilmainham. — State  of  Ireland  at  this  period. — Proofs  of  the 
decline  of  English  power. 

By  Henry's  election  to  the  throne  of  England, — for  such  was  virtually  his  title 
^QQQ  ^°  ^^^  crown, — the  seeds  were  sown  of  those  long  and  sanguinary  wars,  between 
the  two  rival  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,  of  which  the  whole  history  is  as  con- 
fused and  uncertain  as  the  known  results  were  bloody,  treacherous,  and  disgraceful. 
One  salutary  consequence,  however,  of  these  contests  was  the  gradual  extension  of  the 
powers  of  parliament,  and  those  wholesome  restraints  on  the  royal  authority,  which  the 
precarious  position  of  the  Lancastrian  princes,  enabled  the  commons,  tiirough  three  suc- 
cessive reigns,  to  urge  and  impose.  It  was,  unfortunately,  only  in  the  evils  of  such  a 
struggle  that  the  usual  destiny  of  Ireland  allowed  her  to  have  any  share.  The  impor- 
tant principle  established  by  Richard's  deposition,  and  the  weight  thrown  into  the  popu- 
lar scale  by  the  uncertainty  of  the  tenure  of  the  crown,  were  advantages  derived  by 
England  from  the  wars  of  the  two  Roses,  which  she  purchased  cheaply,  even  at  the  cost 
of  so  many  years  of  internal  strife.  But  far  different  were  the  state  and  prospects  of  the 
wretched  people  so  anomalously  connected  with  her,  who,  while  sharing  in  all  the  worst 
consequences  of  such  a  course  of  convulsion,  saw  neither  hope  nor  chance  of  any  of  its 
atoning  advantages;  but  left  at  the  mercy  of  some  viceroy's  deputy,  without  even  an 
attempt  to  redress  or  palliate  their  wrongs,  found  that,  though  subjects  of  a  state  advancing 
in  the  high  road  to  freedom,  they  were,  themselves,  sinking  every  day  deeper  into  de- 
gradation and  barbarism. 

When  Henry,  soon  after  his  accession,  assuming  the  character  of  lord  superior  of  Scot- 
land, proceeded  to  invade  that  country,  the  northern  coasts  of  Ireland  became  frequently 
an  object  of  attack  on  the  part  of  the  Scots.  "  Both  from  the  high  country  and 
^Ann  ffom  the  isles,"  as  the  language  of  the  record  expresses  it,*  numerous  cxpedi- 
■  tions  were  fitted  out  for  the  Irish  shores;  where  the  traditions,  still  freshly  pre- 
served, of  the  gallant  though  fruitless  efforts  of  Bruce,  could  not  fail  to  rally  the  natives 
around  the  Scottish  banner.  One  of  these  small  armaments  having  been  encountered, 
near  Strangford  in  Ulster,  by  a  naval  force,  under  the  command  of  the  constable  of 
Dublin  castle,  repulsed  triumphantly  the  attack  and  slew  great  numbers  of  the  English.f 

During  the  administration  of  sir  John  Stanley,  who  held  at  this  period  the  post  of  lord 
lieutenant,  a  subsidy  was  granted,  for  three  years,  by  the  English  parliament,  to  provide 
for  the  exigencies  of  the  government. 

The  policy  which  had  been  pursued  in  most  of  the  preceding  reigns,  and,  on  no  graver 
grounds,  probably,  than  the  supposed  fancy  of  the  Irish  for  persons  of  high  rank,  of  send- 
ing some  member  of  the  royal  family  to  direct  the  affairs  of  that  country,  was  adopted 
likewise  under  the  present  king,  who  intrusted  to  his  second  son,  Thomas,  duke  of  Lan- 
caster, though  yet  not  quite  of  age,|  the  responsible  office  of  lord  lieutenant.  Landing, 
on  Sunday  the  13th  of  November,  at  a  place  called  Blovvyk,  near  Dalkey,^  this  prince 

*  Pat.  HoU,  5  Hen.  IV.—"  Tain  de  alta  patria  quam  de  insulis." 

t  Cox. — Marleburrough. 
"'X  Thomas  Erpinghain  and  Hugh  Waterson,  knight,  had  been  appointed  the  young  lord  lieutenant's  guar- 
dians.—Pat.  Roll,  3  Hon.  IV. 

§  "  Applicuit  apud  Blowyk  juxta  Dalkey."— /"at.  Roll.  3  Hen.  IV. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  363 

proceeded  from  thence,  on  the  same  day,  to  Dublin.     Shortly  after  his  arrival,  John  ^ 
Drake,  the  mayor  of  Dublin,  marched  forth,  at  the  head  of  a  strong  body  of  citi-  ,  ^q^* 
zens,  against  the  O'Byrnes  of  Wicklow,  whose  force  consisted,  it  is  said,  of  4000 
men,  and  encountering  them  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Bray,  killed  near  500  of  their  num- 
ber, and  put  the  rest  to  rout.* 

An  event  tliat  occurred  in  the  course  of  this  administration  shows  how  very  little,  in 
respect  to  civilization  and  morals,  the  despised  native  and  his  proud  foreign  master  dif- 
fered from  each  other.  During  a  parliament  held  in  Dublin,  by  the  lord  lieutenant,  sir 
Bartholomew  Vernon  and  three  other  English  gentlemen  publicly  attacked  and  murdered 
the  sheriff  of  Louth,  John  Dowdal;  for  which,  and  for  sundry  other  felonies  committed 
by  them,  these  civilizcrs  of  Ireland  were  outlawed,  and  their  estates  disposed  of  by  cus- 
todiams.f  But  even  this  sluggish  effort  of  justice  was  only  transitory,  as  the  king,  shortly 
after,  pardoned  the  offences  of  the  criminals,  and  restored  to  them  their  estates  durino^ 
life.t 

An  event,  important  at  least  in  the  history  of  the  corporation  of  Dublin,  took  place  iu 
the  course  of  this  year.  The  right  of  the  sword,  or,  in  other  words,  the  privilege  of 
having  a  gilt  sword  carried  before  its  chief  magistrate,  was  granted  by  the  king  to  the 
city  of  Dublin. 5 

As  the  outward  and  specious  submission  of  some  of  the  principal  native  chiefs  formed,  in 
general,  a  part  of  the  pageant  prepared  to  welcome  the  presence  of  royalty  on  these  shores, 
an  imposingdisplay  of  this  kind  was  not  wanting  to  greet  the  present  vicegerent;  and  Achy 
Mac  Mahon,  0'Byr;ie  of  the  Mountains,  and  Riley,  the  head  of  a  great  northern  sept,  all 
submitted  and  entered  into  covenants  of  allegiance  and  service  with  the  lord  lieutenant.|| 
In  the  instance  of  O'Byrne,  too,  a  pledge  of  no  ordinary  value  was  obtained  ;  as  this  chief, 
in  assurance  of  his  sincerity,  granted  to  the  king  the  castle  of  Mackenigan,  and  the 
appurtenances.  After  remaining  not  quite  two  years  of  his  long  term,  the  royal  duke 
returned  to  England,  leaving  as  deputy,  sir  Stephen  Scroop,  who,  in  the  following  year, 
resigned  to  a  new  lord  justice,  James,  earl  of  Ormond. 

Though  the  truce  that  ensued  between  England  and  Scotland,  after  the  memo- 
rable victory  of  Homildon  Hill,  was  at  this  period  still  in  force,  there  occurred,  on  ^'a^^ 
both  sides,  frequent  infractions  of  it,  by  armed  merchantmen  and  cruisers.     The  ^'*"'** 
depredations  of  some  Scottish  pirates,  in  the  Irish  seas,  provoked  reprisals  of  a  similar 
nature;  and  the  merchants  of  Drogheda,  as  well  as  of  Dublin,  fitting  out  ships  to  different 
parts  of  the  coast  of  Scotland,  succeeded  in  bringing  from  thence  considerable  plunder. 
In  a  marauding  expedition  of  the  same  kind  into  Wales, — where  the  heroic  chieftain, 
Owen  Glendower,  was,  at  this  time,  baffling  the  arms  of  the  Henrys,  both  father  and 
son,  by  efforts  of  valour  so  prodigious  as  to  be  attributed  to  the  spells  of  necromancy, — 
there  was  now  carried  away,  among  other  booty,  a  shrine  of  the  Welsh  saint,  St.  Cubin, 
which  the  pious  plunderers,  on  their  return  to  Dublin,  placed  as  an  offering  in  the  priory 
of  the  Holy  Trinity,  now  called  Christ  Church. IT 

The  piratical  warfare  between  the  Irish  merchants  and  the  Scots  was  put  an 
end  to  this  year,  by  a  sort  of  treaty  of  peace,  the  negotiation  of  which  with  Mac-  ^Ir^' 
donald,  lord  of  the  isles,  was  intrusted  by  the  king  to  John  Dongan,  bishop  of 
Derry,  and  Janico  d'Artois. 

Gerald,  the  fifth  earl  of  Kildare,  having  been  for  a  short  time  lord  justice,  gave 
place  to  sir  Stephen  Scroop,  who  again   came  over  as  lord  deputy,  and  held  a  i^rjp 
parliament  at  Dublin,  in  January,  which,  in  the  lent  after,  concluded  its  session 
at  Trim. 

It  is  painful  to  be  compelled  to  remind  the  reader  that  such,  and  such  only,  is  the  qua- 

*  Marleburrnugh — Harris  {Hist,  of  Dublin)  incorrectly  cites  Campion  as  having  made  the  number  of  slain 
amount  to  4000. 

f  Marleburroiigh.  J  Cox. 

§  Pat.  Roll.  4  Hen.  IV.  "  Ciuod  major  civitatis  Dulilini  et  successores  sui  imperpetuiim,  habeant  quandam 
gladium,  deauratuin  coram  eis  postatum  prout  Major'  London'."  Co.v,  who  places  this  event  incorrectly  in 
the  tenth  year  of  Henry's  reign,  adds,  that  at  the  same  lirae  with  the  grant  of  the  sword,  the  "  provost"  of 
Dublin  was  changed  into  a  "  mayor."  But  this  is  also  incorrect.  As  early  as  the  18th  year  of  Henry  III. 
we  tind  a  writ  of  the  king  addressed,  "  Majori  et  civibiis  Dublin  ;"  and  the  cities  of  Waterford,  Drogheda, 
Limerick,  Cork,  could  all  boast  of  mayors  at  nearly  as  early  a  period.  See  Smith's //ts«.  of  Cork,  book  ii. 
chap.  IX. ; — Ferrar's  Hist,  of  Limerick ;  where  the  first  mayor  of  Limerick  is  placed  ten  years  earlier  than  tiie 
first  mayor  of  London  ; — Ryland's  Hist,  of  Waterford,  where,  however,  the  dale  of  the  first  mayor  is  carried 
no  farther  back  than  A.  D.  1377  ;  &c.  &c.  To  the  mayors  of  Dublin,  Holinshed  pays  the  following  tribute  of 
praise:—"  This  Maioralitie,  both  for  slate  and  charge  of  office,  and  for  bountiful  hospitalitie,  exceedeth  anie 
citie  in  England,  London  excepted." 

II  Pat.  Roll,  3  Hen.  IV.— To  Achy  Mac  Mahon,  at  the  same  time,  was  granted,  during  his  life,  on  condi- 
tion that  he  should  always  be  ready,  with  his  force,  against  the  king's  rebels,  the  land  and  demesne  (with 
the  exreption  of  the  castle)  of  Pernewy,  in  the  county  of  Louth. 

IT  Marleburrough. 


364  HISTORY  OF  Ireland. 

lity  of  the  materials  furnished  by  Ireland  to  the  pen  of  history,  at  a  period  that  witnessed 
the  dawnino-  glories  of  the  future  hero  of  Azincourt,  and  which,  in  such  storied  names 
as  Hotsnurr Douglas,  Owen  Glendower,  lias  transmitted  recollections  that  link  history 
with  sono-,  and  lend  a  lustre  to  the  humblest  legend  in  which  even  a  trace  of  such  names 

is  found. 

The  Leinster  chieftain,  Art  Mac  Morough,  who  defied  so  boldly,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
his  rude  fortresses,  the  showy  squadrons  of  the  Jate  king  Richard,  had  remained,  for  the 
first  few  years  of  this  reign,  perfectly  quiet;  and  we  .find  that,  shortly  after  Henry's  ac- 
cession, the  letters  patent  of  the  18th  year  of  Richard,  granting  a  pension  of  eighty  marks 
a  year  to  this  chief,  were  inspected  by  the  king  and  ratified.*     But,  in  conse- 
idnj  Q"^"ce,   this  year,  of  some  hostile  demonstration   on   his  part,  the   lord   deputy 
Scroop,  accompanied  by  the  earls  of  Ormond  and  Deemond,  the  prior  of  Kilmain- 
ham,  and  other  captains  and  gentlemen  of  Meath,  set  out  from  Dublin  with  a  considera- 
ble force,  and  finding  Mac  Morough  prepared  to  resist,  marched  their  army  into  his  ter- 
ritories.    So  gallant  was  the  stand  made  by  the  Irish,  that,  for  some  time,  the  fortune  of 
the  field  was  on  their  side.     But  at  lei;!glh  the  English,  by  superior  soldiership,  prevailed 
and,  learning  that  another  body  of  insurgents  was  up  at  Callan,  in  the  county  of  Kilken- 
ny, they  marched  to  that  town  with  such  rapidity  as  to  take  them  by  surprise,  and  about 
800  of  the  rebels  were,  together  with  their  leader,  O'Carol,  put  to  the  sword.f 

On  returning  to  Dublin,  the  earl  of  Ormond,J  though  not  yet  of  age,  was  elected  lord 
justice,  and,  in  the  following  year,  held  a  parliament  in  that  city,  by  which  the  statutes 
of  Dublin  and  Kilkenny  were  again  confirmed. 

The  experiment  of  the  effects  of  a  royal  presence  was  now  again  resorted  to  in  the 
person  of  Thomas,  the  young  duke  of  Lancaster,  but  apparently  not  with  improved 
liftft"  success;  although,  in  the  terms  on  which  he  undertook  the  government,  the  pow- 
■  ers  and  means  he  stipulated  for,  and  the  nature  of  the  reforms  contemplated  by 
him,  there  is  much  that  bespeaks  at  least  the  intention  of  fair  and  useful  administration. 
Among  other  conditions,  it  is  stipulated  that,  in  order  to  strengthen  the  English  planta- 
tion, he  may  be  allowed  to  transport  into  Ireland,  at  the  king's  charge,  one  or  two  families 
from  every  parish  in  England.  He  also  required  that  the  demesnes  of  the  crown  should 
be  resumed,  and  the  act  against  absentees  strictly  enforced. J 

The  jealousy  naturally  felt  towards  the  great  Anglo-Irish  lords  by  those  Englishmen  of 
high  rank  and  station,  who  were  sent  over  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom,  was 
strongly  exemplified  in  the   instance  of  the  present  viceroy,  who — apparently,  without 
any  just  grounds  for  such  violent  proceedings — caused  the  earl  of  Kildare  and  three  of  his 
family  to  be  arrested,  and  kept  the  earl  himself  a  prisoner  in  Dublin  Castle,  until  he  had 
paid  down  the  sum  of  300  marks.^     Itis  indeed  manifest,  even  through  the  scanty  notices 
of  his  government  transmitted  to  us,  that  the  royal  duke  was  allowed  but  little  repose  or 
security  during  his  lieutenancy;  and  mention  is  made  of  a  serious  encounter  at  Kilmain- 
ham,  in  which  he   was  desperately  wounded,  and  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life.||     No 
farther  particulars  of  this  affray  are  recorded;   but  that  it  was  serious  would  appear  from 
the  measures  soon  after  adopted  by  the  duke,  who  ordered  proclamation  to  be  made  that 
all  who  were  bound  by  their  tenures  to  serve  the  king,  should  forthwith  assemble  at  Ross. 
He  also  summoned  a  parliament  to  meet  at  Kilkenny,  in  order  to  have  a  tallage  grant- 
ed.IT     How  far  he  succeeded  in  the  object  of  these  assemblies  does  not  appear;  the  only 
remaining  event  recorded  of  his  administration  being  its  final  close,  on  the  I3th  of 
lioQ    March,  1409,  when  the  prince  set  sail  for  England,  leaving  his  brother,  Thomas 
Butler,  the  prior  of  Kilmainham,  his  deputy. 
In  the  following  year  a  parliament  was  held  by  the  prior,  at  Dublin,  which  made  it 
treason  to  exact  coyne  and  livery;  and  shortly  after,  having  imprudently  ventured,  with 
about  1500  kerns,  or  Irish  infantry,  to  invade  the  O'Byrnes'  country,  one  half  of  his  fol- 
lowers deserted  to  the  enemy,  and  he  narrowly  escaped  a  serious  and  disgraceful  defeat. 
No  other  event  deserving  of  particular  notice  occurs  in  our  records  for  the  few  re- 


*  Pat.  Roll,  1  Hen.  IV.  f  Mailebunough. 

I  Natural  son  of  the  late  or  third  earl  of  Ormond,  who,  says  Carte,  "  liad  two  illegitimate  children,  viz. 
Thomas  le  Kotiller,  alias  Baccagh,  prior  of  Kilmainiiam,  a  martial  man,  and  lord  justice  of  Iieland  in 
1408  9,— from  whom  came  several  good  families  of  gentlemen  ia  the  counties  of  Kilkenny  and 'I'ipperary, — 
and  James  le  Boiillcr,  alias  Olaldie,  from  whom  ihe  lords  of  Cahir  (created  barons  in  154-2)  and  divers  other 
principal  gentlemen,  in  the  counties  of  Tipperary  and  Waterford,  are  descended  "  In  speaking  of  this  lord, 
who  was  the  fourth  earl  of  Ormond,  Carle  describes  him  as  '•  not  only  a  man  of  good  paits,  but  (which  was 
very  rare  in  noblemen  at  that  time)  masler  of  a  great  deal  of  learning  ;"  such  as  wa.s  even  thought,  he  adds, 
sufHcieiit  "  to  qualify  him  for  the  highest  trusts  and  employments,  belore  the  law  deemed  him  tit  to  enjoy 
his  e8Vdte."—lnliodui:t. 

§  Co.\.  II  ."Marlcburrough.  IT  Ibid. 


IHSTORY    OF    IRELAND.  365 

maining  years  of  tliis  reign,  which  was  brought  to  a  close  by  Henry's  death,  in  the  ab- 
bot's chamber,  at  Westminster,  on  the  20th  of  March,  1413. 

Scantily  supplied,  as  the  historian  finds  himself,  at  this  period,  with  the  two  great 
essentials  of  the  historic  scene,  events  and  actors,  his  only  resource  for  the  means  of  ac- 
quiring any  insight  into  the  condition  of  the  country  lies  in  tlie  materials  supplied  by  its 
legal  records;  and,  perhaps,  in  most  cases,  it  is  the  state  of  the  law  among  a  people  that 
affords  the  least  fallible  means  of  forming  a  judgment  respecting  their  moral  and  social 
condition.  Viewing  Ireland  with  the  aid  of  such  lights,  at  this  period,  we  find,  in  the 
first  place,  abundant  evidence  of  the  declension  of  English  power  throughout  the  whole 
kingdom.  The  encroachments  on  the  Pale,  by  the  neighbourinof  Irish,  became  every 
day  more  daring  and  formidable  ;  and  whereas,  hitherto,  the  English  borderers  could  not 
make  war  or  peace  with  the  natives  without  leave  from  the  government,  the  necessity 
of  such  special  permission  was  now,  in  consequence  of  the  greater  urgency  of  the  dan- 
ger, dispensed  with;  and  licenses  were  granted  to  particular  individuals  to  deal  with 
"the  enemy"  in  whatever  manner  or  on  whatsoever  terms  the  exigence  of  the  crisis 
might  require.* 

For  the  same  reason,  the  general  interdict  against  holding  traffic  or  trade  with  the  na- 
tives, or  admitting  them  to  the  English  markets,  was  at  this  time  withdrawn;  the  inha- 
bitants of  the  Pale  being  hemmed  in  so  closely,  on  every  side,  by  the  people  of  the  coun- 
try, that,  without  such  licenses  as  now  were  issued  to  qualify  the  prohibition,  they  ran  the 
risk  of  being  reduced  to  poverty  and  starvation.! 

Equally  obvious  proofs  of  the  sobering  influence  of  fear  in  oUaining  for  the  Irish  that 
abatement  of  persecution  which  they  would  have  in  vain  sought  from  justice  or  mercy, 
are  to  be  found  in  other  acts  and  measures  of  this  period;  such  as  the  increased  extension 
of  charters  of  denization  to  the  natives;  the  permissions  to  persons  living  in  the  marches 
to  take  Irish  tenants;  and  the  instances  of  leave  given  to  certain  individuals — in  despite 
of  the  statute  of  Kilkenny,  declaring  such  practices  treasonable — to  enter  into  gossipred 
and  fosterage,^  and  even  to  marry  with  the  "  Irish  enemy."  It  is  almost  needless  to  re- 
mark, that  concessions  thus  wrung  so  manifestly  from  fear,  instead  of  conciliating,  only 
added  contempt  to  deep-rooted  liate,  and  encouraged  still  farther  and  more  daring  en- 
croachments. It  was  ascordingly  in  the  marches,  and  more  especially  those  of  Meath, 
that  lay  the  most  frequent  scenes  of  conflict,  confusion,  and  bloodshed;  and  the  English 
authorities  were,  in  consequence,  driven  to  the  humiliating  expedient  of  buying  off  the 
hostilities  of  the  chiefs  on  the  borders,  by  means  of  annual  pensions,  under  the  denomi- 
nation of  Black  Rent; — a  sort  of  compact  which,  being  well  known  to  proceed  from  terror, 
on  one  side,  was  sure  to  be  violated  without  scruple  when  tlie  motives  were  tempting, 
on  the  other. 

While  such  was  the  wretched  state  of  the  border  districts,  the  course  of  affairs  within 
the  Pale  appears  to  have  been  hardly  of  a  less  lawless  and  violent  cliaracter.  In  a  peti- 
tion from  the  commons  of  Ireland,  attributed  generally  to  the  time  of  this  monarch, §  we 
find  the  law  officers  of  the  crown  charged  with  gross  abuses  and  acts  of  oppression,  in 
consequence  of  which,  according  to  the  petitioners,  the  people  were  harassed  and  impove- 
rished, works  of  husbandry  neglected,  and  many  good  towns  and  hamlets  utterly  ruined. 
It  is  stated,  also,  that,  in  defiance  of  Magna  Charta,  many  churchmen,  lords,  gentlemen, 
and  others  of  the  king's  subjects,  were  cast  into  prison  without  any  legal  process,  and 
their  lands  seized  and  considered  as  forfeited.  Nor  was  it  only  by  a  licentious  soldiery 
that  such  open  acts  of  spoliation  were  perpetrated,  but  by  sheriffs,  justices  of  the  peace, 
and  other  ministers  of  the  king.  Among  instances  adduced  in  proof  of  this  charge,  it  is 
stated  that  the  lieutenant  of  Ireland  himself  received,  in  this  lawless  manner,  eighty  marks 
of  the  goods  of  the  archbishop  of  Armagh,  and  took  to  the  value  of  40Z.  of  the  goods  of 
the  archdeacon  of  Kildare.  Of  the  same  high  functionary  it  is  stated,  together  with  va- 
rious other  such  specimens  of  his  vice-regal  conduct,  that  he  kept  sir  Nicholas  Alger  im- 
prisoned until  he  had  obtained  from  him  a  missal  worth  ten  marks,  and  forty  marks  in 

*  The  following  is  pretty  much  ihe  general  form  of  these  licenses  : — "  Rex,  pro  eo  quod  maneria  et  posses- 
siones  Cornelii  Episcopi  in  lymk.  in  frontura  marchiarum  inter  Hibernicos  inimicos  et  Anglicos  rebellessita 
sunt,  concessit  ei,  tenentibus  et  serventibus  suis  quod  ipsi  cum  dictis  Hibernicis,  &c.  tractare  possent,"  &c. 
—Pat.  Roll,  10  Hen.  IV 

t  Thus,  in  answer  to  a  petition  from  the  town  of  Rosse,  to  be  allowed  to  trade  with  the  Irish  enemy,  it  la 
said, — "  Cum  villa  prsedicta  in  niarchlis  sita  et  Hibernicis  inimicis  undique  circumvallata,  non  habeat  unde 
vivere  valeat,  nisi  solomodo  exeuipcione,  &.c.  victualium  et  aliarum  parvarum  rerum  qute  prtefatis  inimicis, 
ad  evitandam  erum  maliliam  necessario  vendere  oportet,"  &c.  &.c.—Pat.  Roll,  4  Hen.  IV. 

X  Licenses  to  place  English  children  with  Irish  nurses  begin  to  abound  at  this  period.  One  example  will 
be  sufficient.  "  Rex,  pro  servicio.  licenciam  dedit  VVilliehno  Alio  Henric.  Betagh  quod  ipse  Elizam  filiain 
suam  cuidam  Odoni  Oraylly  Hibernico  dare  possit  ad  nutrieiiduni."— Pat.  Roll,  IHen.  IV. 

§  Proceedings  and  Ordinances  of  the  Privy  Council,  edited  by  sir  H.  Nicholas,  vol.  ii. 


366  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

money.  Complaint  is  likewise  made  in  this  petition,  on  the  part  of  the  commons  of  the 
county  of  Louth,  that  the  king's  commissioners  had  issued  an  order,  contrary  to  law,  to 
assess  Aghy  Mac  Mahon,  and  other  Irish  enemies  upon  that  county,  to  the  great  oppres- 
sion and  impoverishment  of  his  liege  subjects  therein;  that  these  Irish  refused  to  accept 
such  food  as  the  complainants  themselves  used,  and  were  dispersed  with  their  "caifs," 
nurses,  and  children,  throughout  the  country,  spying  by  day  and  night  all  the  woods  and 
fortresses;  from  whence  the  greatest  possible  mischief  might  hereafter  arise. 

From  a  memorandum  on  the  back  of  this  petition,  it  appears  that,  in  numerous  letters 
written  at  that  time  by  the  earl  of  Ormond,  it  was  stated  that  the  presence  of  the  king 
was  greatly  desired  in  Ireland.  But  the  thoughts  of  Henry,  throughout  his  whole  reign, 
were  far  too  anxiously  occupied  with  the  care  of  maintaining  and  defending  his  slippery 
hold  of  the  English  crown,  to  allow  him  to  attend  to  the  government  of  his  Irish  realm  ; 
and  accordingly,  though  in  almost  every  parliament  during  his  reign,  "the  danger  of  Ire- 
land" was  remembered,  not  an  effort  appears  to  have  been  made  towards  either  the  cor- 
rection of  that  kingdom's  turbulence,  or  the  redress  of  its  countless  wrongs.  All  was 
left  to  proceed  in  the  same  headlong  course  of  mischief  which,  through  more  than  two 
centuries,  we  have  now  painfully  tracked ;  and  the  only  result  at  all  savouring  of  justice, 
that  arose  out  of  this  chaotic  state  of  things,  was  the  recovery  by  the  injured  natives  of  a 
considerable  portion  of  their  own  rightful  territories.  To  such  an  extent,  indeed,  had 
they  already  won  back  what  belonged  to  them,  that  in  an  address  delivered  by  the  speaker 
of  the  English  house  of  commons,  we  find  it  openly  admitted  "  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  lordship  of  Ireland"  had,  at  this  time,  been  conquered  by  the  natives.* 

A  law  enacted  by  the  parliamant  of  the  Pale,  during  this  reign,  shows  that  their  legis- 
lation could  be  sometimes  as  capricious,  as  it  was  almost  always  tyrannical  and  unjust. 
Though  giving  to  the  Irishman,  on  his  own  soil,  the  title  of  "  enemy,"  and  invariably 
treating  him  as  such,  they  were  yet  more  proud  of  him,  it  would  seem,  as  a  victim,  than 
afraid  of  him  as  an  enemy,  since,  by  a  law  passed  during  this  reign,  they  deliberately 
rendered  it  difficult  for  a  native  to  quit  the  kingdom.  By  an  act  of  their  parliament, 
in  the  11th  year  of  this  reign,  it  was  ordained  that  no  Irish  enemy  should  be  per- 
mitted to  depart  from  the  realm,  without  special  leave  under  the  great  seal  of  Ireland; 
and  that  any  subject  who  should  seize  the  person  and  goods  of  a  native  attempting  to 
transport  himself  without  such  license,  was  to  receive  one  moiety  of  his  goods,  while  the 
other  was  to  be  forfeited  to  the  crown. f 


CHAPTER  XL. 


HENRV   V. 


Continuance  of  warfare  between  the  English  and  tlie  natives. — Lieutenancy  of  sir  John  Tal- 
bot — his  martial  circuit  of  the  borders  of  the  Pale — reduces  to  submission  a  great  number 
of  the  Irish  chiefs. — Approbation  of  his  conduct  by  the  lords  of  the  Pale. — Evil  conse- 
quences  of  his  success. — Intolerant  spirit  of  the  English  rulers. — Irishmen  excluded  from 
the  church  of  the  English. — The  king  summons  to  his  standard  in  Normandy  a  body  of 
native  Irish. — Their  gallant  conduct. — Laws  against  absentees. — The  Leinster  chief,  Mac 
Morough  made  prisoner — is  sent  to  London  and  committed  to  the  Tower.— Impeachment 
of  the  archbishop  of  Cashel.— Petition  of  grievances  from  the  inabitants  of  the  Pale, 

Of  the  reign  wo  have  just  reviewed,  a  great  historianj  has  pronounced,  that  it  pro- 
duced few  events  worthy  of  being  transmitted  to  posterity:  and  if  this  may  be  said,  with 

*  Lingard. 

t  Leiand.  who  refers  to  MS.  Trin.  Coll.,  Dublin.—"  Those  whom  the  English  refused  to  incorporate  with. 

assuhjexts,  they  would  yet  compel  to  remain  as  rebels  or  slaves We  have  heard  of  a  bridge 

of  gold  for  a  flying  enemy,  but  an  act  of  parliament  to  compel  him  to  stand  his  ground,  could  only  have  been 
passed  by  an  Irish  legislature."— JlftmoiT-.t  n/  Captain  Rock 

X  llumt;. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  367 

truth,  of  the  records  of  England  during  that  period,  we  cannot  wonder  that  those  of  Ire- 
land sliould  be  found  so  blank  and  valueless.     But,  barren  as  are  the  materials  of  ^    ^ 
our  history,  during  the  time  of  the  fourth  Henry,  they  are  even  more  trivial  and  ^^jg 
void  of  interest  in  the  reign  of  his  heroic  successor,  who,  although  he  had  been 
invested  with  the  honours  of  knighthood  in  Ireland,  having  made  there  his  first  essay  in 
arms,  does  not  appear  to  have  at  any  time  afterwards  turned  his  attention  to  the  affairs 
of  that  kingdom. 

After  the  departure  of  sir  John  Stanley,  who  had  succeeded  the  prior  of  Kilmainham 
in  the  government  of  Ireland,  the  nobility  elected  to  the  office  of  lord  deputy  Thomas 
Cranley,*  archbishop  of  Dublin  ;  and,  during  the  sitting  of  a  parliament  held  by  him,  the 
the  Irish  borderers,  who  always  took  advantage  of  these  occasions,  when  the  principal 
lords  and  gentry  were  known  to  be  absent  from  their  homes,  made  a  fierce  inroad  into 
the  Pale,  marking  their  course  with  fire  and  waste.  To  repair  the  damage  caused  by  this 
desperate  irruption,  supplies  were  demanded  of  the  parliament,  which  that  body  refused 
to  grant ;  and  after  a  session  of  fifteen  days,  was  dissolved. 

A  succession  of  conflicts  now  ensued  between  the  English  and  the  Irish,  in  one  of 
which,  at  a  place  called  Inor,  the  enterprising  Gascon,  Janico  d'Artois,  met  with  a  check  ; 
which  giving  encouragement  to  the  Irish,  the  lord  deputy  found  it  expedient  to  assume 
the  command  of  the  troops  m  person.  Going  no  farther  with  them  than  Castle  Dermod, 
the  venerable  prelate  remained  at  that  place,  along  with  his  clergy,  ranged  in  order  of 
procession,  and  putting  up  prayers  for  the  success  of  his  small  army.  Nor  did  the  event 
disappoint  his  hopes,  as  the  result  of  the  conflict,  which  took  place  at  Kilkea,  was  victory 
on  the  side  of  the  English. 

The  confidence  of  the  natives,  however,  in  their  own  strength  was  now  daily  in- 
creasing ;  and  the  English  of  Meath  sustained,  this  year,  a  signal  defeat  from  the  chieftain 
O'Connor,  with  the  loss  of  Thomas,  baron  of  Skriue,  slain  in  the  conflict,  and  two  or  three 
other  men  of  rank  made  prisoners.  In  consequence  of  this  and  other  such  failures,  ^  ^ 
it  was  thought  expedient  to  select  a  military  man  for  the  office  of  chief  governor,  j^j^' 
and  sir  John  Talbot,  of  Hallamshire,  lord  of  Furnival,t  who  afterwards  so  nobly 
distinguished  himself  in  the  wars  against  France,  was  appointed  lord  lieutenant.  Land- 
ing at  Dalkey,  this  active  officer  lost  no  time  in  proceeding  to  accomplish  the  object  of 
his  mission  ;  and,  hastily  collecting  whatever  troops  he  found  on  the  spot,  as  none  could 
be  spared  to  accompany  him  from  England,  set  out  on  a  martial  progress  round  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Pale.  Beginning  with  O'Moore,  of  Ley,  the  viceroy  invaded  that  chief's 
territory,  and,  in  the  course  of  two  great  "  hostings,"  each  a  week  in  duration,  laid  waste, 
by  burning,  foraging,  and  all  other  modes  of  devastation,  almost  the  whole  of  his  lands. 
He  also  attacked  and  took  by  storm  two  of  O'JMoore's  castles  or  strong-holds,  and  having 
released  from  thence  several  English  prisoners,  put  to  death  the  officers  of  the  chief  who 
held  them  in  charge.  Thus  driven  to  extremity,  O'Moore  reluctantly  sued  for  peace, 
and  delivered  up  his  son,  in  pledge  of  his  faith,  to  the  lieutenant.  But  still  farther 
humiliation  awaited  this  chief; — he  found  himself  compelled  to  join  with  his  force  the 
English  banner,  and  assist  in  inflicting  the  same  havoc  and  desolation  on  the  territory  of 
a  brother  chieftain,  Mac  Mahon.  And  here  a  similar  result  ensued;  for,  Mac  Mahon, 
also  in  his  turn  overpowered,  was  compelled  to  follow,  with  his  rude  troops,  to  the  attack 
of  two  other  great  Ulster  captains,  O'Connor  and  O'Hanlon.  In  this  manner  did  the 
English  lord  pursue  his  course,  making  of  each  successive  chief  that  fell  into  his  hands  a 
tool  and  scourge  for  the  subjection  of  his  fellows ;  or,  as  the  letter  describing  the  expedi- 
tion more  briefly  expresses  it  "  causing  every  Irish  enemy  to  serve  upon  the  other."|; 

This  showy  and  sweeping  achievement  occupied  altogether  about  three  months;  and, 
although  little  more,  as  usual,  had  been  gained  by  it  than  the  outward  form,  without  any 
of  the  reality,  of  submission,  so  much  satisfaction  did  it  give  to  the  lords  and  gentlemen 
of  the  Pale,  that,  shortly  after,  they  sent  to  the  king,  who  was  then  in  France,  a  certifi- 
cate, in  the  French  language,  expressing  their  sense  of  the  value  of  this  great  public 
service.  It  was  found  eventually,  however,  that  this  circuit  of  the  viceroy  had  been  pro- 
ductive of  much  more  evil  than  good  ;  as  the  soldiers,  being  ill  paid,  were  compelled  to 
have  recourse  to  the  odious  exactions  of  coyne  and  livery  ;  and  more  was  suffered  by  the 


*  Leiand,  Cos,  and  others,  have  transformed  this  name  into  Crawlexj.  The  inscription  on  his  monument 
in  New  Collfige  Chapel,  at  Oxford,  ought  to  have  taught  them  better; — "Flori  pontiticum,  Thomse  Cranley, 
&c." — See  Ware,  Bishops. 

t  Lord  Furnival  by  courtesy,  through  his  wife, — having  married  the  eldest  daughter  of  sir  Thomas  Nevil, 
by  Joan,  the  sole  daughter  and  heiress  of  William,  the  last  lord  Furnival. 

J  Original  Letters  illustrative  of  English  History  edited  by  sir  Henry  Ellis,  Second  Series,  vol.  i.  letter  19. 


368  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

subjects  of  the  Pale  from  the  revival  of  this  scourge,  than  they  had  gained  by  their  slight 
and  temporary  advantage  over  the  Irish. 

On  the  return  of  the  king  to  England,  after  his  immortal  victory  at  Azincourt,  the 
,\, -■  Irish  parliament,  deeming  it  a  moment  highly  favourable  for  such  an  appeal,  pre- 
pared  a  petition  to  be  laid  before  him,  stating  fully  the  wants  and  grievances  of 
his  subjects  in  that  realm.  Tiiere  object,  liov^'ever,  was  frustrated  by  a  most  barefaced 
stretch  of  power.  Laurence  Merbury,  the  lord  chancellor,  being  himself,  it  is  proba- 
ble, interested  in  preventing  too  eager  an  inquiry  into  official  abuses,  refused  to  affix  the 
great  seal  to  the  petition  ;  and  thus,  in  defiance  of  the  will  of  the  legislature,  intercepted 
and  set  aside  their  remonstrance.* 

It  is  not  a  little  curious,  in  perusing  the  minutes  of  the  king's  council  for  this  period, 
to  find  France  and  Ireland  alternately  figuring  as  the  scenes  of  English  warfare;  but  it 
is  also  melancholy  to  reflect,  1  hat  while  the  rich  harvest  of  princely  dominion  so  gloriously 
reaped,  at  that  time,  in  one  of  these  fields,  has  long  since  passed  away,  the  fruits  of  the 
mischief  sown  in  the  other  still  continue  in  fresh  and  baleful  luxuriance.  Among  the 
minutes  of  the  council  relating  to  Ireland,  we  find  it  noted  that  the  king  was  to  be  consulted 
respecting  the  increase  of  the  number  of  archers  and  men-at-arms,  for  the  guard  of  the 
Irish  marches ;  and  also  relating  to  the  equipment  of  a  barge  from  Chester,  with  men-at-arms 
and  other  soldiers; — the  bows  and  arrows  to  be  provided  by  lord  Furnival,  at  his  own  ex- 
pense.    It  is  suggested,  likewise,  that  cannon  should  be  sent  to  Ireland  for  its  defence. 

A  petition  addressed,  this  year,  to  the  English  parliament,  from  the  king's  sub- 
1417  J*^^*^'  '"  Ireland,  exhibits,  in  its  rawest  and  most  unsophisticated  form,  that  hate- 
ful spirit  of  monopoly  and  exclusion  in  which  the  government  of  that  realm  was 
then,  and  has  been  almost  ever  since,  administered.  The  petition,  after  stating  that  Ire- 
land was  divided  into  two  nations,  the  English  and  the  Irish,  the  latter  of  whom  were  the 
king's  enemies,  proceeds  to  the  chief  purport  of  its  prayer,  which  was,  that  no  Irishman 
should  in  future  be  presented  to  any  ecclesiastical  office  or  benefice;  and  that  no  bishops 
who  were  of  the  Irish  nation  should,  on  pain  of  forfeiting  their  temporalities,  collate  any 
clerk  of  that  nation  to  a  benefice,  or  bring  with  them  to  parliaments  or  councils  held  in 
Ireland,  any  Irish  servant.  This  notable  petition,  which  shows  how  alert  was  then  the 
persecuting  spirit,  and  how  much  mischief  it  could  already  eflfect  without  any  help  from 
religious  differences,  received  from  the  English  parliament  a  ready  assent  to  its  insolent 
prayer.t 

The  only  symptom  shown  by  Henry  during  his  reign,  of  any  interest  in  the  fortunes  of 
that  country  where  he  had  first  been  made  a  soldier,  was  his  summoning,  in  the  year 
1417,  when  about  to  invade  France  for  the  second  time,  a  small  body  of  native  Irish  to 
join  him  in  Normandy,  under  the  command  of  Thomas  Butler,  the  martial  prior  of  Kil- 
mainham-l  The  feats  of  valour  achieved  by  this  troop  of  wild  warriors,  at  the  siege  of 
Rouen, — so  much  beyond  what  could  have  been  expected  from  so  small  a  force, — natu- 
rally led  to  that  overstatement  of  their  numbers  which  is  found  in  the  chroniclers  of  both 
nations.  "They  so  did  their  devoir,"  says  the  English  chronicler,  "that  none  were 
more  praised,  nor  did  more  damage  to  their  enemies  ;"§  and  when,  in  the  following 
year,  the  king  had  got  possession  of  Pontoise,  the  Irishmen,  according  to  the  same  au- 
thority, "overcame  all  the  Isle  of  France,  and  did  to  the  Frenchmen  damages  innume- 
rable." 

In  turning,  wearily,  over  the  records  of  these  rude  times,  the  eye  is  occasionally  re- 
freshed by  glimpses  of  a  somewhat  more  civilized  state  of  existence,  in  those  grants  of 
leave  of  absence  accorded  to  particular  individuals,  to  enable  them  to  visit,  for  the  pur- 

*  "  Quod  cum  in  pailiamento  4  Hen.  V.  Thomas  Crawley  archepisc,  Dublin,  elcctus  fuit  ail  proficiendum 
in  Angliain  ad  Regem  cum  cunctis  mandatissciiplis  statum  Hiberriire  concernentem,  Laur.  Merbury,  cancel- 
larius,  magnum  sigillum  eis  appnnere  recusaveril :— cum  prece  quod  dictus  Laur.  Merbury  ponatur  ad  de- 
claraudnin  cur  sic  fecit."— C/ose  Roll,  1  Ben.  VI. 

t  "  Whereas  the  said  land  is  divided  between  two  nations,  that  is  to  say,  the  said  petitioners,  English  and 
of  the  English  nation,  and  the  Irish  nation,  those  enemies  to  our  lord  the  king,  who,  by  crafty  designs, 
secretly,  and  by  open  destruction,  making  war,  are  continually  purposed  to  destroy  the  said  lieges  and  to 
conquer  the  land,  the  petitioners  pray  that  remedy  thereof  be  made." 

\  Among  the  payments  entered  in  the  Issue  Roll  of  this  year,  is  the  sum  of  9/.  17.?.,  for  "  the  wages  and 
rewards  to  masters  and  mariners  of  the  town  of  Bristol,  for  embarking  the  prior  of  Kilmainham,  21)0  horse- 
men, and  300  fool,  from  VVaterford  in  Ireland,  to  goto  the  king's  presence  in  France." — Pell  Records. 

5  Hall, — who  makes  their  number  1000.  They  were  armed,  he  says,  in  mail  with  darts  and  skeins,  after 
the  manner  of  their  country  ;  and  "  were  appoirited  to  keep  the  north  side  of  the  army,  and,  in  especial,  the 
way  that  cometh  from  the  forest  of  Lyons." 

The  following  is  Monslrelefs  account  of  this  gallant  band  :— "  The  king  of  England  had  with  him  in  his 
company  a  vast  number  of  Irish,  of  whom  the  far  greatest  part  went  on  foot.  One  of  their  feet  was 
covered,  the  other  was  naked,  without  having  clouts,  and  poorly  clad.  Each  had  a  target  and  little  javelins, 
with  large  knivi.'s  of  a  strange  fashion  ;  and  those  who  were  mounted  had  no  sadilles  ;  but  they  rode  very 
adroitly  their  little  mountain  horses." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  369 

poses  of  study,  the  schools  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Others  proceeded,  with  the  view 
of  learning  the  legal  profession,  to  London;  and  here,  the  distaste  avowed  so  insultingly 
by  the  English  towards  all  connected  with  Ireland— a  feeling  extended  to  those  of  their 
own  race  born  in  that  country — was  most  strongly  and  illiberally  displayed.  By  a  stretch 
of  tyranny,  unknown  under  fornjer  reigns,  the  Anglo-Irish  law-students  were  now  ex- 
cluded from  the  inns  of  court. 

The  old  offence,  indeed,  of  absenteeism,  had  begun  to  be  regarded  in  somewhat  a  new 
point  of  view;  for  whereas,  formerly,  those  offending  in  this  respect  were  blamed  merely 
for  their  absence  from  Ireland,  the  offence  now  most  strongly  protested  against,  was  their 
presence  in  England.  In  some  enactments  on  the  subject,  during  this  reign,  the  effects 
of  the  practice  are  viewed  in  both  these  lights.  Thus,  in  the  year  1413,  it  was  enacted 
by  the  king  and  parliament,  that,  "  for  the  peace  and  quietness  of  England,  and  the  in- 
crease and  prosperity  of  Ireland,  all  Irishmen,  Irish  clerks,  beggars,  &c.,  should  be  re- 
moved out  of  England  before  All  Saints  following;  with  the  exception  of  graduates  in 
schools,  sergeants  and  apprentices  at  law,  &c."  After  a  few  more  such  exceptions  to  this 
enactment,  it  is  added,  farther,  that  all  Irishmen  holding  offices  or  benifices  in  Ireland, 
should  dwell  there,  for  the  defence  of  the  land. 

In  that  fierce  but  inglorious  warfare  which  raged  incessantly  between  die  two  races, 
there  had  occurred  nothing  till  this  year  deserving  of  any  notice,  since  the  marlial  circuit 
of  the  borders  of  the  Pale,  by  lord  Furnival.  A  success,  however,  of  some  importance, 
was  achieved,  at  this  time,  by  the  same  commander,  in  consequence  of  which  Mac  Morough, 
the  captain  of  Leinster,  had  fallen  into  his  hands;  and  how  valuable  was  thought  the  pos- 
session of  this  representative  of  the  old  Lagenian  kings  is  sufficiently  manifested,  by  his 
being  conveyed  to  London,  and  committed  a  prisoner  to  the  Tower.  Shortly  after,  the 
captain  of  the  sept  of  the  O'Kelly's  was  taken  prisoner  by  sir  William  de  Burgh,  and  500 
of  his  followers  slain. 

The  lord  lieutenant,  having  been  summoned  to  England,  left  his  brother,  Richard        ^ 
Talbot,  archbishop  of  Dublin,  to  act  as  his  deputy;  and,  in  the  April  of  the  follow-  1419 
ing  year,  James,  Earl  of  Ormond,  wi)o  was  appointed  lord  lieutenant,  with  very  ex- 
tensive powers,  landed  at  Waterford.  The  late  viceroy,  lord  Furnival,  had,  in  imitation  of 
some  of  his  predecessors,  involved  himself  deeply  in  debts,  both  public  and  private;  and  a 
parliament  summoned  by  the  earl  of  Ormond,  soon  after  his  arrival,  in  addition  to  subsidies 
granted  to  the  king,  amounting  in  all  to  1000  marks,  made  provision  also  for  the  payment 
of  the  public  detbs  contracted  by  lord  Furnival.     In  none  of  the  proceedings  relative  to  this 
lord's  administration  does  it  seem  to  have  been  sufficiently  taken  into  account  how  very 
limited  were  the  means  placed  at  his  disposal ; — the  whole  of  his  income  fir  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  king's  gt)vernment  having  amounted,  it  appears,  to  little  more  than  two  thou- 
sand six  hundred  pounds  a-year.* 

A  parliament  held  in  the  following  year,  at  Dublin,  was  rendered  remarkable  by 
the  solemn  impeachment  before  itof  Richard  O'Hedian,  archbishop  of  Cashcl,  upon  1401' 
thirty  articles  of  accusation  brought  against  him  by  John  Gese,  bishop  of  Lismore  and 
Waterford.     The  principal  of  these  charges  were,  1.  That  he  loved  none  of  the  English 
nation,  and  was  very  partial  to  the  Irish.    2.  That  he  gave  no  benefice  to  any  Englishman, 
and  advised  other  bishops  to  follow  his  example.     3.  That  he  had  counterfeited  the  great 
seal  and  forged  the  king's  letters  patent.     4.  That  he  designed  to  make  himself  king  of 
Munster.     5.  That  he  had  taken  a  ring  from  the  image  of  St.  Patrick,  which  had  been  an 
offering  of  the  earl  of  Desmond,  and  made  a  present  of  it  to  his  concubine. f 

These  charges,  which  bear  upon  the  face  of  them  the  marks  of  party  spirit,  were  never* 
it  is  supposed,  prosecuted ;  having  originated,  doubtless,  in  envy  of  the  munificent  and 
popular  character  of  this  prelate,  who  besides  his  generous  feeling  towards  the  natives,  so 
much  complained  of  in  these  charges,  was  distinguished  also  for  his  zeal  and  bounty  in 
fostering  religious  establishments;  and,  among  other  public  services  by  which  he  is  ho- 
nourably remembered,  restored,  from  a  state  of  almost  utter  dilapidation  and  ruin,  the  an- 
cient cathedral  of  St.  Patrick  at  Cashel. 

From  the  same  parliament,  a  petition,  praying  for  the  reformatioH  of  the  state  of  the 
land,  was  transmitted  to  the  king.J  through  the  hands  of  the  archbishop  of  Armagh  and 
sir  Christopher  Preston;  and  the  direct  insight  it  affords  into  the  abuses  and  malpractices 
then  prevailing,  opens  so  clearly  to  us  the  internal  condition  of  the.  Pale  at  that  period, 

*  "  HiBV.  Johanni  Domino  de  Furnyvall,  locuni-tenentj  Hibernise  pro  salva  custodia  ejusdem  a  xixo.  die 
Januar.  anno  secundo  usque  primum  dieui  Augusli  prox.  sequen.  per  dimidium  annum  1333/.  6s.  8d.." — See 
Ellis's  Original  Letters,  &.C. 

t  Ware's  Bishops.— Prynne,  p.  313. 

t  Close  Roll,  1  Henry  VI.  It  appears  rather  doubtful  whether  this  petition  is  to  be  referred  to  the  last  year 
of  Henry ^V.  or  the  first  of  his  successor. 

46 


370  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

that — in  our  dearth,  especially,  of  more  lively  historical  materials — such  a  record  is  of  no 
ordinary  value. 

This  petition  consists  of  nineteen  articles,  from  which  the  following  are  selected,  and 
given  nearly  as  they  stand  in  the  original  record.  1.  Complaint  is  made  of  the  various 
extortions,  oppressions,  non-payments,  levies  of  coyne  and  livery,  practised  by  the  lieute- 
nants and  their  deputies;  and,  also,  their  non-execution  of  the  laws  : — all  which  evils,  it 
is  added,  are  incurable,  except  by  the  presence  of  the  king  himself  2.  The  petitioners 
state  that  all  the  supplies  and  revenues  that  had  been  granted  for  the  purposes  of  warfare 
and  the  defence  of  the  land  had  been  hitherto  applied  by  the  king's  deputies  to  their  own 
private  uses;  and  they  pray  that  the  king  will  retain  in  future,  as  he  does  at  present,  all 
such  revenues  in  his  own  hands.  3.  They  require  that  there  should  be  a  coinage  of 
money  in  Dublin,  in  the  same  manner  as  in  England ;  and  that  a  mint,  with  all  necessary 
officers,  should  be  there  established.  4.  Referring  to  the  submission  and  homage  made  to 
Richard  II.  by  certain  of  the  Irish  enemie?,  and  the  recognizances  entered  into  by  them, 
payable  in  the  apostolic  chamber,  to  keep  their  oaths  of  allegiance,  the  petitioners  pray  of 
the  king  to  certify  the  same  to  the  pope,  in  order  that  he  may  proceed  to  enforce  strong 
measures  against  the  offenders.*  5.  They  complain  of  the  conduct,  already  noticed,  of 
the  lord  chancellor  Merbury,  in  refusing  to  fix  the  great  seal  to  the  petition  of  the  parlia- 
ment; and  pray  that  he  may  be  required  to  state  his  reasons  for  such  refusal.  6.  Owing 
to  the  wars  and  the  intolerable  burdens  of  the  country,  the  great  landholders,  the  arti- 
ficers, and  workmen,  are  daily  emigrating,  they  complain,  to  England,  in  consequence 
whereof  the  land  is  left  uncultivated  and  undefended:  for  this  they  pray  some  remedy. 
7.  They  state  that  the  late  Sir  John  Stanley,  when  holding  the  office  of  lord  deputy, 
paid  little,  if  any,  of  his  debts,  and  died  enriched  by  acts  of  extortion  and  oppression: 
they  therefore  pray  that  his  heirs  and  executors  may  be  compelled  to  come  into  Ireland, 
to  discharge  his  just  debts,  and  make  good  his  obligations.  8.  They  extol,  as  an  example 
worthy  of  imitation,  the  conduct  of  Thomas  Cranley,  archbishop  of  Dublin,  who  had 
succeeded  Stanley  as  lord  justice,  and  always  deported  himself  in  that  office  benignly  and 
justly.  9.  Of  sir  John  Talbot,  they  allege,  that  during  the  period  of  his  government,  he 
was  guilty  of  numerous  acts  of  extortion  and  cruelty,  and  paid  little,  if  any,  of  his  debts; 
and  they  pray  that  he  also  may  be  compelled  to  come  to  Ireland,  to  discharge  his  just  obli- 
gations, and  repair  the  consequences  of  his  oppression.  10.  Since  the  coronation  of  the 
present  king,  no  commissionf-r,  they  complain,  had  been  sent  over  to  Ireland,  as  was  usual 
in  the  times  of  his  predecessors,  to  make  inquiry  into  the  conduct  and  measures  of  the  lord 
deputy  and  other  great  officers:  and  they  pray,  therefore,  that  such  a  commission  may  be 
now  sent.  11.  The  conduct  of  their  present  lord  lieutenant,  James,  earl  of  Ormond,  is 
praised  by  them,  and  held  up  as  an  example;  because,  on  entering  into  his  office,  he  had 
made  a  declaration  in  parliament  that  he  would  observe  the  laws,  would  pay  his  just  debts, 
and  also,  at  the  close  of  his  administration,  would  assign  over  lands  without  any  reserve, 
until  all  such  debts  should  be  fully  and  fairly  discharged  :  and  likewise  because  that,  through 
him,  the  extortion  of  coyne  and  livery -had  been  abolished.  This  earl  was  prepared,  they 
add,  to  effect  still  farther  good,  if  possessed  of  t^ie  means,  and  they  therefore  pray  of  the 
king  that  such  means  should  be  supplied.  12.  They  complain  that  a  number  of  illiterate 
persons  were  allowed  to  hold  offices  in  the  exchequer,  performing  the  duties  of  them  by  de- 
puty, and  receiving  from  thence  great  incomes,  owing  to  the  excessive  fees  usually  ex- 
torted from  the  suitors  in  that  court.  In  many  instances,  two,  and  even  three,  places  were 
held  by  one  individual,  and  the  duties  of  them  all,  of  course,  proportionably  ill  performed. 
For  this  they  pray  the  king  to  grant  a  reinedy.  13.  English  law  students,  they  complain, 
going  over  from  Ireland,  even  though  born  in  the  best  part  of  that  country,  were,  by  a  late 
regulation,  excluded  from  the  inns  of  court,  in  England,  though  in  all  preceding  periods, 
from  the  time  of  the  conquest  of  Ireland,  they  had  been  admissible  into  those  societies. 

Of  the  remaining  articles  of  this  memorial,  the  seventeenth  alone  is  of  sufficient  in- 
terest to  be  cited,  wherein  complaint  is  made,  that  although  the  statute  3  Ric.  II.,  con- 
cerning absentee  proprietors,  contains  an  exception  in  favour  of  studious  persons,  it  yet 
daily  happened  that  Irish  students,  devoting  their  leisure  to  learned  pursuits,  in  English 
schools  and  universities,  were,  under  colour  of  said  statute,  obstructed  and  annoyed. f  It 
was  therefore  prayed  that  a  declaration  of  the  real  intention  of  this  statute  should  be  cer- 
tified to  the  lord  deputy  and  other  officers  of  the  Irish  government. 

During  the  last  year  of  this  reign,  a  succession  of  conflicts  took  place  between  the 

*  "  Cum  prece  quod  Rex  Papani  de  praemissis  cerciorem  facial,  ad  crucidium  super  eos  habendum.'' 

t  *' Q,uod.  quamvis  statulum  3  R.   II    de  pnssessioriariis  absenlibus  excepcionem  cnntinet   in    favorem 

Btudiosorum,  tamen  studiosi  Hibernici,  literis  inscolis  el  universitatibus  vatantes,  colore  dicli  slatuti  indies 

veianlur." 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  371 

English  and  the  natives,  attended  with  the  usual  vicissitudes  of  their  warfare  on  both 
sides.  Some  success  having  been  gained  by  the  Irish,  in  Ley,  the  lord  justice  invaded 
that  country,  encountered  the  chieftain  O'Moore,  and,  as  the  chronicler  describes  the 
event,  "defeated  his  terrible  army  in  the  Red  Bog  of  Athy."*  He  then,  for  the  four  fol- 
lowing^ days,  burned  and  wasted  the  lands  of  the  rebels,  until  they  themselves  came  and 
sued  for  peace.  About  the  same  time,  the  chief  O'Dempsy,  notwithstanding  his  oath  of 
allegiance,  made  an  irruption  into  the  Pale,  and  retook  the  castle  of  Ley  from  the  earl  of 
Kildare,  to  whom  the  lord  justice  had  restored  it.  In  reference  to  this  act  of  O'Dempsy, 
an  old  historian,  extending  his  charge  to  the  Irish  in  general,  remarks,  that,  notwithstand- 
ing their  oaths  and  pledges,  "they  are  no  longer  true  than  while  they  feel  themselves 
the  stronger;" — an  accusation  to  which,  supposing  it  to  be  well  founded,  we  may,  with 
but  too  much  truth,  answer,  or  rather  retort,  that,  if  any  excuse  could  be  offered  for  such 
perfidy,  on  the  part  of  the  Irish,  it  was  to  be  found  in  the  still  grosser  perfidy  of  those 
with  whom  they  had  to  deal. 

In  the  mean  time  Mac  Mahon,  the  chief  lord  of  Orgiel,  or  Uriel,f  had  in  like  manner 
broken  out  in  full  career  of  devastation.  But  the  indefatigable  lord  justice,  after  having 
disposed  of  the  other  insurgent  chiefs,  reduced  Mac  Mahon  also  to  obedience;  and  tlius 
closed  this  triumphant  campaign,  during  which  the  clergy  of  Dublin  went  twice  every 
week  in  solemn  procession,  praying  for  the  success  of  his  arms. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

HENRY    VI. 

Alliance  by  marriage  and  other  ties  between  the  two  races. — Adoption  by  the  English  of  the  laws 
and  usages  of  the  natives. — Great  power  of  the  Anglo-Irish  lords. — Their  feuds  among  them- 
selves.— The  earl  of  March  made  lord  lieutenant. — His  death. — Severe  measures  against  ab- 
sentees.— Romantic  marriage  of  the  earl  of  Desmond — is  forcibly  deprived  of  his  earldom  and 
estates. — Large  grant  of  lands  to  his  successor. — Articles  of  accusation  against  the  earl  of 
Ormond. — He  is  appointed  lord  lieutenant. — Grants  and  privileges  bestowed  upon  Desmond. 
Renewal  of  the  charges  against  Ormond — is  continued  at  the  head  of  the  government. — 
Sample  of  Anglo-Irish  legislation. — Richard,  duke  of  York,  appointed  viceroy. — Ormond 
committed  to  the  tower  of  London — his  intended  duel  with  the  prior  of  Kilmainham — their 
duel  prevented  by  the  interposition  of  the  king. — Recovery  by  the  natives  of  their  territo- 
ries.— Consequent  redaction  of  the  English  power  and  revenue. — Wise  and  conciliatory 
policy  of  York — is  called  away  to  England — takes  refuge  in  Ireland  after  his  defeat  at 
Blore  Heath — again  takes  the  field,  attended  by  volunteers  from  Ireland — is  defeated  and 
slain  at  Wakefield. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark,  as  one  of  the  anomalies  that  mark  the 
destiny  of  this  nation,  how  small  is  the  portion  of  Ireland's  history  that  relates  to  i^oo' 
the  affairs  of  the  Irish  people  themselves.     Supplanted,  as  they  were,  on  their  own 
soil,  by  strangers  and  enemies,  the  task  of  dictating  as  well  tlieir  history  as  their  laws 
fell  early  into  foreign  hands,  and  the  people  of  the  soil,  the  indigenous  Irish,  were  only 
remembered,  to  be  calumniated  and  coerced.     In  the  course  of  time,  however,  a  new 
race  and  new  relationships  sprang  up,  from  the  connexions,  by  marriage  and  otherwise, 
of  the  English  colonists  and  the  natives,  which  worked  a  change  even  more  in  the  politi- 
cal than  in  the  social  condition  of  the  country.     The  conquerors,  yielding  to  these  natural 
ties,  were,  in  their  turn,  conquered  by  the  force  of  the  national  spirit,  and  became,  as  was 

*  Campion, — who  adds  also  a  miracle  to  the  event :— "  In  the  Red  Bog  of  Athy  (the  sun  almost  lodged  in 
the  West,  and  miraculously  standinij  still  in  his  epicycle  the  space  of  three  hours,  till  the  feat  was  accom- 
plished, and  no  pit  in  that  moor  annoying  either  horse  or  man,  on  his  part,)  he  vanquished  O'Moore  and 
his  terrible  army. 

t  "  Of  Monaghan  (says  Ware,)  called  in  Irish,  Uriel,  Mac  Mahon  was  the  chief  lord."  But,  according  to 
Seward,  Orgiel,  or  Uriel,  comprised  the  present  counties  of  Louth,  Monagl^an,  and  Armagh. 


372  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

said  in  later  times,  even  more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves.  Even  English  gentlewo- 
men had  begun  to  receive,  without  any  repugnance,  the  tender  addresses  of  the  "Irish 
enemy;"  and  it  appears  from  letters  patent  of  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  that  the  fierce  and 
formidable  chief,  Art  Mac  Morough,  could  boast  of  an  English  heiress  for  his  consort.* 

The  old  laws  and  customs  of  the  country  were  deeply,  as  we  have  seen,  imbued  with 
the  primitive  character  of  the  people;  and,  if  their  law  of  Eric  may  be  thought  over- 
letiient  to  the  crime  of  murder,  and  in  so  far  indicating  too  tolerant  a  view  of  acts  of  vio- 
lence, their  customs  of  Gossipred  and  Fostering,  on  the  other  hand,  evince  a  generous 
desire  to  enlarge  the  circle  of  the  social  affections,  by  adding  to  the  ties  of  consanguinity 
those  of  long  habit  and  mutual  good  services.  Brought  up  in  general  by  Irish  nurses, 
and  consorting  from  early  childhood  with  their  fosterbrethren,  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  the  sons  of  the  middle  class  of  the  English  should  remain  uninfluenced  by  examples 
60  constantly  acting  upon  them,  and  the  force  of  which,  through  every  succeeding  gene- 
ration, must  have  increased. 

Such  were,  in  fact,  the  effects  that  naturally  began  to  unfold  themselves  among  the 
descendantsof  the  great  English  lords;  and  all  such  ancient  customs  of  the  land  as  tended 
to  facilitate  the  never-ceasing  work  of  plunder  and  massacre,  were,  of  course,  the  first 
and  the  most  eagerly  adopted  by  them.  In  this  manner,  the  old  Irish  taxes  of  coyne  and 
livery,  which  gave  a  right  to  demand  free  quarters  from  the  soldiery  without  any  respon- 
sibility or  restraint,  and  which  in  a  country  where  warfare  was  perpetual,  could  not  be 
otherwise  than  a  perpetual  scourge,  was  first  made  a  part  of  the  military  policy  of  the 
English  by  Maurice  Filz-Thomas,  afterwards  earl  of  Desmond. f 

So  soon  and  to  such  an  extent  were  the  lords  of  the  Pale  inoculated  with  this  Irish 
spirit,  that  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  as  we  have  seen,  Nicholas  Fitz-Maurice,  fourth 
earl  of  Kerry,  joined  openly  the  ranks  of  the  natives.  Attempts  were  made,  but  unsuc- 
cessfully, in  the  course  of  the  same  reign,  to  dislodge  this  growing  Anglo-Irish  power. 
But,  having  taken  root  so  early  in  the  formation  of  the  colony,  and  established  the  next 
best  right  of  possession  (though  still  at  an  immeasurable  distance)  to  that  of  the  natives 
themselves,  this  proud  and  high  spirited  race  succeeded  in  baffling  all  the  efforts  of  the 
English  government  to  reduce  them;  and,  at  the  period  we  have  now  reached,  owing  to 
the  distraction  of  the  attention  of  England  to  other  objects,  had  attained,  in  some  instances, 
an  extent  of  ascendency,  no  less  prejudicial  to  the  dignity  and  interests  of  the  crown,  than 
it  was  oppressive  to  the  people  subjected  to  their  dominion. 

Of  these  great  lords,  the  earl  of  Orinond,  who  held  the  office  of  lord  lieutenant  at  the 
time  of  the  accession  of  Henry  VI.,  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  powerful;  and  a  fac- 
tious feud  between  him  and  the  Talbots,  kept  alive,  as  it  was,  and  diffused  by  a  multitude 
of  adherents  on  both  sides,  continued  to  disturb  tiie  public  councils  through  a  great  part 
of  this  reign.  Soon  after  Henry's  accession,  the  office  of  lord  lieutenant  was  resigned  by 
Ormond  to  Edward  Mortimer,  earl  of  March  and  Ulster,  who  appointed  as  his  deputy,  until 
he  should  be  able  to  assume  the  government  in  person,  Edward  Dantsey,  bishop  of  Meath.J 
When  this  prelate  presented  to  the  council  the  letters  patent  of  the  earl  conferring  his 
appointment,  strong  objections  were  made  to  the  sufficiency  of  the  commission,  on  the 
ground  that  the  letters  were  sealed  with  the  earl's  private  seal ;  and  Richard  Talbot, 
archbishop  of  Dublin,  who  was  then  chancellor  of  the  kingdom,  peremptorily  refused,  till 
farther  advised,  to  acknowledge  the  bishop  as  deputy.  But  this  captious  opposition, 
though  giving  a  foretaste  of  what  was  to  be  expected  from  the  bold  and  thwarting  spirit 
of  this  prelate,  does  not  appear  to  have  been  long  persisted  in  ;  as,  from  a  subsequent 
record,  we  gather,  that  the  council  agreed  to  acknowledge  the  bishop's  appointment.} 

Shortly  after,  announcement  was  made,  by  a  king's  letter  to  archbishop  Talbot,  that 

the  earl  of  March,  with  a  large  army,  was  about  to  proceed,  with  all  possible 

142*V  '^^^P^'^ch,  to  Ireland  ;1|  and,  in  the  course  of  the  year  1423,  this  prince  landed  on 

the  Irish  shores.     But  the  flattering  hope  held  out  by  his  presence  was  of  very 

*  Pat.  Roll,  1  Hen.  IV.: — "  Una  cnm  hereilitate  Elizabethe  uxoris  su;e  do  baronia  de  Norraeh."  It  is 
right  to  add,  however,  that,  in  consequence  of  this  marriage  the  lady'a  estate  waa  seized  on,  as  a  forfeiture, 
by  the  rrovvn. 

f  "  But  when  the  English  had  learned  it  (the  e.xtortion  of  Coyne  and  Livery,)  they  used  it  with  more  inso- 
Jency,  and  made  it  more  inlolerable;  for  this  oppression  was  not  temporary  or  limited  either  to  place  or 
time  ;  but,  because  there  was  every  where  a  continual  war,  either  offensive  or  defensive,  and  every  lord  of  a 
country  and  every  marcher  made  war  at  his  pleasure,  it  became  universal  and  perpeluai." — Davies. 

I  About  three  years  after,  a  hill  of  indictment  was  found  against  this  prelate,  at  Trim,  for  stealing  a  cup 
of  the  value  of  13s.  id.  out  of  thfi  church  of  Taveragh,  in  the  diocese  of  Meatb.  After  rather  a  complicated 
process,  which  may  be  found  detailed  in  Ware  (History  of  the  Bishops,)  lie  was  acquitted  of  this  singular 
charge,  for  which  it  may  be  presumed  there  was  not  the  slightest  foundation,  as,  shortly  after,  he  was  again 
entrusted  with  tlie  high  office  of  lord  deputy. 

5  The  reason  given  for  thus  yielding,  is  "  prout  in  concordia  prsedicta  contineatur." 

}  "  Ad  Hiberniam  cum  magno  exercitu  cum  omni  festinalione  possibili  est  venturus.— C/wc  Roll,  2  Hen.  Fl- 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  373 

brief  duration.  Wliatever  expectation  might  have  been  formed,  from  his  nearness  to 
the  throne,  that  his  administration  would  have  proved  both  popular  and  efficient,  such  an- 
ticipations were  soon  at  an  end,  as  at  the  beginnintr  of  the  following  year  he  was  seized 
with  the  plague,  and  died  in  his  own  castle  at  Trim. 

The  prince's  successor  in  the  administration  was  the  illustrious  warrior,  lord  Talbot; 
the  same  whose  services  in  this  country,  some  years  before,  had  received  so  ho- 
nourable a  testimony  from  the  lords  of  the  Pale,  and  who  afterwards  won  for  him-  1^9?' 
self,  in  the  French  wars,  the  title  of  the  English  Achilles.     Not  quite  a  year  had  ^'*^*-'- 
the  government  been  in  the  hands  of  this  nobleman,  when  it  again  fell  to  the  earl  of  Or- 
mond;  and  from  that  period,  through  the  ten  following  years,  there  ensued,  at  intervals 
nearly  annual,  a  succession  of  chief  governors,  during  none  of  whose  administrations  any 
event  much  worthy  of  notice  occurred, — with  the  sole  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  lieu- 
tenancy of  Sir  Thomas  Stanley,  in  the  course  of  which  some  seasonable  checks 
were  given  to  the  increasing  incursions  of  the  Irish  borderers.     Taking  advantage  1^09* 
of  the  distractions  consequent  on  the  king's  minority,  the  natives  had  risen  in  con- 
siderable  numbers,  and  were  from  every  side  encroaching  on  the  Pale.     The  lord  lieute- 
nant, however,  leading  against  them  the  power  of  Meath  and  Uriel,  made  a  great  slaugh- 
ter of  their  force,  and  took  one  of  their  chiefs,  Moyle  O'Donnell,  prisoner.* 

The  influx  of  the  Irish  into  England  continued,  in  both  countries,  to  be  a  constant  sub- 
ject of  complaint  and  legislation;  and,  in  consequence  of  a  petition  to  the  king,  presented 
by  the  English   house  of  commons,  representing  the  manifold  crimes,  of  every  descrip- 
tion, committed  by  the  Irish  in  England,  it  was  enacted,  that  all  persons  born  in  Ireland 
should  quit  England  within  a  time  limited;  exceptions  being  made  in  favour  of  beneficed 
clergymen,  graduates  in   either  university,  persons  who  held  lands  in   England, 
were  married   there,  or  had  English  parents;  and  even  these  to  give  security  for  -i^.j!^' 
their  future  good  behaviour.    In  the  present  year,  likewise,  durmg  the  lieutenancy 
of  Lionel  lord  Wells,  while  a  second  law  was  passed  in  England,  obliging  Irishmen  to  re- 
turn home,  there  was  likewise  a  statute  made  in  Ireland,  to  prevent  the  passage  of  any 
more  of  them  into  England. f 

Among  those  powerful  Anglo-Irish  lords,  who,  by  their  own  extortion,  and  the  large 
grants  of  lands  and  liberties  so  recklessly  lavished  upon  them  by  the  crown,  had  been 
raised  into  so  many  independent  counts  palatine,  the  earl  of  Desmond  held  at  this  time 
the  most  prominent  station.^:  This  lord  was  uncle  to  Thomas,  the  sixth  earl  of  Desmond, 
whose  romantic  marriage  and  subsequent  fate  show  how  high,  in  those  times,  were 
the  notions  entertained  of  noble  birth.  Returning  late  one  evening  from  hunting,  the 
young  lord,  finding  himself  benighted,  sought  shelter  under  the  roof  of  one  of  his  tenants 
near  Abbeyfeal;  and  seeing,  for  the  first  time,  his  host's  daughter,  the  beautiful  Catherine 
Mac  Cormac,  became  so  enamoured  of  her  charms,  that  he  soon  after  married  her.  So 
dishonouring  to  the  high  blond  of  the  Desmonds  was  this  alliance  considered,  that  it  drew 
down  upon  him  the  anger  and  enmity  of  all  his  family.  Friends,  followers,  and  tenants 
at  once  abandoned  him  ;  and  even  assisted  his  uncle  James,  according  to  the  old  Irish 
custom,  to  expel  him  from  his  estates,  and  force  him  to  surrender  the  earldom. 5  Thus  perse- 
cuted the  unhappy  young  lord  retired  to  Rouen,  in  Normandy,  where  he  died  in  the  year 
1420,  and  was  buried  in  a  convent  of  friars  preachers,  at  Paris; — the  king  of  England,  it 
is  added,  attending  his  funeral. 

In    addition    to   his   other   princely   possessions,  the    present    earl   of   Des- 
mond received,  at  this  time,  a  grant  from  Robert  Fitz-Geoffry  Cogan,  of  all  his  -j^q^* 
lands  in  Ireland  ;  being  no  less  than  half  of  what  was  then  called  the  kingdom  of 
Cork; — an  estate  which  ought  to  have  descended  by  the  heirs  general  to  the  Carew  and 
Courcy  families,  but  which  the  illegal  conveyance  from  Cogan  afforded  to  Desmond  a 
pretence  for  appropriating  to  himself  || 

While  thus  this  lord  and  a  few  other  Anglo-Irish  nobles  were  extending  enormously 
their  power  and  wealth,  the  king's  government  was  fast  declining  as  well  in  revenue  as 
in  influence  and  strength.  Sir  Thomas  Stanley,  when  lord  lieutenant,  had  brought  over 
to  England  a  most  wretched  account  of  the  state  of  afJairs  from  the  privy  council,  where- 

*  Cox.  t  Ibid. 

J  Among  the  services  by  which  Desmond  rose  into  such  favour,  w,ts  the  activity  shown  by  him,  in  the 
first  year  of  this  reign,  when,  raisins;  an  army  of  5000  men,  in  Munster,  he  marched  against  O'Connor  and 
Meyler  Bermingham.vvho,  with  a  large  force,  had  broken  into  the  borders  of  the  Pale.— Pat  Roll,  1  Hen.  VI. 

§  This  forcible  succession,  Icowever,  does  not  appear  to  have  been  immediately  recognised  by  the  crown,  as, 
in  a  letter  to  John  lord  Furnival,  cited  by  hynch{Lcgal  Institutions,  ^c.,)  the  new  earl  is  merely  called  James 
of  Desmond. 

II  Lodge,— Smith,  Hist,  of  Cork,  vol.  i.  book  i,  chap.  1. 


374  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

in,  entreating  that  the  king^  himself  would  come  to  Ireland,  they  added,  that  his 
1449  presence  would  be  a  sovereign  comfort  to  his  people,  and  the  surest  remedy  for 

■  all  the  evils  of  which  they  complained.  So  little  did  this  state  of  things  improve, 
that  a  few  years  after,  in  the  time  of  the  lieutenancy  of  lord  Weils,  a  parliament  held 
in  Dublin  agreed  to  send  over  archbishop  Talbot,  to  represent  to  the  king  the  miserable 
condition  of  Ireland  j  and  to  state  in  proof  of  it,  that  the  public  reven^ue  of  the  kingdom 
fell  short  of  the  necessary  expenditure  by  the  annual  sum  of  1456Z.* 

During  a  part  of  the  period  of  lord  Wells'  lieutenancy,  Ormond  condescended  to  act  as 
his  deputy  ;  and,  during  that  interval,  had  a  grant  made  to  him  of  the  temporalities  of  the 
see  of  Cashel  for  ten  years.f     Seeing  reason  to  fear  that  this  highly  favoured  and  popu- 
lar nobleman  would  be  himself  again  selected  to  fill  the  office  of  chief  governor,  the 
party  opposed  to  him,  at  the  head  of  which  was  the  intractable  archbishop  Talbot, 
144l'  resolved  to  defeat,  if  possible,  an  appointment  so  utterly  adverse  to  all  their  designs. 

■  With  this  view,  in  a  parliament  assembled  at  Dublin,  certain  "Articles"  were 
agreed  to,  and  messengers  appointed  to  convey  them  to  the  king,  of  which  the  chief  ob- 
ject was  to  prevent  Ormond  from  being  made  lieutenant  of  Ireland.^ 

These  articles  commenced  with  requesting  the  king  to  "  ordain  a  mighty  lord  of  Eng- 
land" to  be  the  lieutenant; — adding,  that  they,  the  parliament  considered  it  most  expe- 
dient to  confer  that  office  upon  an  English  lord,  because  the  people  would  more  readily 
"favour  and  obey  him  than  any  man  of  that  land's  birth;"  inasmuch  as  Englishmen 
"keep  better  justice,  execute  the  laws,  and  favour  more  the  common  people,  than  any 
Irishman  ever  did,  or  is  ever  like  to  do/'  The  articles  then  represent  how  necessary  it 
is  that  the  lieutenant  should  be  an  active  and  courageous  man,  such  as  would  "  keep  the 
field  and  make  head  against  the  king's  enemies ;  none  of  which  qualities,"  it  is  added 
had  been  "seen  or  found  in  the  said  earl,  for  both  he  is  aged,  unwieldy,  and  unlusty  to 
labour,  and  hath  lost  in  substance  all  his  castles,  towns,  and  lordships  that  he  had  in  Ire- 
land. Wherefore  it  is  not  likely  that  he  should  keep,  conquer,  nor  get  any  grounds  to 
the  king,  that  thus  hath  lost  his  own." 

To  these  general  charges  against  the  earl  are  subjoined  specific  instances  of  his  mal- 
administration and  abuse  of  power;  and  among  others,  it  is  stated,  that  when  he  before 
governed  Ireland,  he  "had  made  Irishmen,  and  grooms,  and  pages  of  his  household, 
knights  of  the  shire  ;5  that  he  had  allowed  peers  to  absent  themselves  from  parliament  on 
payment  of  large  fines,  which  he  applied  to  his  own  instead  of  the  king's  use  ;  that  he 
had  put  several  persons  wantonly  in  prison,  and  then  made  them  pay  large  sums  for  their 
ransom."  The  king  is  reminded,  in  conclusion,  that  Ormond  had  been  "  impeached  of 
many  great  treasons  by  the  three  previous  lord  lieutenants,  which  charges  still  remained 
undetermined;"  and  the  archbishop  adds,  speaking  in  his  own  person,  there  have  been 
also  "  many  and  divers  other  great  things  misdone  by  the  said  earl,  which  I  may  not  de- 
clare because  of  mine  order."|| 

Strongly  enforced  as  were  these  charges,  and  containing  much,  that,  with  all  due  al- 
lowance for  party  malice,  may  have  deserved  reprehension,  if  not  punishment,  it  appears 
from  the  result,  that  but  little  importance  was  attached  to  the  proceeding  by  the  English 
council.  For,  it  was  at  the  close  of  the  year  1441,  that  these  articles  of  impeach- 
1449"  '^^"'^  were  laid  before  the  king,  and  on  the  '21th  of  February  following,  the  earl 

■  of  Ormond  was  appointed  lieutenant  of  Ireland;  with  the  peculiar  privilege,  too, 
of  absenting  himself  from  his  government  for  many  years,  without  incurring  the  penalty 
of  the  statute  of  Rich.  II.  against  absentees. IT 

The  effects  of  the  triumph  gained  by  Ormond  over  his  accusers,  were  shared  in  also 
by  his  powerful  friend  and  supporter,  Desmond,  on  whom,  already  enriched  and  aggran- 
dized beyond  what  was  safe  in  a  subject,  new  favours  and  new  distinctions  were  now 
showered.     It  was  about  this  time  that  he  obtained  a  patent  for  the  government  and  cus- 

*  There  was  in  England,  during  this  reign,  a  slill  more  extraordinary  decrease  of  the  hereditary  revenue 
of  the  crown,  till  at  last,  says  Lincard,  it  "dwindled  to  the  paltry  sum  of  five  thousand  pounds." 

t  After  the  death  of  archUishop  b'lledian,  the  see  of  Ca-shel  "  was  for  ten  years  vacant,  and  the  temporali- 
ties all  that  lime  were  set  to  farm  to  James  Butler,  earl  of  Ormond." — Ware,  Bislwps. 

I  Proceedings  and  Ordinances  of  the  Privy  Council  of  England,  vol.  vi. 

§  From  what  is  known  of  the  methods  employed  for  packing  parliaments  in  those  days,  we  may  easily  be- 
lieve that,  though  much  exaggerated,  this  charge  might  not  have  been  wholly  without  foundation.  In  a  let- 
ter, addressed  about  this  time  by  the  duchess  of  Norfolk  to  some  of  her  husband's  adherents  she  represents  to 
Ihem.  how  necessary  it  is,  "  that  my  lord  should  have  at  this  lime,  in  the  parliament,  such  persons  as  belong 
unto  him,  and  be  of  his  menial  servants."  See,  on  this  point,  Mackintosh  {Hist,  of  England,  vol.  ii.  chap. 
2.)  who  gets  rid  of  the  difficulty  by  observing,  that  "menial,"  at  that  period,  was  a  word  "  which  had  scarcely 
any  portion  of  its  modern  sense." 

II  Proceedings  of  the  Privy  Council.  IT  Prynne,315. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  375 

tody  of  the  counties  of  Waterford,  Cork,  Limerick,  and  Kerry  ;*  and,  not  long  after  a 
privilege  was  accorded  to  him,  no  less  remarkable  in  itself,  tiian  for  the  grounds  on  which 
it  was  granted.  Having  represented  to  the  king  the  necessity  he  was  under  of  directing 
in  person  the  affairs  of  These  counties,  and  likewise  the  dangers  to  which  he  was  exposed 
in  travelling  to  parliament,  through  parts  of  the  country  inhabited  solely  by  the  king's 
enemies,  he  obtained  permission,  during  his  life,  to  absent  himself  from  ail  future  parlia- 
ments, sending  an  authorized  and  competent  proxy  in  his  place;  and  upon  this  license 
was  founded  the  privilege  claimed  by  the  succeedmg  earls  of  Desmond,  of  not  entering 
into  walled  towns,  nor  attending  any  parliament,  except  at  their  pleasure. f 

In  the  same  patent  which  granted  this  whimsical  exemption,  there  was  also  a  power 
given  to  him  to  purchase  any  lands  he  pleased,  by  whatsoever  service  they  were  holden 
of  the  crown ; — a  license  intended,  it  was  supposed,  to  screen  his  late  illegal  grant  from 
Cogan,  and  which,  by  the  lax  notions  it  gave  rise  to,  respecting  titles  and  inheritances, 
tended  to  unsettle  very  much  the  rights  and  relations  of  property  throughout  the  king- 
dom. 

Mean  while  the  dissension  between  Ormond  and  archbishop  Talbot  continued  to  occupy 
public  attention,  and,  as  a  letter  of  the  council  expresses  it,  "to  cause  divisions  and  ru- 
mours among  the  king's  people."     To  Giles  Thorndon,  therefore,  who  was  then  treasurer 
of  Ireland,  and  less  closely  connected,  perhaps,  than  most  of  his  official  brethren,  with 
either  of  the  two  contending  factions,  was  assigned  the  duty  of  collecting  and  laying  be- 
fore the  king  a  correct  account  of  the  state  of  afThirs  in  that  realm.     The  articles  drawn 
up,  in  obedience  to  this  order,|  by  Thorndon,  confirm  but  too  strongly  the  painful  im-   ^   ^ 
pression,  which  all  other  existing  records  of  those  times  convey,  of  the  strife,  turbu-  j^^g 
ience,  and   unprincipled  faction  which  then  prevailed  as  well  amoig  the  ruling 
powers  of  the  land,  as  throughout  the  whole  of  its  divided  and  distracted  population.    At- 
tributing the  "discord,  partiality  and  division,"  which  had  been  so  long  raging,  not  less  to 
one  of  tlie  prevailing  factions  than  the  other,  he  states  that,  in  consequence  of  these  dis- 
sensions, the  spirit  of  party  had  become  so  violent  in  the  king's  council,  and  in  all  his  courts, 
that  "no  business,  whether  for  the  royal  service,  or  for  suit  of  party,  was  allowed  due  pro- 
cess, nor  execution  in  law,  where  it  touched  any  of  the  said  two  parties."     He  stated,  like- 
wise, that  the  officers  of  the  exchequer  durst  not  adopt  legal  measures  for  recovering  money 
due  to  the  king,  from  the  fear  of  being  dismissed  from  their  offices  at  every  new  change 
of  lord  lieutenant  or  lord  justice;  and  that  such  was  also  the  casein  all  the  courts  of  law.{ 
In  these  articles,  which  are  of  considerable  length,  and  contain  several  other  instances 
of  the  effects  of  faction  and  misgovernment,  no  particular  charge  is  alleged  against  ^    ^ 
any  individual,  of  either  party.     But  early  in  the  year  1444,  in  consequence  of  a  ^^^ 
difference  between  the  two  factions  respecting  the  appointment  of  a  deputy  trea- 
surer, a  formal  complaint  was  exhibited  by  Tliorndon  against  the  earl,  in  a  bill  of  fifteen 
articles,  charging  him  with  having  appropriated  part  of  the  revenue  to  his  own  pur- 
poses, and  also  compromised  debts  due  to  the  crown.     Among  the  instances  brought  in 
proof  of  this  latter  charge,  it  is  stated  that  an  English  rebel,  who  had  been  guilty  of  slay- 
ing sir  Richard  Wellesley,  in  the  field,  having  agreed  with  the  council  to  pay  forty  marks 
for  his  pardon,  the  earl  received  this  sum  from  him,  appropriated  it  to  his  own  use,  and 
then  granted  the  pardon  for  a  fine  of  6s.  8d. ; — thus  "deceivably,"  it  is  added,  "  making 
the  king  lose  forty  marks."|| 

Another  accusation  brought  against  him  in  these  articles  was,  that  he  had  proposed 
a  bill  to  the  commons  in  two  parliaments  and  two  great  councils,  declaring  that  "  who- 
ever complained  to  the  king  of  any  wrong  done  to  him  in  Ireland,  should  forfeit  all  his 
lands  and  goods,  unless  the  complaint  was  made  under  the  great  seal,  or  by  an  act  of  par- 
liament, or  great  council."  The  object  of  this  bill,  it  is  added,  was  to  benefit  Ormond 
himself,  and  by  the  following  notable  contrivance: — on  the  lands  thus  forfeited  becoming 
the  property  of  the  crown,  the  earl  would  nominally  grant  them  to  some  friend  of  his  own, 
who  would  re-grant  them  to  Ormond  and  his  heirs;  and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  persons 
whose  lands  and  goods  were  seized  did  not  complain,  the  earl  would  be  able  to  retain 
them  as  long  as  he  continued  lieutenant.  The  commons,  however  (adds  Thorndon,) 
knowing  well  the  corrupt  and  evil  intent  of  the  lieutenant,  rejected  the  bill,  and  upon 

*  These  counties  liad  been  in  reality  possessed  by  the  Desmonds  ever  since  the  reign  of  Edward  II.,  when, 
says  Davies,  the  greatest  part  of  the  freeholders  "were  banished  out  of  the  counties  of  Kerry,  Limerick, 
Cork,  and  Waterford,  and  Desmond  and  his  kinsmen,  allies  and  followers,  which  were  then  more  Irish  than 
English,  did  enter  and  appropriate  those  lands  to  themselves  ;  Desmond  himself  taking  what  scopes  he  liked 
best,  for  his  demesnes  in  every  county,  and  reserving  an  Irish  seigniory  out  of  the  rest." 

t  Cox.— Lodge. 

t  Minutes  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Privy  Council,  vol.  v.  §  Ibid.  II  Ibid. 


376  TITSTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  sound  and  constitutional  grounds,  that  "  it  was  treason  to  make  a  statute  to  prevent 
a  man  from  complaining-  to  his  l<ing."* 

Notwithstanding  ail  these  vehement  and  repeated  attacks  upon  him,  Ormond  still  con- 
tinued lord  lieutenant  through  the  following  two  years,  and  on  the  17th  of  July, 
Tddfi'   14"^^'  ^^^  succeeded  by  John  Talbot,  earl  of  Shrewsbury,  who  in  consideration  of 
■  his   great   military  services,  was  soon  after  advanced  to  the  dignity  of  earl  of 
Waterfordf  and  baron  of  Dungarvan.|     It  ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  as  a  worthy  sample 
of  the  legislation  of  this  period,  that,  in  a  parliament  held  by  this  earl,  at  Trim,  1447,  it 
was  enacted,  that  "any  man  who  does  not  keep  his   upper   lip  shaved,  may  be 
1447'  treated  as  an  Irish  enemy."^     Another  enactment  of  tlie  same  parliament  was 
that  "  if  an  Irishman  who  is  denizened  kill  or  rob,  he  may  be  used  as  an  Irish 
enemy,  and  slain  on  the  spot." 

The  practice  of  conferring  the  lieutenancy  of  Ireland  on  some  personage  of  the  royal 
blood,  though  hitherto  attended  with  but  little  advantage,  appears  to  have  been  still  a 
favourite  experiment;  and  the  duke  of  York,  the  lineal  heir  to  the  crown  of  England, 
though  as  yet  his  claim  had  remained  latent,  was  the  personage  selected  for  that  office. 
This  prince  was  nephew  to  the  last  earl  of  March,  who  died  in  Ireland,  at  the  com- 
1440  mencement  of  this  reign,  and  from  whom  he  inherited  the  united  estates  of  Cla- 
rence and  Ulster,  together  with  the  patrimonial  possessions  of  the  family  of 
March.  The  list  of  his  titles  sufficiently  shows  how  large  was  the  stake  he  possessed  in 
that  country  ;  as,  besides  being  earl  of  Ulster  and  Cork,  he  was  lord  of  Connaught,  Clare, 
Trim,  and  Meath, — thus  including  in  his  inheritance  at  least  a  third  part  of  the  kingdom- 
It  was  not,  however,  through  any  wish  of  his  own  that  he  had  now  been  selected  for  the 
office  of  viceroy.  On  the  contrary,  recalled  abruptly  from  France,  where  some  years  be- 
fore he  had  succeeded  the  duke  of  Bedford  as  regent,  it  was  most  reluctantly  he  ex- 
changed the  prospects  which  that  honourable  field  of  enterprise  opened,  for  the  confined 
sphere  of  Irish  warfare,  and  the  yet  more  petty  and  inglorious  strife  of  the  rival  factions 
of  the  English  Pale. 

Well  aware  that  he  had  been  removed  from  his  command  to  make  way  for  the  duke  of 
Somerset,  his  hereditary  jealousy  of  the  house  of  that  nobleman,  from  whence  alone  he 
could  fear  competitorship  for  the  crown,  became  from  thenceforth  increased;  and,  turn- 
ing to  account  the  slight  thus  thrown  upon  him,  he  resolved  to  secure  for  himself  such  a 
hold  on  the  warm  affections  of  the  Irish  as  might  enable  him  to  render  them  subservient 
to  the  advancement  of  his  farther  purposes.  He  also  refused  to  accept  the  office  on  any 
but  high  and  advantageous  terms,  which  were  reduced  to  writing  by  indenture  between 
the  king  and  himself,  and  besides  extending  the  period  of  his  lieutenancy  to  ten  years, 
and  allowing  him,  in  addition  to  the  revenue  of  the  crown  in  Ireland,  supplies  of  treasure 
also  from  England,  agreed  that  he  might  let  the  king's  lands  to  farm,  might  place  and 
displace  all  officers  as  he  chose,  might  levy  and  wage  what  number  of  soldiers  he  thought 
fit,  and  appoint  a  deputy,  and  return  to  England  at  his  pleasure. 

The  duke's  predecessor,  the  earl  of  Shrewsbury,  had,  immediately  on  his  return  to 
England,  accused  Ormond  to  the  king  of  treason,  in  consequence  of  which  charge,  this 
earl  was  committed  to  the  Tower,  and  strictly  prohibited,  unless  with  the  royal  permis- 
sion, from  going  above  forty  miles  from   London,  except  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Canterbury. 
The  same  serious  charge  had  been  advanced  against  him   in  a  tract  written  upon  the 
abuses  of  his  government,  by  archbishop  Talbot.[|    But  the  most  fiery  of  Ormond's 
■,\a(1  accusers  on  this  occasion  was  Thomas  Fitz-Thomas,  prior  of  Kilmainham,  who 
having  likewise  impeached  him  of  treason,  the  earl  appealed  to  arms,  and  a  day  was 
appointed  to  decide  their  quarrel  by  combat.     In  the  mean  time  Ormond  obtained  per- 
mission to  remove  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Smithfield,  "  for  his  breathing  and  more  ease," 
and  likewise  in  order  to  prepare  and  train  himself  for  the  fight;  while  the  warlike  prior 
employed  the  interval  in  learning  "  certain  points  of  arms"  from  one  Philip  Trehere,  a 
fishmonger  of  London,  whom  the  king  paid  to  instruct  him.^     The  parties  met,  it  ap- 

*  Proceedings  of  the  Privy  Council. 

I  The  following  addition  to  this  grant  presents  a  melancholy  picture  of  the  state  of  Ireland  at  that  pe- 
riod : — "  together  with  jura  regalia,  wreck,  &c.,  from  Youghall  to  Waterford,  because  that  country  is  waste, 
et  non  ad proficuum  sed  perdUum  nostrum  redundat." 

I  This  transfer  from  Desmond  of  the  barony  of  Dungarvan,  so  long  the  inheritance  of  his  ancestors,  was, 
doubtless,  one  of  the  consequences  of  his  wilful  seclusion  from  public  life.  In  the  following  reign,  however, 
the  honour  of  Dungarvan  was  restored  to  the  Desmond  family. 

S  This  absurd  act  remained  unrepealed  till  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I. 

\l  Entitled  "  De  Abusu  Kcgiminis  Jacobi  Comitis  Ormonite,  dum  esset  Locura-tenens  Hibernise." — See 
Ware's  Writers. 

IT  In  the  Issue  Roll  of  this  year,  we  find  payments  to  Philip  Trehere,  fishmonger,  "  in  consideration  of  the 
pains  and  attendance  undergone  by  him,  at  the  liing's  special  command,  in  inEtructing  the  prior  of  Kilmay- 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  377 

pears,  on  the  ground,  but  were  prevented  from  proceeding  to  extremities  by  the  interpo- 
sition of  the  kinof-* 

The  duiie  of  York  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  his  Irish  revenues  would  afford 
him  but  a  scanty  supply  ;  the  English  power  having  now  shrunk  within  such  narrow 
limits,  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  four  counties  of  the  Pale,  and  some  parts  of  the 
earldom  of  Ulster,  on  the  sea  coast,  the  whole  country  was  at  this  time  possessed  by  the 
natives.f  While  thus  disappointed  of  the  revenues  counted  upon  from  that  kingdom,  he 
found  the  supplies  from  England  likewise  ill  paid  ;  and  how  great  were  the  straits 
to  which  he  was  reduced  may  be  collected  from  a  letter  addressed  by  him  to  his  brother, 
the  earl  of  Salisbury,  during  a  petty  war  he  was  engaged  in  with  the  chief  Mac  Geoghe- 
gan,  and  three  or  four  other  Irish  lords4  These  chiefs,  it  appears,  in  conjunction  with  some 
English  rebels,  had  burnt  down  a  large  town,  called  Rathmore, — belonging  to  the  duke, 
as  part  of  his  inheritance,  in  Meath, — together  with  a  number  of  the  adjoining  villages, 
where,  it  is  added,  they  had  "  murdered  and  burnt  both  men,  women,  and  children,  with- 
outen  mercie."  After  detailing  these  events  in  his  letter  to  Salisbury,  he  proceeds  to 
say,  "Unless  my  payment  be  had  in  all  haste,  to  have  men  of  war  in  defence  and  safe- 
guard of  this  land,  my  power  cannot  stretch  to  keep  it  in  the  king's  obeisance;  and  very 
necessity  will  compel  me  to  come  into  England,  to  live  there  upon  my  poor  livelihood. 
I  had  liever  be  dead  than  any  inconvenience  should  fall  thereunto  by  my  default  ;  for 
it  shall  never  fie  chronicled  nor  remain  in  scripture  (by  the  grace  of  God)  that  Ireland 
was  lost  by  my  negligence.  And  therefore  I  beseech  you,  right  worshipful,  and  with  all 
my  heart  entirely  beloved  brother,  that  you  will  hold  to  your  hands  instantly,  that  my 
payment  may  be  had  at  this  time  in  eschewing  all  inconveniences." 

The  same  conscientious  sense  of  duty  which  breathes  so  strongly  throughout  this 
letter,  appears  to  have  pervaded  the  whole  of  this  amiable  prince's  conduct,  as  well  in 
France  as  in  Ireland  ;  and  the  firm  but  fair  spirit  in  which,  as  far  as  we  can  learn,  he 
dealt  with  the  natives,  treating  them  as  enemies  only  while  they  resisted,  and  repressing 
without  also  insulting  and  trampling  upon  them,  afforded  an  example  worthy  of  imita- 
tion by  all  succeeding  chief  governors.  In  reducing  Mac  Geoghegan  to  obedience,  so 
well  had  he  managed  to  divest  the  transaction  of  all  appearance  of  harsh  or  humiliating 
compulsion,  that  the  simple  chief  himself,  on  returning  among  his  sept,  boasted  proudly 
that  he  "had  given  peace  to  the  king's  lieutenant." 

Equally  politic  was  the  viceroy's  conduct  and  deportment  towards  those  Anglo-Irish 
grandees,  on  the  skilful  management  of  whom  depended  mainly  the  peace  and  well-being 
of  the  kingdom.  Having  a  son  born  in  the  castle  of  Dublin, — George,  afterwards  duke 
of  Clarence,  known  for  his  short  stormy  life  and  singular  death, — he  chose  the  earls  of 
Ormond  and  Desmond  to  be  sponsors  for  the  young  prince;  thus  connecting  himself  with 
these  two  powerful  lords  by  the  tie,  so  sacred  among  the  Irish,  of  gossipred,  and  thereby 
furnishing  them  with  an  additional  motive  for  zeal  and  fidelity  in  his  service. 

But  the  aspect  of  affairs  in  England  had  now  begun  to  firetoken  events,  in  the 
ultimate  issue  of  which  the  future  fortunes  of  the  house  of  York  were  most  deeply  -i*^-^* 
involved.     The  formidable  insurrection  that  had  just  broken  out,  headed  by  an 
Irishman  named  John  Cade,  proposed  for  its  object,  as  some  of  the  conspirators  confessed 
on  the  scaffold,  to  place  Richard  duke  of  York  on  the  throne  of  England  ;  and  by  the  court 
it  was  even  imagined  that  this  prince  had  secretly  encouraged  Cade's  rebellion,  in  order 
to  sound  the  feelings  of  the  people,  and  learn  how  far  they  were  likely  to  support  him  in 
his  pretensions  to  the  crown.     Apprised  speedily  of  this  state  of  affairs  by  some  of  those 
friends  he  h%d  left  to  watch  over  his  interests,  and  who  were  now  of  opinion  that  he  ought 
to  appear  on  the  scene  in  person,  the  duke,  without  waiting  to  ask  permission  left  his 
government,  and  landing  in  England,  proceeded,  to  the  great  terror  of  the  court,  towards 
London,  having  collected  on  his  way  a  retinue  of  about  4000  men. 

The  important  affairs  in  which  this  prince  was  subsequently  concerned  fall  mostly  within 

nam,  who  lately  appealed  the  earl  of  Ormond  ofhightreasnn,  in  certain  points  of  arms."  Another  item  of 
dishursement  about  the  same  time,  shows  how  frequently  Smithfield  was  the  scene  of  such  conficts.  "  To 
sir  Richard  Vernon,  knight,  for  the  cost  of  sixty  men-at-arms,  provided  for  the  protection  of  Smithfield, 
during  the  time  of  the  duels  fought  there  between  divers  parties." 

*  Stow,— who  adds,  that  the  king  interfered  "  at  the  instance  of  certain  preachers  and  doctors  of  London." 

t  Davies. 

X  Holinshed.— Another  letter,  without  date,  but  supposed  also  to  belong  to  t^e  times  we  have  reached, 
and  purporting  to  be  addressed  by  some  inhabitants  of  the  city  and  county  of  Cork,  to  the  king's  council  in 
Dublin,  describes,  in  a  truly  Irish  tone,  the  state  of  affairs  in  that  county.  Tracing  the  ruin  of  the  English 
interests  in  those  parts  to  the  dissensions  of  the  great  nobles,  the  letter  proceeds  to  say,  "  At  last  these 
English  lords  fell  at  variance  among  themselves,  till  the  Irish  men  were  stronger  than  they,  and  drove  them 
away,  and  now  have  the  whole  county  under  them  ;  but  that  the  lord  Roche,  the  lord  Courcy.  and  the  lord 
Barry  only  remain,  with  the  least  part  of  their  ancestors'  possessions  ;  and  young  Barry  in  there  upon  the 
king's  portion,  paying  his  grace  never  a  penny  rent." 

47 


378  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

the  province  of  English  history.    But  as  ho  remained  to  the  last  connected  with  Ireland, 
and  still  carried  with  him  the  good  wishes  and  sympathy  of  her  people,  a  few  of  the  more 
important  stages  of  his  course  may  not  irrelevantly  be  noticed.     At  the  battle  of 
I^P-c,'  St.  Albans,  the  first  of  that  series  of  sanguinary  conflicts,  which  for  thirty  years 
■  after  kept  England  torn  and  convulsed,  the  fortune  of  the  day  declared  for  York, 
and  the  king  himself  fell  into  his  hands.     Appointed  twice  Protector  of  the  realm,  on 
neither  occasion  does  he  appear  to  have  availed  himself  of  those  opportunities  of  increasing 
and  strengthening  his  own  power,  which  the  position  attained  by  him  presented,  and  of 
which  a  more  ambitious  or  less  conscientious  person  would  not  have  hesitated  to  lake  ad- 
vantage.    Accordingly  his  conduct,  through  the  whole  of  this  struggle,  wore  that  ap- 
pearance of  irresolution  and  changeableness  which  the  honest  workings  of  a  cautious  and 
scrupulous  mind  would  be  sure,  in  a  crisis  so  trying,  to  present. 

The  dispersion  of  the  Yorkists,  after  their  defeat  at  Blore  Heath,  and  the  panic  and  dis- 
trust which  then  spread  through  their  ranks,  having  rendered  their  cause  for  a  time  hope- 
less, the  enterprising  Warwick,  who  had  been  the  soul  of  the  late  confederacy,  made  his 
way  back  to  Calais,  while  the  duke  of  York  fled  through  Wales,  with  his  youngest  son,  to 
Ireland,  and  was  there  received  with  all  that  enthusiasm  which  his  cause  and  character 
had  excited,  not  only  among  the  people  of  the  Pale,  but  even  in  the  hearts  of  the  poor  ill- 
treated  natives  themselves. 

lu  the  course  of  the  eight  years  during  which  lie  had  been  absent  from  that  country,  a 
succession  of  deputies  had  been  appointed  by  him ;  among  whom  the  most  conspicuous  were 
James  V.,  earl  of  Ormond  (who,  before  his  father's  death,  had  been  created  earl  of  Wilt- 
shire,) and  Thomas,  earl  of  Kildare.  By  most  of  these  governors  parliaments  were  held, 
of  which  the  enactments  are  still  on  record;  but  confined  as  was  now  the  sphere  through 
which  the  power  of  the  government  of  the  Pale  extended,  the  acts  of  its  parliament,  ex- 
cept when  illustrative  of  the  general  state  of  the  country,  are  little  worthy  of  historical 
notice. 

By  one  of  those  anomalies  not  unfrequent  in  the  relations  between  the  two  countries,  at 
the  very  time  when  the  duke  was  resuming  his  duties  as  viceroy  in  Ireland,  the  parlia- 
ment of  England  was  employed  in  passing  an  act  of  attainder  against  him,  his  duchess, 
and  their  two  sons.     But  the  cause  of  the  White  Rose  was  now  manifestly  on  the  eve  of 
triumph,  having  rallied  around  its  banner,  not  merely  the  partisans  of  the  House  of  York, 
but  the  great  bulk  of  the  English  nation,  who  saw,  in  the  persons  and  principles  composing 
that  party,  the  best  guarantee  for  the  preservation  of  their  own  religious  and  political 
rights.     Encouraged  by  this  sound  popular  feeling,*  the  Yorkist  lords  prepared  for  another 
great  effort,  and,  notwithstanding  that  a  strong  fleet,  under  the  duke  of  Exeter,  was 
14fi0  &u^''''hig  the  channel,  Warwick  ventured  to  cross  it  from  Calais,  to  concert  mea- 
'  sures  with  the  duke  of  York,  who  was  still  at  Dublin,  waiting  the  turn  of  events, 
and  (as  the  letter  of  a  cotemporary  describes  him)  "  strengthened  with  his  earls  and 
homagers."! 

In  the  month  of  July,  this  year,  was  fought  the  decisive  battle  of  Northampton,  in 
which  the  royalists  were  defeated,  a  number  of  the  first  nobility  and  gentry  of  that  party 
slain,  and  the  king  himself  made  prisoner.  The  duke  delayed  not  to  take  advantage  of 
this  prosperous  turn  in  the  fortunes  of  his  cause.  Hastening  to  London,  where  he  made 
his  entry  with  trumpets  sounding,  an  armed  retinue,  and  a  drawn  sword  borne  before  him, 
he  presented  himself  to  the  house  of  peers,  and,  for  the  first  time,  advanced,  publicly,  his 
claim  to  the  crown. 

After  grave  and  frequent  discussions,  the  peers  pronounced  the  title  of  York  to  be  cer- 
tain and  indefeasible;  but  at  the  same  time  proposed,  as  a  compromise,  to  satisfy  the  con- 
sciences of  both  parlies,  that  Henry  should  retain  the  crown  for  the  term  of  his  natural 
life,  and  that  York  and  his  heirs  should  succeed  to  it  after  Henry's  death.     This  propo- 
sition was  agreed  to  on  both  sides;  and  the  path  to  the  throne  now  seemed  to  lie  open  to 
him,  if  not  already  under  his  feet,  when  a  desperate  efl^ort  on  the  part  of  the  queen, 
assisted  by  tlie  northorn  bnrons,  to  assort  her  family's  rights,  in  which  .she  was  aided  by 
the  northern  barons,  led  to  a  battle  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Wakefield,  in  which 
lifo'  ^^^  duke,  wiio  had  under  him  a  force  far  inferior  in  numbers  to  that  of  the  enemy, 
'  was  either  killed  in  the  course  of  the  action,  or  taken  and  beheaded  on  the  spot. 
Near  3000  of  his  troops,  with  most  of  their  leaders,  fell  in  this  hard-fought  but  unequal 

*  A  remarkable  evidence  of  tliis  public  feeling  is  found  in  tlie  articles  of  the  men  of  Kent,  first  noticed,  I 
believe,  by  Mr.  Turner,  whose  unwearied  researches  in  the  rich  mine  of  his  country's  records  have  enabled 
him  to  add  largely  to  our  materials  of  historical  knowledge.— Sec  JJUtory  of  England  during  the  Middle  Jiges, 
vol.  iii.  c.  10. 

t  "The  duke  of  York  is  at  Dublin,  strengthened  with  his  earls  and  homagers,  as  ye  shall  see  by  a  bill."— 
Fenn's  Original  Letters,  let.  40. 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND.  379 

conflict,  and  among  them  were  a  great  number  of  Irish,  who  had  attended  their  popular 
viceroy  into  England.* 

Had  this  excellent  prince,  who  was  killed  in  the  fiftieth  year  of  his  age,  lived  to  ascend 
the  throne,  the  knowledge  acquired  by  him  of  the  state  of  Ireland  during  his  residence 
in  that  country,  and  the  general  respect  entertained  for  his  character  among  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Pale,  might  have  enabled  him  to  extend  his  views  beyond  that  limited  circle, 
to  spread  the  blessings  of  equal  laws  and  good  government  among  the  natives,  and  adopt 
the  best  mode  of  inspiring  them  with  a  love  of  humanity  and  justice,  by  stamping  the  im- 
press of  those  qualities  upon  the  laws  by  which  they  were  governed.  As  it  was,  so  au- 
dacious and  formidable  had  the  inroads  of  the  Irish  borderers  now  become,  that,  instead 
of  being  aggressors,  the  proud  colonists  of  the  Pale  had  been  reduced  to  the  humiliating 
necessity  of  standing  on  the  defensive;  and  one  of  the  many  public  services  rendered  by 
the  duke  during  his  lieutenancy  was  the  erection  of  castles  on  the  borders  of  Louth,  Meath, 
and  Kildare,  to  check  the  incursions  of  the  natives. 

Towards  the  great  Anglo-Irish  lords,  the  conduct  of  York  had  been  at  once  liberal  and 
politic,  more  especially  in  the  instance  of  Ormond,  who  was  a  devoted  adherent  of  the 
house  of  Lancaster;  and  yet  between  him  and  the  earl  of  Kildare,  a  decided  Yorkist,  the 
duke  divided  equally  his  confidence,  leaving  the  sword  of  office  at  one  time  with  the  earl 
of  Ormond,  at  another,  with  Kildare  ;  and  when  he  fell  in  battle  at  Wakefield,  there  were 
slain  under  his  banner  several  members  of  both  these  noble  families. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 


EDWARD  IV. 

Reduced  state  of  the  English  power. — Predatory  inroads  of  the  natives — black  rent  paid  to 
the  chiefs. — The  Geraklines  higi\  in  favour. — Lavish  grants  to  the  carl  of  Desmond — his 
munificent  spirit — is  succeeded  in  the  government  by  Tiptoft,  earl  of  Worcester. — This 
lord's  hostility  to  Desmond — brings  charges  against  him  of  high  treason. — Desmond  ar- 
rested and  beheaded. — Aet  of  attainder  against  the  Geraldines. — Earl  of  Kiklare  restored  by 
tlie  king  and  made  lord  deputy. — Institution  of  the  brotlierhood  of  St.  George. — The  house 
of  Ormond  again  in  favour. — Kildare  removed  from  the  government — his  family  regain  their 
ascendency. — Gerald,  the  eighth  earl,  appointed  lord  deputy. — Marriage  of  his  sister  with 
Con  O'Neill. — Decline  of  the  Irish  revenue. 

So  small  was  the  portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  Ireland  by  whom  the  authority  of  Eng- 
lish law  was  now  acknowledged,  that,  from  the  four  small  shires  alone  which  con- 
stituted the  territory  of  the  Palef  were  all  the  lords,  knights,  and  burgesses  that  ^\J^(l 
composed  its  parliament  summoned  ;  and  in  no  other  part  of  the  kingdom  but  those        '  * 
for  shires  did  the  king's  writ  run.     Nor,  even  there,  was  the  English  law  allowed  to 
come  fairly  into  operation,  as,  on  the  borders  and  marches,  which  had  at  this  time  so 
much  extended  as  to  include  within  them  half  Dublin,  half  Meath,  and  a  third  part  of 
Kildare,  no  law  was  in  force  but  that  which  had  been  long  since  forbidden  by  the  statute 
of  Kilkenny,  as  "  a  lewd  custom,"  under  the  denomination  of  March  Law. 

*  "  Which  policy  of  his  took  sucli  effbct,  as  he  drew  over  with  him  into  England  the  flower  of  all  the  Eng- 
lish colonies,  specially  of  Ulster  and  Meath,  whereof  many  noblemen  and  gentlemen  were  slain  with  him  at 
Wakefield." — Davics. 

t  The  designation  of  the  English  territory  by  the  name  of  "the  Pale,"  does  not  appear  to  have  come  into 
use  before  the  beginning  of  this  century,  and  the  term  is,  in  general,  supposed  to  have  been  confined  to  the 
four  counties  of  Dublin,  IjOuth.  Kildare,  and  Meath, — the  latter  including  also  West  Meath.  But,  however 
reduced  were  the  English  limits  at  the  period  we  have  now  reached,  the  Pale  originally,  it  is  clear,  extended 
from  the  town  of  Wicklow  in  the  south,  to  the  point  of  Dunluce  in  the  north  of  Ireland ;— thus  making 
Louth  (as  it  was  not  nnfrequently  styled)  the  "heart"  of  the  Pale.  Seti  Spenser  {f^ieto  of  the  State  of  Ire- 
land,) who  describes  the  Pale  as  having  once  included  Carrie kfergus,  Belfast,  Armagh,  and  Carlingford, 
"  which  are  now  (he  adds)  the  most  outbounds  and  abandoned  places  in  the  English  Pale,  and  indoeil  not 
counted  of  the  English  Pale  at  all ;  for  it  siretcheih  now  no  farther  than  Dundalk  towards  the  north." 


380  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

So  much  had  the  just  and  generous  character  of  York's  policy  endeared  him  person- 
ally to  the  lords  and  gentry  of  the  Pale,  that,  as  we  have  seen,  numbers  of  them  accom- 
panied him,  on  his  last  expedition  into  England;  and  the  natives,  availing  themselves  of 
the  absence  of  these  great  landed  lords, — as  they  had  done  once  before,  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  II., — took  forcible  possession  of  several  estates,  which  were  never  after  recovered 
from  them.  It  was,  doubtless,  in  reference  to  some  such  depredations,  committed,  in  the 
course  of  this  year,  on  the  duke's  Irish  adherents,  that  one  of  the  charges  brought  against 
the  late  king  was  his  having  written,  at  the  instigation  of  divers  lords  about  him,  secret 
letters  to  some  of  the  "  Irish  enemy,"  inciting  them  to  attempt  the  conquest  of  the  land 
of  Ireland.* 

But  the  fierce  septs  surrounding  the  Pale  were  sufficiently  ready,  without  any  such 
extraneous  encouragement,  to  take  advantage  of  the  general  confusion  and  distraction  to 
which  the  contest  for  the  English  crown  had  given  rise;  and  the  wretched  inhabitants  of 
the  districts  bordering  upon  the  Irish  were  forced  to  purchase  a  precarious  exemption 
from  their  inroads  by  annual  pensions  to  their  chiefs.  There  is  still  on  record  a  list  of 
these  disgraceful  contributions,  in  which  are  given,  together  wilh^he  amount  of  the  seve- 
ral pensions,  the  names  of  the  chieftains  who  received  them,  and  of  the  counties  by  which 
they  were  paid.f 

Such  was  the  miserable  state  of  weakness,  disorganization,  and  turbulence,  in  which 
Edward  IV.  found  his  kingdom  of  Ireland  on  his  accession  to  the  throne.     At  the 

tifil"  '^''"^  of  that  event,  the  office  of  lord  justice  was  held  by  Thomas,  earl  of  Kildare  ; 

Idfio'  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^  duke  of  Clarence,  the  king's  brother,J  being  appointed  lieutenant  for 

■  life.  Sir  Rowland  Fitz-Eustace,  afterwards  lord  Portlester,  was  sent  over  as  that 
prince's  deputy.  We  have  seen  that  the  Butlers  and  the  Geraldines — under  which  lat- 
ter title  were  comprised  the  two  noble  families  of  Desmond  and  Kildare — had,  in  the 
true  spirit  of  hereditary  rivalry,  fought  on  opposite  sides  in  the  great  struggle  between 
the  two  rival  Roses.  Amon<r  the  most  distinguished  victims  to  the  late  triumph  of  the 
Yorkistf:,  was  inmes  farl  of  Ormnrul,  who,  having  been  made  prisoner  in  the  bloody  bat- 
tle lit  'rnwiun,  was,  in  a  few  weeks  after,  beheaded  ;  and,  throughout  a  great  part  of 
Edvvanl's  reign,  all  belonj^ing  to  the  family  of  Ormond  remained  in  disgrace.  It  was  not 
among  the  least,  indeed,  of  the  fatalities  of  this  ill-starred  land,  that  the  two  most  power- 
ful of  her  native  families,  instead  of  combining  their  strength  and  influence  to  proinote 
her  peace  and  welfare,  should  thus  but  have  added  the  hateful  consequences  of  their 
own  endless  feud  to  all  the  other  countless  evils  of  which  their  country  had  been  made 
the  victim. 

At  present,  the  fortunes  of  the  Geraldines  were,  of  course,  in  the  ascendant, — though 
destined,  ere  long,  to  undergo  a  disastrous  eclipse.     In  the  year  1463,  the  earl  of  Des- 
mond succeeded  lord  Portlester,  as  deputy  of  the  duke  of  Clarence;  and  held  two  parlia- 
ments in  the  course  of  his  government,  one  at  Wexford  and  another  at  Trim,  which  lat- 
ter pas.sed,  among  other  measures,  the  following  significant  enactments: — "That 
1^^.^"  any  body  may  kill  thieves  or  robbers,  or  any  person  going  to  rob  or  steal,  having 

■  no  faithful  men  of  good  name  and  in  English  apparel  in  their  company." — "That 
the  Irish  within  the  Pale  shall  wear  English  habit,  take  English  names,  and  swear  alle- 
giance, upon  pain  of  forfeiture  of  goods."5 

By  tlie  same  parliament  a  statute  was  passed,  granting  to  Desmond  the  custody  and 
defence  of  the  castles  and  towns  of  Carlow,  Ross,  Dunbar's  Island,  and  Dugarvan,]]  which 
last  named  barony  had  before  been  granted  to  the  earl  of  Shrewsbury,  but  owing  to  his 
negligence,  as  the  statute  implies,  was  brought  once  more  under  the  authority  of  the 
Desmond  family.     To  this  favour  succeeded  another,  in  the  following  year,  when  the 

*  Stow — "  Item:  Whore  the  king  hath  now  no  more  livelode  of  his  realm  of  England,  but  onely  the  land 
of  Irelaiiil  and  the  towr  of  Calcis  and  that  no  king  christened  hath  such  a  land  and  a  town  without  hia 
realm,  divers  lurds  have  caused  his  highness  to  write  letters,  under  his  privy  seal,  unto  his  Irish  enemies, 
wliicli  never  king  of  England  did  heretofore,  whereby  they  may  have  comfort  to  enter  into  the  conquest  of 
the  said  l;ind,  which  litiers  the  same  Irish  enemies  sent  unto  me,  the  said  duke  of  York,  and  marvelled 
greatly  that  any  such  letters  should  be  to  them  sent,  speaking  therein  great  shame  and  villany  of  the  said 
realme." — irliclcn  sent  from  the  Cuke  of  York  to  the  Earla,  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  to  the  Com- 
mons, 

t  Cox. — The  annual  sum  paid  to  each  chief  was  of  course  proportioned  to  his  means  and  opportunities  of 
doing  mischief.  The  fullovving  ileni«  will  give  some  notion  of  the  whole  list.  " 'J'he  barony  of  Lecale,  to 
O'Neill  of  t;iandeboy,  per  aim  ,  tiO  lib.— The  county  of  Uriel,  to  O'Neill,  per  ann.,  40  lib.— The  county  of 
Meath,  to  O'Connor,  per  ann  ,  00  lib.     'J'he  county  of  Kildare,  lo  O'Connor,  per  ann.,  20  lib."  &c.  &c. 

t  Spenser  confounds  strangely  this  duke  of  Clarence  with  the  prince  Lionel,  duke  of  Clarence,  third  son  of 
Edward  lit.,  who  married  the  earl  of  Ulster's  daughter. 

§  Another  of  the  enactments  was.  "  That  English,  and  Irish  speaking  English  and  living  with  the  Eng- 
lish, shall  have  an  English  h.iw  and  arrows,  on  pain  of  two  pence." 

II  Stal.  Roll. Chan.  Dub.  3.  Ed.  IV.,— cited  by  Lynch  Legislative  Institutions. 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND.  381 

king  granted,  by  letters  patent,  to  Desmond,  a  large  annuity  chargeable  on  the  principal 
seignories  belonging  to  the  crown  within  tlie  Pale.*     In  the  same  year,  this  earl 
founded  the  noble  establishment  calhod  the  College  of  Youghali.f  endowing  it  with  -iao^ 
several  benefices  and  a  considerable  landed  estate,  which  formed,  in  later  times, 
a  part  of  the  immense  possessions  of  the  first  earl  of  Cork.     Shortly  after,  too,  at  the  in- 
stance of  this  spirited  nobleman,  a  parliament  convened  by  Iiim  at  Drogheda,  founded  a 
university  in  that  town,  with  privileges  similar  to  those  enjoyed  by  the  university  of 
O.xford.l 

Thus  distinguished,  as  well  by  the  royal  favour,  as  by  that  influence  and  popularity 
amoMff  the  natives  which  his  Irish  birth  and  munificent  spirit  were  sure  to  win  for  him, 
the  good  fortune  of  this  powerful  lord  might  seem  secure  from  all  reverse.  But 
the  very  prosperity  of  his  lot  formed  also  its  peril  ;  and  the  designs  of  his  enemies,  i^/>y 
which  had  been  held  in  check  as  long  as  he  continued  to  be  lord  deputy,  were 
resumed  with  fiesh  vigour  and  venom  on  the  arrival  of  his  successor,  the  celebrated  lord 
Worcester,  who,  in  addition  to  the  natural  cruelty  of  his  character,^  came  strongly 
prepossessed,  it  is  supposed,  with  the  suspicions  and  jealousies  then  commonly  entertained 
towards  the  great  Anglo-Irish  lords  1|  It  was,  indeed,  natural,  as  we  have  before  had 
occasion  to  remark,  that  the  high  official  personages  sent  over  from  England  should 
regard  with  jealousy  the  dominion  exercised  by  those  lords  of  Irish  birth,  whose  hold  on 
the  hearts  of  their  fellow-countrymen  lent  them  a  power  such  as  mere  official  rank  could 
never  attain.  In  the  instance  of  Desmond,  too,  this  suspicious  or  envious  feeling  Ibund 
more  than  ordinary  ground  for  its  workings: — the  rare  combination,  in  this  lord's  posi- 
tion, of  immense  wenlth,  royal  patronage,  and  popular  favour,  having  justified  in  many 
respects  the  epithet  bestowed  upon  him  of  the  "  great"  earl  of  Desmond. 

In  order  to  account  for  the  ease  and  despatch  with  which  so  towering  a  structure  of 
station  was  laid  low,  it  has  been  said  that  he  had  provoked  the  vengeance  of  the  queen 
by  advising  Edward  not  to  marry  her;ira  secret  disclosed,  it  is  added,  in  the  course  of  some 
slight  altercation  between  her  and  tlie  king,  by  his  saying  pettishly  that  "had  he  taken 
cousin  Desmond's  advice,  her  spirit  would  have  been  more  humble."  It  is  also  stated 
that  the  queen,  to  make  sure  of  her  reve.nge,  obtained  by  stealth  the  privy  seal,  and 
affixed  it  herself  to  the  order  for  his  execution.  But  these  stories  rest  on  mere  idle 
rumour;  and  it  appears  clearly,  even  from  the  scanty  evidence  extant  on  the  subject, 
that  by  no  other  crimes  than  those  of  being  too  Irish  and  too  po|)u!ar,  did  Desmond  draw 
upon  himself  the  persecution  of  which  he  so  rapidly  fell  the  victim. 

VVe  have  seen  that,  by  the  memorable  statute  of  Kilkenny,  the  customs  of  gossipred 
and  fostering,  together  with  tlie  intermarriages  of  the  English  among  the  Irish,  were 
declared  to  be  high  treason.  On  this  statute  the  accusations  now  brought  against  Des- 
mond were  founded  ;  the  charge  of  "alliance  with  the  Irish"  being  made  an  additional 
and  prominent  article  in  the  impeachment,  though,  for  a  length  of  time,  so  much  had  the 
law  relaxed  its  rigour  with  regard  to  this  offence,  that  it  was  not  unusual  as  we  have 
seen,  to  grant  licenses  to  the  English,  on  the  borders,  empowering  them  to  treat, 
traffic,  and  form  alliances  with  the  natives.  In  the  south,  where  this  earl's  estates  lay, 
the  laws  against  intercourse  or  alliance  with  the  Irish  had  long  fallen  into  disuse  ;  and  it 
was  chiefly  the  connexions  formed  by  this  family  with  some  of  the  leading  Irish  chiefs 
that  had  hitherto  enabled  the  successive  earls  of  Desmond  to  uphold  the  king's  authority 
in  the  greater  part  of  Monster. 

By  none,  however,  of  these  considerations  were  the  bitter  enemies  of  the  Geraldine 
race  induced  to  forego  their  stern  and  factious  purpose;  and  one  of  the  most  rancorous  of 
he  earl's  foes  was  William  Sherwood,  bishop  of  Meath,  by  whose  instigation  it  appears, 
.It  the  time  when  Desmond  was  deputy,  nine  of  this  lord's  men  had  been  slain  in 
Fingall.     In  a  parliament  held  at  Drogheda  by  the  earl  of  Worcester,  it  was  en-  ^a^ 
acted  that  Thomas,  earl  of  Desmond,  as  well  for  alliances,  fostering,  and  alterage  ^^^'' 

*  Chief  Rememb.  Roll,  Dub.  13,  14.  Eliz.,— referred  to  by  Lyncli,  ibid. 

t  This  foundation  was  confirmed  by  his  son  .lames,  anno  U7i,  and  hv  Maurice,  his  brother,  in  1496.  In 
the  charter  of  foundation  the  [latron  is  styled  ear!  of  Desmond,  lord  of  Decies,  lord  of  Imokilly,  lord  of  the 
regalities  and  liberties  of  the  county  of  Kerry,  and  patron  of  this  institution.— Smith  Hist,  of  Cork  book  i. 
chap.  iii.  ' 

J  Pat.  Roll,  5  Ed.  IV.—"  This  university  not  being  endowed  with  sufficient  revenues,  the  scheme  did  not 
take  effect."— iMason,  lUst.  of  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral. 

5  For  frightful  proofs  of  tile  truth  of  this  charge  against  him,  see  Stow,  p.  422. 

Il  For  Worcester's  severity,  in  the  instance  of  Desmond,  another  motive  has  been  suggested  :—"  Lord 
Tiptoft  was  interested  in  the  lordships  of  Inchiquin,  Youghall,  and  otherextensive  estates  which  lay  within, 
or  were  now  considered  as  part  of,  the  seignories,  of  the  Desmond  family;  and  which,  while  their  power  and 
influence  prevailed  with  the  natives.  Ins  lordship,  like  his  ancestors,  could  derive  no  benefit  from."— Lynch 
^Legislative  Institutions.)  who  refers  to  chief  Rememb.  Roll,  Dub.  7  Ric.  H.  &  43  Ed.  III. 

M  "  He  despised  the  king's  marriage  with  so  mean  a  subject  as  the  lady  Elizabeth  Grey,  and  often  said  she 
was  a  tailor's  widow."— Cm. 


382  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

with  the  king's  enemies,  as  for  furnishing  them  with  horses,  harness,  and  arms,  and  also 
supporting  them  against  the  king's  subjects,  be  attainted  of  treason ;  and  that  whoever 
hath  any  of  his  goods  or  lands,  and  doth  not  discover  them  to  the  deputy  within  four- 
teen days,  shall  be  attainted  of  felony.  Unprepared,  as  it  would  seem,  for  so  rigorous  a 
measure,  Desmond  was  arrested  by  order  of  the  lord  deputy,  and,  on  the  5th  day  of  Fe- 
bruary, was  beheaded  at  Drogheda. 

At  the  same  time  with  this  ill-fated  lord,  the  earl  of  Kildare  and  Edward  Plun- 
*' "■  ket  had  also  been  attainted.     But  as  soon  as  Worcester,  having  thus  accomplished 

■  what  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  main  object  of  his  mission,  returned  into  Eng- 
land, the  earl  of  Kildare  was  not  only  pardoned  and  restored  in  blood  by  parliament,  but 
also  appointed  to  the  government  of  Ireland  as  deputy  of  the  duke  of  Clarence.  It  was 
during  this  lord's  administration  that,  in  consequence  of  a  doubt  having  arisen  whether 
the  act  of  6  Richard  II.,  "  de  Raptoribus,"  was  of  force  in  Ireland,  it  was  declared,  in  a 
parliament  held  at  Drogheda,  that  not  only  the  statute  in  question,  but  all  other  English 
statutes  made  before  that  time,  were  binding  in  Ireland.* 

With  a  view  to  a  better  defence  of  the  English  territory,  it  was  enacted,  in  a  subse- 
quent parliament,  held  at  Naas,  that  "  every  merchant  should  bring  twenty  shil- 
t'.^y  lings'  worth  of  bows  and  arrows  into  Ireland,  for  every  twenty  pounds'  worth  of 
'  '  other  goods  he  imported  from  England."!    It  having  been  found,  however,  that  in 
the  present  reduced  state  of  the  English  colony,  some  measures  of  a  more  than  ordinary  cast 
were  called  for,  in  order  to  recruit  and  support  the  spirit  of  their  small  community,  a  fra- 
turnity  of  arms,  under  the  title  of  the  brothers  of  St.  George,  was  at  this  time  constituted, 
consisting  of  thirteen  persons,  of  the  highest  rank  and  most  approved  loyalty,  selected 
from  the  four  cantons  of  Dublin,  Meath,  Kildare,  and  Louth.     To  the  captain  of  this 
military  brotherhood,  who  was  to  be  elected  annually,  on  St.  George's  day,  was  assigned 
a  guard  of  120  archers  on  horseback,  40  other  horsemen,  and  40  pages ;  and  of  these  200 
men,  consisted  the  whole  of  the  standing  forces  then  maintained  by  the  English  govern- 
ment in  Ireland.! 

Had  the  natives  but  known  their  own  strength,  or  rather,  had  they  been  capable  of 
that  spirit  of  union  and  concert  by  which  alone  the  strength  of  a  people  is  rendered  ef- 
fective, the  whole  military  force  of  the  Pale  could  not  have  stood  before  them  a  single 
liour.     But  divided,  as  the  native  Irish  were,  into  septs,  each  calling  itself  a  "  nation," 
and  all  more  suspicious  and  jealous  of  each  other  than  of  the  common  foe,  it  was  hardly 
possible  that,  among  a  people  so  circumstanced,  a  public  spirit  could  arise,  or  that  any 
prospect,  however  promising,  of  victory  over  their  masters,  could  make  them  relinquish 
for  it  the  old  hereditary  habit  of  discord  among  themselves.     That  their  English 
^^Jl'  rulers,  though  now  so  much  weakened,  did  not  the  less  confidently  presume  on  their 
victim's  patience  under  injustice,  may  be  inferred  from  a  law  passed  at  this  time, 
in  a  parliament  held  by  William  Sherwood,  bisiiop  of  Meath,  enacting  that,  "  any  Eng- 
lishman, injured  by  a  native  not  amenable  to  law,  might  reprise  himself  on  the  whole 
sept  and  nation." 

The  adherence  of  the  Ormond  family  to  the  fortunes  of  Henry  VI,  had  drawn  down 

upon  John,  the  sixth  earl,  the  penalty  of  attainder,  and  consigned,  during  the  early  part 

of  this  reign,  all  the  other    members  of  that  noble  house  to  obscurity  and  dis- 

Td7fi'  S^ace.     By  a  statute,  however,  made  in  the  sixteenth  year  of  Edward  IV.,  the  act 

■  of  attainder  against  John,  earl  of  Ormond,  was  repealed,  and  that  lord  restored  to 
his  "lands,  name,  and  dignity,  as  by  title  of  his  ancestors."  So  successful  was  he,  too, 
in  recommending  himself  to  Edward,  by  his  knowledge  of  languages  and  other  courtly 
accomplishments,  that  the  king  pronounced  him  to  be  the  "goodliest  knight  he  had  ever 
beheld,  and  the  finest  gentleman  in  Europe;"  adding  that,  "  if  good  breeding,  nurture, 
and  liberal  qualities  were  lost  in  the  world,  they  might  all  be  found  in  John,  earl  of  Or- 
mond."5 

Encouraged  by  the  favour  thus  shown  to  the  head  of  their  house,  the  faction  of  the 

Butlers  again  appeared  with  refreshed  force,  while,  for  a  time,  the  Geraldines  sunk  into 

disfavour.     It  was  not  long,  however,  before  the  influence  of  the  house  of  Kildare 

-i^-TL^  regained  all   its  former  ascendancy.     In  1478,  the  same  year  in  which  the  earl 

■  Thomas  died,  his  son  Gerald,  who  succeeded  him,  was  appointed  lord  deputy  of 
Ireland,  and  held  that  office,  at  different  intervals,  through  the  following  three  reigns. 
In  one  of  the  parliaments  held  by  him  at  this  period,  it  was  enacted,  that  "the  Pale 

*  See  sir  John  Maynard's  "  Answer  to  a  Book,"  Si.c.—Hibernic.  p.  9C. 

t  Cox. 

i  Davies, — who  adds,  "  And  as  they  were  natives  of  the  kingdom,  so  the  kingdom  itself  did  pay  llieir, 
wuf^es,  without  expecting  any  treasure  from  England." 

§  Carte's  Ormond,  Introduct.  This  earl,  who  was  unmarried,  and  left  no  issue,  undertook,  from  pious  mo- 
lives,  a  journey  to  Jerusalem,  and  died  in  tlie  Holy  Land. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  383 

should  hold  no  correspondence  with  the  Irish ;"  while,  at  the  same  time  his  own  family  was 
affording  examples  of  the  fated  and  natural  tendency  of  the  two  races  to  come  to- 
gather,  in  the  marriage  of  his  sister  to  the  head  of  the  great  northern  sept  of  the  i^ojj 
O'Neill's.*     It  was,  indeed,  in  the  same  parliament  that  forbade  so  peremptorily 
all  communication  with  the  Irish,  that  the  special  act  was  passed  for  the  naturalization 
of  Con  O'Neill,  on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage  with  one  of  the  lord  deputy's  sisters.f 

On  the  death  of  the  ill-fated  duke  of  Clarence,  the  office  of  lieutenant  of  Ireland  was 
conferred  by  Edward  upon  his  second  son,  Richard,  duke  of  York ;  and  it  was  as  de- 
puty of  this  infant  prince  that  the  earl  of  Kildare  now  held  the  reigns  of  the  govern-   i^'^a 
ment.    To  so  low  an  ebb,  however,  was  the  Irish  revenue  at  this  time  reduced,  that  a 
force  of  80  arciiers  on  horseback,  and  40  of  another  description  of  horsemen,  called  -i  jqo 
"spears,"  constituted  the  whole  of  the  military  establishment  that  could  be  afforded 
for  that  realm's  defence  :  and  lest  the  sum  even  of  600Z.,  annually,  required  for  the  main- 
tenance of  this  small  troop,  might  prove  too  onerous  to  the  country,  it  was  provided  that, 
should  Ireland  be  unable  to  pay  it,  the  sum  was  to  be  sent  thither  from  England.J 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 


EDWARD    V.    AND    RICHARD    III. 


The  Geraldines  still  in  authority. — Parliaments  held  at  Dublin. — Enactment  of  one  of  these 
Parliaments. — Reign  of  Richard  III.  terminated  by  the  battle  of  Boswortii. 

During  the  normal  reign  of  the  fifth  Edward,  and  the  short  usurpation  of  Richard  III., 
the  condition  of  Ireland  remained  unimproved  and  unchanged.     Throughout  this 
brief  and  bloody  period,  the  power  of  the  Pale  was  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  ^^o^* 
the  Geraldines, — the  earl  of  Kildare  perfiorming  the  functions  of  lord  deputy,  while 
his  brother.  Sir  Thomas  of  Laccagh,  was  lord  chancellor  of  the  kingdom.     In  a  parlia- 
ment held  at  Dublin,  by  the  earl  of  Kildare,  an  act  was  passed  which,  for  its  unusually 
peaceful  purport,  may  deserve  to  be  remembered.     It  was  enacted,  "  that  the  mayor  and 
bailiffs  of  Waterford  might  go  in  pilgrimage  to  St.  James  of  Compostelia  in  Spain,  leaving 
sufficient  deputies  to  govern  that  city  in  their  absence."     By  another  act  of  this 
parliament,  the  corporation  and  men  of  the  town  of  Ross  were  authorized  to  "re-  iVur 
prize  themselves  against  robbers."^     Such  are  the  only  incidents  worthy  of  any        '^' 
notice  that  occur  in  our  scanty  records  of  this  reign,  which  was  brought  to  a  close,  by 
the  battle  of  Bosworth,  on  the  22d  of  August,  1485. 

*  The  sept,  or  nation,  of  the  O'Neills  of  Ulster,  was  one  of  the  five  bloods,  or  lineages,  of  the  Irish,  who 
were  by  special  grace  enfranchized,  anil  enabled  to  share  in  the  benefits  of  English  law. — See  the  case  cited  by 
Davies,  where  the  plaintiff  pleads,  "  quod  ipse  est  (ie  qiiinque  sanguinibiis."  The  four  other  "  bloods  "  thus 
privileged,  were  the  O'Melaghliiis  of  Meath,  the  O'Connors  of  Connaught,  the  O'Brians  of  Thoinond,  and  the 
Mac  Moroughs  of  Leinster.  From  the  above  instance,  however,  of  Kildarc's  son-in-law,  it  would  appear  that 
this  general  grant  of  naturalization  was  not  always  deemed  sufficient. 

t  The  eldest  daughter  of  the  late  earl,  Elenor,  was  married  to  Henry  Mac  Owen  O'Neill,  chief  of  his  name, 
by  whom  she  was  mother  of  Con  (More)  O'Neill,  who  married  her  niece,  daughter  to  Gerald,  eighth  earl  of 
Kildare. — Lodge. 

\  Co.v. 

§  "  In  other  words,"  says  sir  William  Betham,  "might  rob  the  innocent  to  indemnify  themselves  for  having 
been  previously  plundered."— See  Origin  and  History  of  Ike  Karlij  Parliaments  of  Ireland— llm  latest  and  not 
least  valuable  of  this  indefatigable  antiquarian's  labours. 


384  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


CHArTER  XLIV. 


HENRY   VII. 

Policy  of  Henry  respecting  iiis  claims  to  the  crown. — Strength  of  the  York  party  in  Ireland. 
— Kildare  suspected  by  the  king. — Henry's  cruelty  towards  the  young  earl  of  Warwick. — 
This  conduct  the  source  of  ail  the  subsequent  plots, — Arrival  of  Simnel  in  DubUn. — Gene- 
ral adoption  of  his  cause  in  Ireland — is  proclaimed  king. — Movement  in  his  favour  by  the 
English  lords,  Lincoln  and  Lovell — their  arrival  in  Dublin  v/ith  a  body  of  German  auxili> 
aries. — Henry  endeavours  to  remove  the  delusion — is  successful  in  England,  but  fails  in 
Ireland. — Invasion  of  England  by  the  forces  of  the  Pale — are  entirely  defeated  by  the 
king's  army  at  Stoke. — Simnel  made  prisoner,  and  transferred  to  the  royal  kitchen. — The 
king  rewards  the  loyalty  of  VVaterford — consents  to  pardon  Kildare  and  the  citizens  of 
Dublin. — Opportunity  lost  of  curbing  the  power  of  the  Anglo  Irish  lords, — Proceedings  of 
Edgecomb's  commission. — Henry  summons  the  great  lords  of  the  Pale  to  Greenwich. — 
Murder  of  the  ninth  earl  of  Desmond. — Wars  of  his  successor  with  the  Irish. — Appearance 
of  another  impostor,  Perkin  Warbeck — pretends  to  be  Richard,  duke  of  York. — The  Du- 
chess of  Burgundy  the  contriver  of  this  plot, — The  king  of  France  invites  Warbeck  to  his 
court — from  thence  he  proceeds  to  Flanders — is  received  by  the  Duchess  as  her  nephew. — 
The  earl  of  Kildare  in  disgrace. — Sir  Edward  Poynings  made  lord  deputy. — Expedition  of 
Poynings  into  Ulster. — Kildare  suspected  of  conspiring  with  the  Irish  enemy. — Poynings 
summons  a  Parliament — memorable  statute  which  bears  his  name. — Other  enactments  of 
this  Parliament. — Warbeck  repairs  to  the  court  of  Scotland — is  received  with  royal  honours 
— marries  the  daughter  of  the  earl  of  Huntley. — Visit  of  O'Donnell  to  the  Scottish  court. — 
The  earl  of  Kildare  arrested,  and  sent  prisoner  to  England — succeeds  in  refuting  the 
charges  against  him — is  made  lord  lieutenant. — Warbeck  again  tries  his  fortune  in  Ire- 
land— is  joined  by  the  earl  of  Desmond. — Their  unsuccessful  expedition  against  Water- 
ford. — Warbeck  flies  to  Cornwall — is  executed  for  treason  at  Tyburn. — Warfare  among  the 
Irish. — Military  success  of  Kildare. — Confederacy  among  the  great  chiefs. — Battle  of  Knoc- 
tuadh. — Signal  defeat  of  the  Irish. 

Oxe  of  the  most  serious  of  the  many  evils  attending  that  fierce  hereditary  feud,  so  lonS 
maintained  between  the  two  families  from  wliich  England  was,  in  those  times,  furnished 
with  rulers,  was,  that  it  rendered  each  successive  monarch  little  more  than  the  crowned 
chief  of  a  particular  faction, — ruling  as  the  champion  rather  of  a  portion  of  his  people, 
than  as  the  acknowledged  and  paternal  sovereign  of  all.  On  the  accession,  however,  of 
Henry  VII.,  the  prospects  of  the  country  were,  in  this  respect,  much  improved ;  that  prince 
having  been  furnished  by  a  train  of  circumstances,  with  so  many  and  such  plausible  titles 
to  the  crown,  as  enabled  him  to  trust  to  their  collective  weight  without  risking  the  en- 
forcement of  them  in  detail,  or  arousing  unnecessarily  the  spirit  of  party,  by  putting  forth 
claims  whose  strength  and  safety  lay  in  their  silence. 

Thus,  his  marriage  with  a  princess  of  the  house  of  York,  if  assumed  as  the  foundation 
of  his  right  to  the  crown,  would  have  been  viewed  with  jealousy  by  his  own  Lancastrian 
followers;  wliile,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pretensions  founded  by  him  upon  his  descent 
from  .lohn  of  Gaunt  would  have  offended  the  proud,  and  now  mortified,  Yorkists;  and  the 
only  remaining  ground  left,  that  of  the  right  of  conquest,  could  n(jt  but  awaken,  he  knew, 
the  unwelcome  recollection,  that  it  was  over  Englisiimen  the  boasted  conquest  had  been 
obtained.*  With  a  forbearance,  therefore,  in  which  coolness  of  temper  had  at  least  as 
much  share  as  good  sense,  he  refrained  from  advancing,  more  tiian  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary, any  distinct  claim  to  the  succession;  and  leaving  his  rights,  such  as  they  were,  to 
their  own  silent  influence,  was  content,  in  the  entail  of  the  crown,  with  the  vague  de- 

*  This  ground  of  his  claim  was  jiisi  intimated  by  him,  in  his  first  speech  to  the  commons,  but,  ahnost  in 
the  same  breath,  skilfully  softened  away.— See  Lingard,  chap.  2tj. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  385 

claration  that  "  the  inheritance  of  the  crown  should  rest,  remain,-  and  abide  in  the 
king." 

This  moderate  policy  may,  with  the  lees  hesitation,  he  ascribed  to  cautions  and  cal- 
culating motives,  inasmuch"  as  the  enmity  of  the  king  to  the  Yorkists  continued  to  be 
as  strong  and  revengeful  as  ever.  That  he  was  capable,  however,  of  sacrificing  this  feel- 
ing to  views  of  prudence  and  expediency,  appears  sufficiently  from  his  conduct  towards 
Ireland.  For  though  on  his  accession,  he  found,  in  that  kmgdom,  all  the  great  offices 
filled  by  partisans  of  the  house  of  York,  he  yet  not  only  confirmed  all  these  Yorkists  in 
their  several  stations,  but,  by  a  stretch  of  confidence  and  delicacy  of  wliich  lie  afterwards 
felt  the  imprudence,  forbore  from  adding  any  of  the  Lancastrian  party  to  the  council,  lest 
he  might  be  supposed  to  distrust  the  loyalty  of  the  Irish  government,  or  regard  any  of  its 
members  with  insulting  suspicion  or  fear.* 

While  Henry,  thus  shaping  his  course  to  the  state  of  affairs  in  Ireland,  took  pains  to 
conciliate  the  tiavour  of  the  party  then  most  powerful,  neither  was  he  forgetful        ^ 
of  the  few  who  had  alvvays  been  staunch  to  his  family's  cause;  and  among  these  i^g^" 
stood  pre-eminent  the  noble  family  of  Ormond.     Thomas  Butler,  the  seventh  earl, 
declared  a  traitor  in  the  first  year  of  Edward  IV.,  was  now,  by  an  act  of  the  Irish  parlia- 
ment, restored  to  "  honour  and  estate,"  and  became  distinguished  for  public  services,  both 
military  and  diplomalic.f 

But  the  growing  strength  of  the  York  faction  in  Ireland  began  now  seriously  to  arrest 
the  monarch's  attention.  The  popular  government  ot  the  dnke  of  York  was  still  fondly 
remembered  in  that  country,  and  the  cause  of  the  family  to  which  their  favourite  prince 
belonged  had  been  espoused  with  the  utmost  ardour  by  the  great  bulk  of  the  English  set- 
tlers. The  implied  sanction,  therefore,  lately  given  to  the  ascendency  of  their  party  by 
the  king,  was  hailed  at  the  time  with  a  warmth  of  joy  and  gratitude,  which  but  fostered, 
as  it  proved,  the  seeds  of  future  presumption  and  excess. 

Having  already  had  reason  to  suspect  that  Kildare  was  planning  some  mischief,  the 
king  wrote  to  him,  to  command  his  presence  immediately  in  England,  assigning  ^    ^^ 
as  a  pretext  for  this  urgency,  that  he  wished  to  advise  with  him  concerning  the  ^^qq 
peace  of  his  Irish  realm.     But  the  earl,  suspecting,  doubtless,  the  real  intent  of 
this  order,  submitted  the  case  to  the  parliament  then  assembled  in  Dublin,  and  procured  let- 
ters to  the  king  from  the  spiritual  and  temporal  peers,  representing  that  affdirs  requiring 
the  lord  deputy's  presence  were  about  to  be  discussed  in  parliament,  and  praying  that, 
for  a  short  time,  he  might  be  excused  from  obeying  the  royal   command.     Among  the 
names  of  the  clergy  who  subscribed  these  letters,  is  found   that  of  Octavian  de  Palatio, 
archbishop  of  Armagh;  a  prelate  whose  subsequent  conduct  removes  the  suspicion  of  his 
having  been  actuated  in  this  step  by  party  feelings.     The  secular  subscribers  to  the  let- 
ters were  Robert  Preston,  viscount  Gormanstown,  and  the  six  most  ancient  of  our  barons, 
SSlane,  Dolvin,  Killeen,  Howtli,  Trimleston,  and  Dunsany.J 

It  might  not  unreasonably  have  been  expected  by  Henry,  that  the  favourable  circum- 
stances under  which  he  had  commenced  his  reign,  and  more  e?pecially  the  reconcile- 
ment of  the  two  rival  houses,  which  seemed  to  have  been  accomplished  by  his  marriage, 
would  assure  to  him  an  easy  and  uncontested  career.  But  the  events  and  prospects  now 
gradually  unfolding  themselves  must  have  disabused  him  of  any  such  flattermg  hope ;  and 
the  chief  source  of  much  of  the  odium  now  gathering  round  him,  as  well  as  of  those  plots 
by  which  his  throne  was  afterwards  threatened,  may  be  found  in  the  impression  produced, 
at  the  outset  of  his  reign,  by  the  odious  harshness  of  his  conduct  towards  the  young  Ed- 
ward Plantagenet,  son  of  the  hiteduke  of  Clarence. 

This  prince,  whom  Edward  IV.  had  created  earl  of  Warwick, — the  title  borne  by  his 
grandfather, — had  been  treated  at  first,  by  Richard  III.,  as  heir  apparent  to  the  crown; 
but  afterwards,  fearing  to  find  in  him  a  rival,  he  kept  the  young  prince  a  close  prisoner 
in  the  castle  of  Sheriff-Hutton,  in  Yorkshire.  This  youth,  at  the  time  of  Henry's  acces- 
sion, had  just  reached  his  fifteenth  year;  and  so  selfishly  blind  was  the  new  monarch  to 
every  other  consideration  but  that  of  seizing  the  prize  which  victory  had  allotted  to  him, 
that,  although  the  contingency  of  this  youth's  right  to  the  crown  was  still  so  remote  as 
not  to  be  calculated  on,  while  any  of  the  posterity  of  Edward  IV.  remained  alive,  he  had 

*  Ware's  Anvals. 

t  History  of  the  Life  of  Ormond.—"  The  attainder  of  I  Edward  IV.  being  reversfd,  Tlinmas,  Rarl  of  Ormonde 
took  possession  of  all  ihe  estate  which  his  eldest  brother  had  enjoyed  in  England;  and  was  made  by  Henry 
VII.  one  of  the  privy  council  of  Eni;land.  He  was  one  of  the  richest  subjects  in  the  king's  dominions,  having, 
after  his  brother  James's  death,  found  in  his  house,  at  the  Black  Friars  in  London,  about  40,UC0Z.  sterling  in 
money,  besides  plate,  all  which  he  carried  over  with  him  into  Ireland. —  Carte,  Introduct. 

t  Ware's  Avnals. 

48 


386  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

him  removed  from  hia  prison  in  Yorkshire  to  the  Tower,  there  to  pine  in  hopeless  cap- 
tivity, and  with  the  fate  of  his  murdered  cousins  for  ever  before  his  eyes. 

While  thus  the  story  of  this  young  prince  was  so  much  calculated  to  awaken  pity  for 
himself,  and  indignation  against  his  oppressor,  the  great  importance  attached  by  Henry  to 
his  safe  custody  could  not  but  render  him  an  object  of  interest  and  speculation  to  the  dis- 
affected. What  the  king  regarded  with  fear,  the  rebel  would  as  naturally  look  to  with 
hope;  nor  is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  that  to  persons  in  search  of  some  tolerable  frame-work 
for  a  conspiracy,  a  device  connected  with  this  youth's  fate  should,  for  want  of  a  better, 
have  suggested  itself. 

The  birth  of  a  son,  at  this  time,  to  the  king,  by  diminishing  the  chance  of  a  change  in 
the  succession,  but  furnished  the  conspirators  with  a  new  motive  for  activity;  and,  in 
order  to  profit  by  the  strong  feeling  in  favour  of  the  Yorkists,  that  prevailed  in  Ireland, 
Dublin  was  the  place  selected  for  the  opening  of  this  strange  plot.*  Early  in  the  year 
1480,  there  landed  in  lliat  city  a  priest  of  Oxford,  named  Richard  Simons,  attended  by 
his  ward,  Lambert  Simnel,  a  boy  of  about  eleven  years  of  age,f  the  son  of  an  Oxford 
tradesman.  This  youth  he  presented  to  the  lord  deputy,  and  the  other  lords  of  the  council, 
as  Edward  earl  of  Warwick,  son  to  George  duke  of  Clarence. 

To  attempt  to  personate  a  living  prince,  so  near  at  hand  as  to  be  easily  confronted  with 
the  impostor,  was  a  contrivance,  it  must  be  owned,  as  daring  and  difficult  as  it  was  clumsy. 
Nothing  appears,  however,  to  have  been  wanting,  that  careful  rehearsal  and  consummate 
acting  could  accomplish,  to  render  the  scheme  consistent  and  plausible.  The  youth  him- 
self, who,  we  are  told,  was  handsome  and  of  noble  demeanour,j  well  became  the  lofty  sta- 
tion which  he  assumed;  and,  having  been  tutored  well  in  his  story,  gave  such  an  account 
of  his  past  adventures,  as  coincided  with  all  that  his  hearers  had  known  or  learned  on  the 
subject  themselves.  The  scheme  was  instantly  and  completely  successful.  The  earl  of 
Kildare,  far  less  from  credulity,  it  is  clear,  than  from  the  bias  of  party  spirit,  gave  in  at 
once,  and  without  any  reserve,  to  (he  fraud ;  and  his  example  was  immediately  followed 
by  almost  the  whole  of  the  people  of  the  Pale,  who,  admitting  at  once,  without  farther  in- 
quiry, the  young  pretender's  title,  proclaimed  him  by  the  style  of  Edward  VI.,  king  of 
England  and  France,  and  lord  of  Ireland. 

Amidst  this  general  defection,  the  citizens  of  Waterford  remained  still  firm  in  their  al- 
legiance to  Henry;  the  family  of  the  Butlers,  pledged  hereditarily  to  the  house  of  York, 
continued  likewise  faithful ;  while  almost  the  only  ecclesiastics  who  refused  to  bow  before 
the  impostor,  were  the  foreign  archbishop  of  Armagh,  Octavian  de  Palatio,5  and  the 
bishops  of  Cashel,  Tuam,  Clogher,  and  Ossory. 

Though,  ostensibly,  Simons  the  priest  was  the  only  person  engaged  in  the  scheme  of 
palming  Simnel  on  the  Irish  as  Warwick,  it  seems  generally  to  be  supposed  that  this  plot, 
as  well  as  all  others  during  this  reign,  had  originated  at  the  court  of  the  duchess  of  Bur- 
gundy, third  sister  of  Edward  IV., — "the  chief  end  of  whose  life,"  we  are  told,  "  was  to 
see  the  majesty  royal  of  England  once  more  replaced  in  her  house."|]  No  sooner  was  it 
known  in  England  that  the  Irish  had  declared  in  favour  of  the  pretended  Warwick,  than 
the  nephew  of  this  princess,  the  earl  of  Lincoln, H  who  was  then  in  attendance  on  Henry, 
and  had  received  marks  of  his  confidence,  took  suddenly  his  departure,  and  repaired  to  the 
court  of  his  aunt,  whither  lord  Lnveil  also  had  lately  betaken  himself,  after  a  short  and 
feeble  attempt  at  insurrection.  The  object  of  this  suspicious  movement  did  not  long  re- 
main a  mystery.  It  appeared  that  Lincoln  had  gone  to  consult  with  the  duchess  of  Bur- 
gundy and  lord  Lovell  as  to  the  most  prompt  and  efficient  mode  of  assisting  the  cause  of 
the  young  pretender;**  and  the  fruit  of  their  counsels  was  seen  in  the  landing  of  a  force 
of  2000  German  troops  at  Dublin,  under  the  command  of  a  veteran  officer,  Martin  Swartz, 
and  accompanied  by  the  two  English  earls,  Lincoln  and  Lovell. ft 

Meanwhile,  with  the  hope  of  correcting  the  dangerous  impression  already  produced  by 
the  impostor,  the  king  gave  orders  that  the  real  earl  of  Warwick  should  be  conducted,  in 

*  Remarking  that  the  king  bad  been  "  a  littfe  improvident  in  the  matter  of  Ireland,"  lord  Bacon  adds, 
"  since  ho  knew  ihe  strona  henl  of  lliat  country  towards  the  lioiise  of  York,  and  that  it  was  a  ticklish  and 
unsettled  state,  more  easy  to  receive  distempers  and  mutations  than  England  was." 

t  Lingard. — According  to  some  authorities,  fifteen  years  of  age. 

J  "He  was,"  says  Bacon,  "a  comely  youth  and  well  favoured,  not  without  some  e.xtraordinary  dignity 
and  grace  of  aspect." 

§  In  a  letter  written  by  this  prelate  to  Pope  Innocent  VIII.,  he  thus  describes  the  elitjcts  of  the  fraud: 
"The  clergy  and  axular  are  all  distracted  at  tliis  present  with  a  king  and  no  king. — some  saying  he  is  the 
son  of  Edward  ear  I  of  Warwick,  othrjrs  saying  he  is  an  impostor.  But  our  brother  of  Canterbury  hath  satis- 
fied me  of  the  truth." 

II  Bacon. 

TT  This  nobleman,  who  was  the  nephew  of  Richard  III  ,  had  been  declared,  by  that  monarch,  Iieir  apparent 
to  the  crown. 

*•  Hall's  Chronicle.  tt  Bacon.    Ware.    Hall. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  387 

the  sight  of  all  London,  from  the  Tower  to  St.  Paul's.  He  also  took  this  prince  along 
with  him  to  the  palace  of  Shene,  where  noblemen,  attached  to  the  York  family,  and  well 
acquainted  with  his  person,  daily  visited  and  conversed  with  him.  This  open  trial  of  the 
question  satisfied  the  people  of  England ;  but  the  Irish,  remote  from  such  means  of  inquiry, 
and  embarked  too  heartily  in  the  general  cause  to  be  at  all  particular  as  to  its  grounds, 
not  only  persisted  in  their  adherence  to  Simnel,  but  retorted  on  Henry  the  charge  of  im- 
posture, maintaining  his  Warwick  to  be  the  counterfeit,  and  their  "lad,"  as  they  fami- 
liarly styled  him,  the  real  Plantagenet. 

In  this  state  of  infatuation,  the  joint  effects  of  weak  credulity  and  faction,  were  almost 
the  whole  of  the  people  of  the  Pale,  at  the  time  when  Swartz  and  his  Germans  landed  at 
Dublin.  It  may  be  conceived,  therefore,  to  what  a  height  their  spirits  were  elevated  by 
this  re-enforcement,  as  well  as  by  the  sanction  derived  to  their  enterprise  from  the  high 
rank  of  the  two  English  lords  who  accompanied  it.  The  earl  of  Lincoln,  though  fully 
aware  of  the  imposture,  having  often  conversed  with  the  real  Warwick  at  Shene,  recom- 
mended that  Simnel  should  be  crowned;  and  accordingly  this  ceremony  was  performed 
by  John  Payne,  bishop  of  Meath,  in  the  cathedral  called  Christ  Church.  The  boy  was 
crowned  with  a  diadem  borrowed,  for  the  occasion,  from  a  statue  of  the  Virgin,  in  St. 
Mary's  Abbey;  and  was  carried  in  triumph  from  the  church  to  the  castle  of  Dublin,  on  the 
shoulders  of  a  gigantic  man,  called  Great  Darcy  of  Platten.* 

Emboldened  by  this  success,  the  Anglo-Irish  leaders  extended  still  farther  their  views; 
and,  presuming  the  mass  of  the  English  people  to  be  quite  as  ripe  for  revolt  as  themselves, 
resolved  on  the  bold  and  hazardous  step  of  an  immediate  invasion  of  England.  No  time 
was  lost  in  putting  this  fool-hardy  project  in  execution;  the  earl  of  Lincoln  was  intrusted 
with  the  command  of  the  armament;  and  so  great  was  the  zeal  with  which  all  classes 
and  conditions  joined  in  the  enterprise,  that  the  lord  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald,  the  brother  of 
the  earl  of  Kildare,  resigned  the  high  office  of  lord  chancellor  in  order  to  accompany  the 
expedition. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  June,  the  force  destined  for  this  object,  consist- 
ing of  the  2000  German  auxiliaries,  and  "a  great  multitude,"  says  the  chronicler,  of 
Irish,  set  sail  from  Dublin,  and  with  a  fair  wind  reached  in  safety  the  Pile  of  Foudray,  in 
the  southern  extremity  of  Furness.  There  landing,  they  encamped  at  Swartmoor, 
where  being  joined  by  sir  Thomas  Broughton,  the  friend  of  lord  Lovell,  they  directed 
their  march  through  the  county  of  York.  The  hope  held  out  to  them  of  a  rising  in 
their  favour,  by  the  Yorkists  of  the  northern  counties,  proved  to  be  utterly  groundless; 
though  of  all  that  could  be  done  for  them  by  the  slowness  and  ignorance  of  the  enemy, 
they  appear  to  have  had  the  full  advantage;  for,  such  was  the  confusion  and  mismanage- 
ment of  the  king's  army,  that,  between  Nottingham  and  Newark,  it  actually  lost  its  way, 
and  was  forced  to  wait  for  guides.!  Had  such  a  mishap  befallen  the  Irish  and  Germaa 
invaders,  it  would  not  have  been  remarkable. 

Growing  impatient,  at  length,  of  a  delay  which  brought  no  sign  or  promise  of  addi- 
tional strength,  Lincoln  boldly  pushed  forward  his  force,  and  coming  in  conflict,  at  Stoke, 
with  the  vanguard  of  Henry's  army,  under  the  earl  of  Oxford,  commenced  the  short  but 
sanguinary  action  which  finally  decided  the  fate  of  the  mock  monarch  of  Ireland.  So 
great  was  the  advantage  of  strength  of  the  royalists'  side,  that  but  a  third  part  of  the 
king's  force  was  engaged  in  the  action  ;  while  of  the  8000  men  that  formed  the  invading 
army,  one  half  was  left  dead  on  the  field.  The  Germans  fought  with  the  cool  courage  of 
veterans;  while  the  soldiers  of  the  Pale,  though  armed  but  with  Irish  darts  and  skeins, 
and  therefore  unable  to  stand  the  shock  of  heavy  cavalry,  displayed  bravery  worthy 
of  a  more  rational  cause.|  Among  the  slain  were  almost  all  the  chief  leaders  of  the  ex- 
pedition, the  earl  of  Lincoln,  lord  Thomas  and  Maurice  Fitz  Gerald,  sir  Thomas  Brough- 
ton, and  Martin  Swartz.  Lord  Lovell,  as  appears  from  the  journal  of  the  herald  who 
witnessed  the  conflict,^  was  seen  to  escape  from  the  field  of  battle,  but  no  farther  tidings 
were  ever  heard  of  him. 

The  fate  of  Simnel,  who,  together  with  his  tutor,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victorious 

*  Cox.  t  Lingard. 

I  "  Of  the  other  syde,  the  Iryshemen,  although  they  foughte  hardely  and  stucke  to  it  valyaunlly,  yet  be- 
cause they  were,  after  the  manners  of  theyr  countrey,  alinoste  naked,  without  harneys  or  armure,  they  were 
stryken  downe  and  slayne  lyke  dull  and  brute  beastes,  whose  deathes  and  destruccyons  was  a  great  dis- 
couragynge  and  abashenient  to  the  residue  of  the  company." — Hall. 

§  Iceland,  Coll.  iv.  214.,  cited  by  Lingard.  "  Not  forgetting  the  grete  malice  thatthe  lady  Margar^te  of  Bour- 
goigne  bereth  contynuelly  against  us,  as  she  shewed  lately  in  sending  hider  a  fayned  boye,  surmising  him  to 
have  been  the  son  of  the  due  of  Clarence,  and  caused  him  to  bee  accompanyed  with  Th'  earl  of  Lincoln,  the 
lord  Lovel,  and  with  a  grete  multitude  of  Irisshemen  and  of  Almains.  whoes  end,  blessed  bee  God,  was  as  ye 
knowe  wele."— Henry  VH.  to  Sir  Gilbert  Talbot,  Ellis's  Original  Letters. 


388  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

party,  formed  such  a  contrast  to  his  short  pageant  of  royalty,  as  chequers  the  story  of  this 
sanguinary  struggle  with  about  an  equal  mixture  of  the  painful  and  the  ludicrous.  Seeing 
no  farther  harm  to  be  apfwehended  from  this  weak  tool  of  faction,  before  whom  the  lords 
and  prelates  of  Ireland  had  so  lately  bowed  in  homage,  the  king,  after  granting  him  full  par- 
don, made  him  a  turnspit  in  the  royal  kitchen,  and,  not  long  after,  raised  him  to  the  rank 
of  a  falconer. 

Though  faction  and  vulgar  ambition  were  doubtless  the  source  of  most  of  the  mischief 
by  which,  in  this  farcical  conspiracy,  the  lords  of  the  Pale  had  disgraced  themselves,  it 
can  as  little  be  questioned,  that  a  great  portion  of  the  community,  having  been  taught,  by 
the  example  and  language  of  their  superiors,  to  regard  Simnel  as  their  rightful  prince, 
might  have  adopted  with  perfect  sincerity  such  a  persuasion,  and  felt,  accordingly,  an 
earnest  zeal  in  his  service.  That  this  feeling  continued  to  be  cherished  by  his  followers 
in  Dublin,  for  some  months  after  his  defeat  and  fall,  may  be  collected  from  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  the  citizens  of  Waterford  by  Henry,*  "concerning  the  treasons  of  the  city  of 
Dublin,"  wherein  he  complains  that,  "contrary  to  the  duty  of  their  allegiance,  they  will 
not  yet  know  their  seditious  opinions,  but  unto  this  day  uphold  and  maintain  the  same 
presumptuously."  Asa  means  of  punishing  this  contumacy,  he  commands  the  citizens  of 
Waterford  to  seize  on  the  ships,  goods,  and  merchandise  of  the  rebels  of  Dublin,  aud  "  to 
employ  the  same  unto  the  behoof  and  common  weal  of  our  said  city  of  Waterford." 

Severe  mention  is  likewise  made. in  this  royal  letter  of"  our  rebel,"  as  the  king  styles 
him,  the  earl  of  Kildare.  But  this  lord,  though  conscious  of  the  daring  enormity  of  his 
offence,  was  also  too  sensible  of  the  extent  and  strength  of  his  own  power,  to  despair  of 
regaining  his  former  hold  on  the  royal  favour.  In  conjunction,  therefore,  with  other 
great  lords  of  the  Pale,  he  despatched  emissaries  to  Henry,  acknowledging,  in  the  most 
contrite  manner,  their  common  transgressions,  and  humbly  imploring  his  pardon. 

Perceiving. that  the  storm  which  had  threatened  so  seriously  from  that  quarter  had 
now  blown  over,  and  knowing  it  was  only  by  the  power  and  influence  of  Kildarc  and  a 
few  other  great  lords  that  the  Irish  chieftains  could  be  kept  in  awe,  Henry  preferred 
the  dangerous  experiment  of  pardoning  that-povvcrful  nobleman,  to  the  still  more  serious 
danger,  as  he  deemed  it,  of  driving  him  into  new  and  confirmed  hostility.  With  a  policy, 
therefore,  wiiich  only  the  anomalous  position  of  Ireland  could  account  for,  he  retained 
him  still  in  the  office  of  chief  governor ; — still  confided  to  his  hands  the  trust  which  he 
had  just  so  openly  and  treasonably  betrayed. f 

The  clemency  thus  shown  to  offenders  in  the  higher  ranks,  encouraged  the  lower  class 
of  rebels  to  try  also  their  chance  of  pardon  ;  and  the  citizens  of  Dublin,  who  had  viewed 
with  jealousy  the  favours  bestowed  by  the  king  upon  Waterford, — as  if  they 'themselves 
could  rationally  expect  to  enjoy  at  once  the  privileges  of  rebellion  and  the  rewards  of 
loyalty, — now  endeavoured  to  recover  their  lost  ground  ;  and,  addressing  a  petition,  with 
the  view  of  exculpating  themselves,  to  the  throne,  charged  the  whole  blame  of  the  late 
revolt  upon  the  lord  deputy  and  the  clergy.  "  We  were  daunted,"  say  they,  "  to  see, 
not  only  your  chief  governor,  whom  your  highness  made  ruler  over  us,  to  bend  or  bow 
to  that  idol  whom  they  have  made  us  to  obey,  but  also  our  father  of  Dublin,  and  most  of 
the  clergy  of  the  nation,  excepting  the  reverend  father  his  grace  Octavian,  archbishop 
of  Armagh.  We,  therefore,  humbly  crave  your  highness's  clemency  towards  your  poor 
subjects  of  Dublin,  the  metropolis  of  your  highness's  realm  of  Ireland."  This  crouching 
effort,  on  the  part  of  the  citizens,  to  remove  from  themselves  the  odium  and  ridicule  of 
the  late  proceedings,  does  not  appear  to  have  been  in  any  way  noticed  or  acknowledged 
by  the  king. 

No  juncture,  perhaps  had  occurred,  from  the  time  of  the  conquest  of  Ireland  by  the 
English,  of  which  a  firm  and  foresighted  policy  might  so  advantageously  have  availed 
itself,  for  the  great  object  of  completing  by  the  law,  a  work  which  the  sword  had  lefl  so 
mangled  and  imperfect,  as  that  now  afforded  to  the  English  monarch  by  the  humbled 
condition  to  which  the  great  lords  of  the  Pale  were  reduced.  So  much  had  the  atten- 
tion of  most  of  his  predecessors  been  drawn  away  by  foreign  wars  and  domestic  feuds 
from  a  due  watchfulness  over  the  course  of  Irish  affairs,  that  the  concerns  of  that  king- 
dom were,  in  general,  abandoned,  without  any  really  efficient  check,  to  the  selfish  and 
factious  administration  of  one  or  other  of  those  great  Anglo-Irish  families,  who,  according 
to  the  ascendency  of  their  several  parties,  were  each  in  turn,  the  real  rulers  of  the  realm. 
Nor  was  it  only  from  their  position  as  subaltern  masters,  that  the  Anglo-Irish  lords  de- 
rived their  powers  of  mischief;  they  had  likewise  inherited,  from  their  mixed  descent,  a 
combination  of  qualities  and  habits  such  as  was  in  itself  sufficient  to  account  for  much  of 

*  Rylaild,  Hist,  of  Waterford.  I  Ware's  .Annals. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  389 

the  evils  of  which  they  were  the  authors.  For,  while,  on  the  one  hand,  their  prejudice 
in  favour  of  the  land  of  their  birth  led  them  to  adopt  all  its  rudest  laws  and  usages,  and 
even  to  oppose  themselves  to  change  or  improvement,  as  an  insult,  their  English 
blood,  on  the  other  hand,  showed  itself  in  their  retention  of  the  tone  and  policy  of  con- 
querors; in  their  reliance,  for  the  safety  of  their  power,  rather  on  the  arms  of  the  nation 
they  had  sprung  from,  than  on  the  social  and  loyal  atfections  of  those  among  whom  they 
were  born,  and  in  their  reserving  to  themselves,  as  a  trophy  of  English  supremacy,  a 
monopoly  of  all  the  advantages  and  protection  of  English  law. 

In  their  late  factious  revolt  in  favour  of  Simnel,  the  leading  lords  of  the  Pale  had 
hazarded  a  more  than  ordinary  defiance  of  the  royal  authority;  the  very  government 
itself  having  set  the  new  and  monstrous  example  of  official  high  treason  and  vice-regal 
revolt.  But  their  discomfiture  and  humiliation  had  been  complete;  nor  could  the  crown 
have  found  a  more  favourable  occasion  to  wrest  the  rule  of  that  realm  from  the  hands  of 
its  selfish  oligarchy,  to  remove  the  barrier  so  long  interposed  between  the  native  race  and 
the  throne,  and  thus,  by  extending  to  all,  as  a  right,  that  legal  protection  which  was  now 
but  the  privilege  of  a  few,  to  make  the  law,  rather  than  the  sword,  the  means  of  convert- 
ing the  Irish  enemies  into  subjects. 

Such  appears  not,  however,  to  have  been  the  view  taken  by  Henry  of  this  important 
crisis;  which  is  the  more  unaccountable,  as  it  was  the  very  policy  pursued  so  boldly  and 
successfully  by  him  in  England.  Tiiere,  also,  had  he  found,  on  his  accession,  an  aristo- 
cracy of  petty  kings,  alike  domineering  over  the  people  and  dictating  to  the  throne.  But, 
i/y  breaking  down  this  unruly  power,  he  had  given  to  the  crown  its  due  stability  and 
weight,  and  at  the  same  time  removed  the  pressure  of  so  many  small  tyrannies  from  the 
people.  Very  difl^erent  was  the  line  now  adopted  by  him,  as  deliberately,  doubtless,  but 
less  wisely,  with  regard  to  Ireland.  Instead  of  availing  himself  of  the  present  reduced 
state  of  the  Anglo-Irish  satraps,  to  curtail,  at  least,  if  not  crush,  their  powers  of  mischief, 
and  thus  clear  the  ground  for  future  reforms,  he  still  retained,  as  we  have  seen,  in  full, 
undiminished  authority,  all  the  chief  authors  of  the  late  daring  revolt;  and  the 
only  remedial  step  taken  by  him  was  the  appointment  of  sir  Richard  Edgecomb,  a  -iVoq' 
gentleman  high  in  his  confidence  and  the  controller  of  his  household,  to  proceed 
to  Ireland,  with  a  guard  of  500  men,  there  to  receive  new  oaths  of  allegiance  from  the 
nobility,  gentry,  and  commonalty,  and,  after  binding  them  by  law  to  the  observance  of 
their  oaths,  to  grant  them  the  royal  pardon. 

The  progress  and  acts  of  this  special  commission  have  been  recorded  with  much  mi- 
nuteness.* At  Kinsale,  sir  Richard,  determining  not  to  land,  received  the  homage  of 
Thomas,  lord  Barry,  on  board  his  ship;  but,  on  the  following  day,  at  the  earnest  entreaty 
of  James,  lord  Courcy,  he  made  his  entry  into  the  town,  where,  in  the  chancel  of  St. 
Melteoc'sf  church,  Courcy  did  homage  for  his  barony,  and  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  town, 
following  his  example,  took  the  oath  of  fidelity,  and  entered  into  recognizances. 

From  thence  sir  Richard  sailed  for  VVaterford,  where  he  was  honourably  entertained 
by  the  inhabitants,  and  returned  them  thanks,  in  the  king's  name,  for  their  city's  con- 
stancy and  faithfulness.  Understanding  that  he  was  the  bearer  of  the  royal  pardon  for 
the  earl  of  Kildare,  a  nobleman  who  had  been  always,  they  said,  their  "utter  enemy," 
on  account  of  their  loyalty  to  the  English  crown,  they  prayed  of  sir  Richard  to  sue,  in 
their  behalf,  to  the  king,  that  if  ever  Kildare  should  again  be  lord  of  that  land,  their  city 
might  be  exempt  from  his  jurisdiction,  as  well  as  from  that  "  of  all  other  Irish  lords  that 
should  bear  any  rule  in  that  land  for  evermore,  and  should  hold  immediately  of  the  king 
..nd  his  heirs,  and  of  such  lords  of  England,  as  shall  fortune  hereafter  to  have  the  rule  of 
Ireland, — and  of  none  others." 

Very  different  was  the  scene  prepared  for  him  in  Dublin,  where,  arriving  on  the  5th 
of  July,  he  found  the  mayor  and  citizens  waiting,  in  the  guise  of  suppliants,  to  receive 
him,  at  the  abbey  gate  of  the  Friars  Preachers,  by  whom,  during  his  stay,  he  was  to  be 
lodged  and  entertained.  Kildare  himself,  who  then  happened  to  be  absent  on  a  pil- 
grimage, returned  to  Dublin  at  the  end  of  about  seven  days,  when  by  his  desire,  an  inter- 
view took  place  between  him  and  sir  Richard,  at  the  abbey  of  St.  Thomas,|  in  the  west 
suburbs  of  the  city;  the  king's  commissioner  being  conducted  thither  by  the  bishop  of 
Meath,  one  of  the  most  active  of  the  supporters  of  Simnel,  by  the  baron  of  Slane,  and 
several  other  high  personages.  Sir  Richard  then  openly,  in  the  great  chamber,  deli- 
vered the  king's  letters  to  the  earl, — "  not  without  some  show,"  it  is  added,  "of  bilter- 

*  Voyage  of  Sir  Richard  Eiigecornb  into  Ireland  ; — for  which  see  tFarris's  Hihernica. 

t  "  This  is,  1  dare  say,  the  St.  Multos,  whose  name  the  parish  church  of  Kinsale  bears."— Lanigan,  £fc/«- 
siast.  Hist,  of  Ireland. 
\  Founded  in  that  part  of  Dublin  now  called  Thomas  Court 


390  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

• 

ness,"— and  a  parley  was  held  between  them  on  the  subject  of  the  commission,  which 
ended  unsatisfactorily, — Kildare  returning  to  his  seat  at  Maynooth,  and  sir  Richard  to 
the  Friars  Preachers. 

At  length,  after  various  consultations,  both  in  Dublin  and  at  Maynooth,  the  earl  did 
homage,  \n  the  presence  of  the  royal  commissioner,  in  the  great  chamber  of  the  abbey  of 
St.  Thomas;  and,  being  afterwards  absolved  of  his  excomnmnication,  while  mass  was 
sung,  took  the  oath  of  allegiance,*  and  bound  himself  in  recognizances  to  the  due  ob- 
servance of  it.  Sir  Richard  then  hung  round  Kildare's  neck  a  golden  chain  which  the 
king  had  sent  him,  as  an  earnest  of  his  favour;  after  which,  the  earl  and  the  commis- 
sioner, attended  by  all  the  bishops  and  lords,  went  into  the  church  of  the  monastery,  "and 
in  the  choir  thereof,  the  archbishop  of  Dublin  began  Te  Deum,  and  the  choir,  with  the 
organs,  sung  it  up  solemnly;  and  at  that  time  all  the  bells  in  the  church  rung."  When 
these  ceremonies  were  all  ended,  sir  Richard  entertained  the  earl  and  the  other  lords  at 
a  great  feast  in  the  abbey  of  the  Friars  Preachers.f 

To  this  general  and,  in  some  respects,  indiscreet  extension  of  clemency,  there  were 
but  two  exceptions;  namely,  James  Keating,  the  turbulent  prior  of  Kilmainham,|  and 
Thomas  Plunket,  chief  justice  of  the  common  pleas,  who,  of  all  the  authors  and  fomenters 
of  the  late  revolt,  had  been  the  most  active  and  mischievous.  Through  the  interces- 
sion of  Kildare  and  others  of  the  nobility,  Plunket  was  pardoned;  but  the  life  of  Keating 
having  been,  for  the  thirty  years  he  was  prior  of  Kilmainham,  one  constant  course  of 
outrage,  rapine,  and  fraud,  he  was  excluded  from  the  benefits  of  pardon,  and  also  dispos- 
sessed of  the  office  of  constable  of  the  castle  of  Dublin,  which  he  had  for  several  years 
violently  usurped. 

Having  thus  finished  his  task  with  the  only  act  of  vigour  and  justice  by  which  this 
very  unmeaning  mission  appears  to  have  been  signalized,  Edgecomb,  escorted  by  the 
archbishop  of  Dublin,  the  chief  justice,  Bermingham,  and  the  recorder  of  Dublin,  pro- 
ceeded, on  the  30th  of  July,  to  Dalkey  ;  and,  after  more  than  a  week  of  vain  efforts  to 
leave  the  Irish  coast,  the  wind  being  strong  and  adverse,  succeeded,  at  length,  in  getting 
to  sea,  and  reached  the  port  of  Fowey.J 

Though  Henry,  acting  on  the  dictates  of  a  judgment  seldom  clouded  either  by  feeling 
or  temper,  had  deemed  it  prudent,  notwithstanding  their  late  flagrant  treason,  to  leave 
still  in  the  hands  of  Kildare  and  his  fellow  delinquents,  all  the  highest  offices  of  the  state, 
he  yet  failed  not  to  keep  a  strict  watch  on  their  movements;  and  seeing  reason,  doubt- 
less, to  apprehend  from  them  some  new  scheme  in  favour  of  the  house  of  York,  he  sum- 
moned the  greater  number  of  the  lords  temporal  of  that  kingdom  to  repair  to  him 
-lAQQ  in  England.  In  consequence  of  this,  the  earl  of  Kildare,  the  viscounts  Buttevant 
■  and  Fermoy,  and  the  lords  of  Athenry,  Kinsale,  Gormanstown,  Delvin,  Howth, 
Slane,  Killeen,  Trimleston,  and  Dunsany,  waited  upon  the  king  at  Greenwich. 

Whatever  reprehension  they  might  naturally  have  expected  from  the  lips  of  their  of- 
fended sovereign,  such  was  by  no  means  the  tone  adopted  towards  them  by  the  calm  and 
calculating  Henry.  Instead  of  bringing  against  these  lords  their  past  delinquencies, — 
an  account  closed,  as  he  felt,  by  the  royal  pardon, — he  wisely  contented  himself  with 
warning  them  against  any  repetition  of  such  conduct;  and,  with  reference  to  their  choice 
of  a  creature  like  Simnol  to  be  their  sovereign,  told  them,  with  bitter  sarcasm,  that  "if 
their  king  were  to  continue  absent  from  them,  they  would,  at  length,  crown  apss." 
Shortly  after,  he  invited  them  to  a  splendid  banquet,  where  a  still  more  significant  satire 
on  their  folly  was  presented  to  them  in  the  person  of  Lambert  Simnel  himself,  who  had 
been  exalted,  for  that  day,  from  the  region  of  the  kitchen,  to  wait  on  his  late  noble  sub- 
jects at  table  1| 

During  the  stay  of  these  lords  at  Greenwich,  they  accompanied  the  king  in  a  solemn 
procession  to  the  church ;  and,  when  they  took  leave  of  him  to  return  to  Ireland,  were 
dismissed  with  marks  of  the  royal  favour,  among  which  was  a  gift  to  the  baron  of  Howth 
of  300  pieces  of  gold. IT 

While  thus  the  leaders  of  the  small  colony  of  the  Pale — from  whence,  almost  solely,  in 
these  times,  are  furnished  the  materials  of  what  is  called  Irish  history — were  indulging,  as 
usual,  in  the  two  alternate  extremes  of  treason  and  abject  loyalty,  the  native  septs,  who 

*  The  earl's  oath  was  takon  solemnly,  on  the  hdly  Host,  liofmo  the  a'tar  ;  and  Kdjecoinb  suspected,  it 
is  clear,  some  intended  evasion  of  this  rite,  as  he  insisted  tliat  "  a  cliaplain  of  his  own  should  consecrate  the 
Host." 

t  Ware's  Annals. 

I  For  a  full  account  of  this  prior's  rapacious  and  violent  proceedings,  see  Archdall,  Monast.  Ilib.  p.  249. 
g  Rflppcoinb's  Vnyajtf.  Ilihernica. 

II  Hall's  Chronicle.    Ware's  JltinaU.  17  Ware's  Annals,  ad  anil.  1489. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  391 

still  held  possession  of  by  far  the  greater  and  more  fertile  portion  of  the  island,  continued, 
unmindful  of  the  presence  of  the  foreigner,  to  make  war  only  among'  themselves;  and 
appeared  to  forget  that  they  had  any  enemies  in  the  country  but  each  other.  There  were 
a  few,  indeed,  among  the  great  Anslo-Irish  lords,  who,  by  long  mixture  of  blood,  by  their 
extensive  possessions,  and,  even  still  more,  by  their  flattering  adoption  of  the  laws  and 
usages  of  the  land,  had  gained  a  station  in  the  hearts  of  the  natives,  little  less  home-felt 
and  familiar  than  that  of  their  own  native  chiefs.  Of  this  description  had  been,  through 
several  generations,  the  earls  of  Desmond;  the  ninth  earl  of  which  family  was,  in  the 
third  year  of  this  reign,  murdered  by  one  of  his  own  servants  in  his  house  at  Rathkeal, 
in  the  county  of  Limerick.  Among  the  crimes  charged  against  this  lord's  father,  and 
for  which  he  was  executed,  as  we  have  seen,  at  Drogheda,  alliance  with  the  Irish  was 
one  of  the  most  prominent;  and  yet — so  feeble  are  all  laws  against  which  nature  enters 
her  protest — the  very  son  of  that  lord,  James,  the  late  earl,  was  not  deterred  by  his 
father's  tragic  fate  from  choosing  for  iiis  wife  a  lady  of  the  land,  the  daughter  of  O'Brian, 
chief  of  Thomond. 

Soon  after  the  departure  of  the  king's  commissioner,  Kildare  had  been  called  to  sup- 
press an  outbreak  of  the  Mac  Geoghegans,  in  a  small  territory  belonging  to  the  chief  of 
that  sept,  called  Moy-Cashel.  There,  having  taken  and  destroyed  the  castie  of  Beleragh, 
the  king's  troops  dispersed  themselves  over  the  whole  district,  and  after  destroying  all 
the  villages  and  farms,  returned  to  their  quarters  loaded  with  spoil.  There  was  also 
much  fighting,  in  the  course  of  this  year,  between  the  new  earl  of  Desmond,  the  tenth  of 
that  title,  and  the  Irish  chiefs  in  his  neighbourhood.  This  lord,  who  from  a  defect  in  his 
limbs,  had  been  nicknamed  the  Lame,  soon  acquired,  by  his  feats  in  the  field,  the  title  of 
the  Warlike;*  and,  following  the  e.xample  of  his  noble  progenitors,  lived  almost  entirely 
on  his  own  princely  domains,  among  the  native  septs, — making  wars  and  treaties  with 
them  at  pleasure,  and  continuing  in  his  ways  and  habits  all  the  barbaric  grandeur  of  the 
ancient  Irish  chief.  In  perfect  consistency  with  this  character,  he  appears  to  have  passed 
his  whole  life  in  constant  warfare  with  his  neighbours;  having  qualified  himself,  if  it 
may  be  so  expressed,  for  this  state  of  mutual  hostility,  by  becoming  one  of  themselves. 
In  a  victory  gained  by  him  over  Morough  O'Carrol,  prince  of  Ely,  that  chief  was  slain 
in  the  course  of  the  conflict,  together  with  his  brother  Mao!  Mury;  and,  in  another 
great  battle  fought  by  Desmond,  Mac  Carthy,  the  rightful  prince  of  Desmond,  was  van- 
quished and  slain. 

About  the  same  time,  the  great  chieftain,  O'Neill,  having  committed  some  acts  of  ag- 
gression upon  a  neighbouring  lord,  O'Donnell,  animosities  arose  between  their  two  septs, 
which  continued  to  rage  for  some  months;  till  at  length  they  were  interrupted  by  the 
murder  of  O'Neill  by  his  own  brother.  The  fierce  struggle  between  these  two  chiefs  is 
said  to  have  commenced   by  a  correspondence  truly   laconic: — "Send   me  tribute,  or 

else ,"  was  the  brief  mandate  of  O'Neill ;  "I  owe  you  no  tribute,  and  if ,"  was 

the  significant  answer  of  O'Donnell. f 

The  plot  of  which  Simnel  was  made  the  instrument  having  proved  so  signal  a  failure, 
it  would  seem  hardly  conceivable  that,  in  but  a  few  years  after,  some  of  the  very  same 
personages  who  had  been  concerned  in  this  abortive  scheme  should  have  brought  for- 
ward another  contrivance  of  nearly  the  same  pattern;   and  moreover,  that  Ireland,  or 
rather  the  seat  of  the  English  power  in  that  island,  should  have  been  again  chosen,  on  no 
very  flattering  estimate  of  its  honesty  or  discernment,  to  be  the  opening  scene  of  the  im- 
posture.    Of  this  plot,  as  well  as  of  the  former,  the  ever  restless  duchess  of  Bur- 
gundy was  the  prime  mover  ;J  and  the  personage  whom  she  now  prepared  to  -ijc^' 
bring  forward  was  no  other  than  Richard,  duke  of  York,  the  second  son  of  Edward 
IV.,  who  had  made  his  escape,  as  she  pretended,  from  the  Tower,  when  his  elder  brother 
was  murdered. 

In  her  choice  of  the  personage  to  be  represented,  she  showed,  on  the  present  occasion, 
far  more  judgment  than  on  the  former,  since  to  Richard,  were  he  still  living,  the  crown 
really  belonged  ;  whereas,  the  young  Warwick  could  not  have  succeeded  as  long  as  any 
of  the  descendants  of  Edward  IV.  were  alive.  The  individual  she  had  chosen  to  per- 
sonate her  royal  nephew,  and  who  bore  some  resemblance  to  him,  it  is  said,  in  his  per- 
son and  features,  was  an  accomplished  young  Fleming,  named  Peter  Osbeck,  though 

*  Lodge.  f  Cox. 

J  "  The  la(iy  Margaret  of  Burgundy,"  says  Bacon,  "  whose  palace  was  the  sanctuary  ami  receptacle  of  all 
traitors  against  tlie  king  " — According  to  Henry's  account  of  the  plot,  there  had  been  two  other  subjects  of 
personation  thought  of,  before  Richard,  duke  of  York,  was  adopted.  "  Another  fayned  lad,"  he  says,  "called 
Perkin  Warbeck,  born  at  Tournay  in  Picardy,  at  his  furst  into  Ireland,  called  himself  the  bastard  son  of  king 
Richard  ;  after  that  the  son  of  the  said  due  of  Clarence;  and  now  the  second  son  of  our  fadre  king  Edward 
liijth,  whom  God  a.ssoi\e.— Ellis's  Original  Letters. 


392  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

generally  called  Perkin  Warbeck  ;  and,  from  the  time  it  must  have  taken  to  educate 
him  for  the  new  character  he  was  about  to  assume,  it  is  clear  that  the  indefatigable 
duchess  must  have  begun  to  lay  the  foundation  of  tliia  second  bold  imposture  almost  im- 
mediately after  tlie  failure  of  the  first. 

Havinof  succeeded,  as  she  hoped,  in  making  of  this  youth  an  instrument  aptly  suited  to 
her  views,  she  deemed  it  prudent  to  wait  a  more  favourable  time  for  the  development 
of  her  plot;  and  with  the  view,  mean  while,  of  keeping  Warbeck  concealed,  as  well  aa 
of  diverting  attention  from  Flanders,  as  the  birth-place  of  the  plot,  she  sent  him  privately, 
under  the  care  of  lady  Brampton,  into  Portugal.     Whetiier  any  rumours  had  yet  reached 
Henry  of  this  new  plot  of  the  intriguing  duchess,  does  not  very  clearly  appear  ;  but  that 
he  had  grounds,  at  this  time,  for  suspecting  the  earl  of  Kildare  of  some  embryo  mis- 
chief, may  be  taken  for  granted,  from  his  sudden  dismissal  of  that  powerful  lord 
ikQ9  ^'^°"'  ^^^  office  of  deputy.     He  also,  at  the  same  time,  removed  from  the  post  of 
high  treasurer,  which  had  been  held  by  him  for  above  thirty-eight  years,  Kildare'a 
father-in-law,  Fitz-Eustace,  baron  of  Portlester.     In  place  of  Kildare,  the  archbishop  of 
Dublin,  Walter  Fitz-Symons,  was  made  lord  deputy;  while,  with  ominous  warning  for 
the  Geraldines,  sir  James  Ormond,  natural  son  of  the  late  earl, — who  had  died  on  a  pil- 
grimage to  the  Holy  Land, — was  appointed  high  treasurer  in  the  place  of  lord  Port- 
Tester. 

It  was  now  seen  of  what  potent  efficacy  had  been  the  mere  name  of  Kildare  in  keeping 
the  Irish,  around  the  Pale,  in  a  state  of  subjection  and  peace ;  for  no  sooner  was  his  re- 
moval from  the  government  known,  than  they  rose  in  tumultuous  revolt,  and  laid  waste 
and  burnt  the  English  borders. 

In  this  condition  were  the  affairs  of  Ireland,  and  the  English  monarch  had  just  em- 
barked in  a  war  with  France,  when  the  duchess  of  Burgundy,  timing  most  skilfully  her 
enterprise,  sent  orders  to  Perkin  to  sail  without  delay  for  Ireland  ;  and  such  ready  dupes, 
or  instruments,  did  her  scheme  find  in  that  country,  that  the  mere  announcement  of  the 
arrival  at  Cork  of  an  ordinary  merchant  vessel  from  Lisbon,  with  a  youth  on  board,  richly 
attired,  who  called  himself  Richard  duke  of  York,  the  second  son  of  Edward  IV.,  appears 
to  have  been  sufficient  to  rouse  into  activity  the  ever  ready  elements  of  Anglo-Irish  faction. 
A  merchant  of  Cork,  named  John  Water,  who  had  been  lately  mayor  of  that  city,  took 
up  warmly  the  young  pretender's  cause,  and  enlisted  the  citizens  in  his  favour.  There 
were  also  letters  despatched  to  Kildare,  and  his  kinsman,  Desmond,  entreating  them,  as 
champions  of  the  York  cause,  to  extend  to  this  youth  their  sanction  and  aid  ;  b/ut  how  far 
either  of  those  lords  embarked,  at  this  time,  in  his  wild  enterprise,  we  have  no  means  of 
ascertaining.  The  great  success,  however,  of  the  plot  in  Cork  had  bestowed  on  it  a  stamp 
which  secured  its  currency  elsewhere;  and  the  news  of  the  event  had  no  sooner  reached 
France,  than  the  king,  perceiving  what  use  might  be  made  of  such  an  instrument,  in  the 
present  critical  state  of  his  relations  with  England,  sent  off  messengers  in  haste  to  Cork, 
to  invite  Warbeck  to  his  court,  and  assure  him  of  welcome  and  protection. 

The  reception  the  pretender  had  experienced  from  Henry's  factious  subjects  was  out- 
done in  pomp,  though  not  in  cordiality,  by  that  which  awaited  him  at  the  court  of  Henry's 
enemy; — where,  treated  with  all  the  forms  due  to  the  lofty  rank  assumed  by  him,  he  was 
lodged  in  splendid  apartments,  and  had  a  guard  of  honour  appointed  to  attend  him,  of 
which  the  sieurde  Concressault,  a  Scotsman  by  descent,  was  the  commander.  This  stroke 
of  policy  was  followed  quickly  by  the  intended  effect.  Fearing  the  influence  of  such  an 
example  on  his  own  subjects,  the  English  monarch  consented  readily  to  more  equal  terms 
of  peace  with  France;  and  the  tool,  Warbeck,  having  served  the  purpose  for  which  his 
mock  honours  were  granted,  found  himself  consigned  to  unceremonious  neglect.  Having 
some  reason  also  to  fear  that  he  would  be  delivered  up  to  Henry,  he  withdrew  himself 
privately  from  the  court  of  France,  and  fled  into  Flanders.  There,  with  well-feigned 
wonder  and  triumph,  the  scheming  duchess  received  him  as  her  nephew,  then  for  the  first 
time  seen  by  her;  presented  him,  as  such,  to  her  assembled  court;  appointed  a  guard  for 
his  person  of  thirty  halberdiers,  "clad,"  as  the  chronicler  tells  us,  "in  a  party-coloured 
livery  of  murrey  and  blue  ;"*  and  bestowed  upon  him  the  appellation  of  "the  VVhite  Rose 
of  England." 

The  triumph  of  the  party  that  had  succeeded  to  authority  in  Ireland,  was  still  fully 
maintained.  In  a  parliament  held  at  Dublin,  by  the  present  deputy,  archbishop  Fitz- 
Symons,  some  inquisitions  that  had  been  found  against  him,  through  the  instigation  of 
lord  Portlester,  were  declared  to  be  null  and  void;  while,  at  the  same  time,  lord  Portles- 
ter himself  was  called  to  account  for  his  long  mismanagement  of  the  public  revenues,  and 

*  Hall.    Bacon. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  393 

ordered,  on  pain  of  imprisonment  and  forfeiture,  to  pay  all  the  arrears  due  by  him  to  the 
exchequer. 

Towards  the  end  of  this  year,  Fitz-Symons  was  succeeded  in  the  government  by  sir 
Robert  Preston,  first  viscount  of  Gormanston,  who  immediately  summoned  several  of  the 
nobles  and  chief  gentlemen  of  the  counties  of  Dublin,  Kildare,  and  Moalh,  to  assemble  at 
Trim,  and  take  into  consideration  the  state  of  tlie  kingdom.  Among  the  "  articles  for  the 
peace  of  the  realm,"  subscribed  by  them,  there  is  one  deserving  of  notice,  as  showing 
that  the  right  of  making  war,  as  well  with  each  other  as  with  the  natives,  was  sometimes 
assumed,  in  defiance  of  law,  by  the  lawgivers  of  the  Pale  themselves : — "  No  man,"  says 
the  article,  "must  make  war  witliout  the  consent  of  the  kmg's  deputy."* 

The  late  lord  deputy,  archbishop  Filz-Symons,  having  been  sent  for  by  Henry,  in  the 
autumn  of  tliis  year,  to  give  liim  infurmation  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  Ireland,  Kildare, 
who  had  learned  that  his  adversaries  at  court  were  busy  in  defaming  his  character,  sailed 
also  immediately  for  England,  with  the  view  of  clearing  himself  to  the  king.  But  the 
parly  opposed  to  him  were  no  less  alert  in  their  movements;  and  the  lord  deputy  Gor- 
manston leaving  the  government  in  the  hands  of  his  son,  followed  the  earl  to  England, 
and  there,  with  the  assistance  of  sir  James  Ormond  and  the  archbishop,!  succeeded  for  the 
time  so  well,  in  thwarting  the  views  of  Kildare,  that  this  lord's  justificatioii  was  rejected 
and  himself  sent  back  in  disgrace  to  Dublin. 

The  effect  produced  by  the  landing  of  Warbeck  in  Ireland,  not  merely  as  regarded  that 
country  itself,  but  as  viewed  in  its  possible  influence  on  other  nations,  had  led  Henry  to 
consider  more  seriously  the  state  of  his  Irish  dominions;  and  the  step  now  taken  by  him, 
however  inadequate  to  the  actual  exigencies  of  the  case,  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  real 
effort  of  the  English  government  in  Ireland  to  curb  that  spirit  of  provincial  despotism 
which  it  had  itself  let  loose  and  fostered.  Of  all  the  means  of  oppression  and  mischief 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  Anglo-Irish  aristocracy,  their  packed  and  irresponsible  parlia- 
ment was  certainly  not  the  least  efficient,  A  few  rich  and  mighty  lords  combined  in 
themselves  the  whole  weight  of  the  body;  and  of  these,  the  petty  parliament  of  the  four 
shires  was  always  the  obsequious  instrument.  According,  therefore,  as  the  Butlers  or 
the  Geraldines  happened  to  be  uppermost,  so  were  the  justice  and  favour  of  the  crown 
dealt  out;  while,  by  both  factions  equally,  the  subjects  of  the  Pale  were  harassed  with 
forays  and  exactions,  and  the  hapless  natives  themselves  hunted,  like  wild  beasts,  into 
their  coverts. 

The  person  selected  to  carry  into  effect  the  important  reforms  the  king  now  meditated, 
and  also  to  trace  out  and  punish  the  lurking  abettors  of  Warbeck,  was  sir  Edward 
Poynings,  a  knight  of  the  garter  and  privy  councillor,  in  whom  the  king  placed  j^qV 
much  confidence.   There  went  likewise  with  him,  to  form  his  council,  several  emi- 
nent English  lawyers ;  and  he  was  attended  by  a  small  force  amounting  to  about  a  thousand 
men.     Finding,  on  his  arrival,  that  some  of  the  most  active  abettors  of  Warbeck  had 
escaped  into  Ulster,  and  were  there  protected  by  the  native  Irish,  he  deemed  it  most  politic 
to  begin  by  punishing  these  delinquents,  so  as  to  strike  terror  into  the  disaffected,  before 
he  addressed  himself  to  those  measures  of  reform  which  had  been  the  chief  object  of  his 
coming.     Uniting  with  his  own  forces  such  as  could  be  collected  for  him  within  the  Pale, 
he  directed  his  march  towards  Ulster,  attended  by  sir  James  Ormond,  and,  notwithstanding 
all  that  had  lately  occurred,  by  the  earl  of  Kildare. 

Such  influence,  indeed,  had  this  lord  acquired  over  the  minds  of  the  natives,  that,  whe- 
ther as  a  sanction  or  a  terror,  his  name  was  indispensable  to  the  fullsuccessof  every  dealing 
with  them,  whether  of  negotiation  or  of  warfare  ;  and  this  ascendancy  over  them  he  owed 
not  more  to  his  reputation  for  warlike  deeds,  than  to  the  pride  they  took  in  him,  as  their 
born  countryman,  and  also  as  connected,  by  family  alliances,  with  some  of  the  most  popu- 
lar of  their  own  national  chiefs.  He  appears  himself,  likewise,  to  have  gone  far  beyond 
most  of  his  brother  lords  in  adopting  the  manners,  us;iges,  and  tone  of  thinking  of  the  na- 
tive Irish  ;  and  how  trying  and  equivocal  was  the  position  in  which  his  relationship  with 
both  races  sometimes  placed  him,  is  strikingly  shown  by  all  that  arose  out  of  his  expedi- 
tion, at  this  time,  under  Poynings,  into  UFster.  O'Hanlon  and  Mac  Genis,  the  leaders 
of  the  Irish  there  collected,  retired,  as  usual,  on  the  approach  of  the  enemy,  into  their 
bogs  and  forests;  and  all  that  was  lefl,  therefore,  for  Poynings  to  resort  to,  was  the  equally 
usual  procedure  of  burning  and  laying  waste  the  whole  of  the  lands  of  the  two  chiefs. 

*  Cox. 

t  Of  this  prelate,  who  was  in  great  favour  with  Henry,  the  following  anecdote  is  told  by  Stanihurat  :— 
"  Being  present  when  an  oration  was  made  in  praise  of  the  king,  he  was  asked  by  his  majesty,  at  the  close  of 
the  speech,  what  he  found  most  material  in  it.  The  archbishop  replied,  "If  it  pleaseth  your  highness,  it 
pleaseth  me.  I  find  no  fault,  save  only  that  he  flattered  your  majesty  too  much  ' — '  Now,  in  good  faith.'  said 
the  king,  '  onr  father  of  Dublin,  we  were  minded  to  find  the  same  fault  ourselves  '  "— 0«  Rebus.  Hib. 

49 


394  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Strong  suspicions  arose  that  Kildare,  from  a  feeling  of  revenge  for  his  late  treatment  had 
formed  a  plot,  in  concert  with  O'Hanlon,  for  the  assassination  of  the  lord  deputy ;  and, 
still  farther  to  corroborate  this  suspicion,  intelligence  arrived,  that  James  Fitz  Gerald,  the 
earl's  brother,  had  suddenly  seized  on  the  castle  of  Catherlough,  and  strengthened  it 
with  a  garrison.  This  ominous  news  compelled  sir  Edward  to  hasten  his  return. 
Making  what  terms  he  could  with  O'Hanlon  and  Mac  Genis,  and  binding  them  both,  by 
oaths  and  hostages,  to  observe  the  peace,  he  immediately  marched  his  army  to  Cather- 
lough, and,  after  a  siege  often  days,  obtained  possession  of  the  castle. 

In  the  month  of  November  this  year,  was  held  that  memorable  parliament  at  Drogheda, 
which  enacted  the  statute  called,  after  the  name  of  the  lord  deputy,  Poynings'  Act. 
The  provision  made  by  this  particular  enactment  was,  that  no  parliament  should,  for  the 
future,  be  holden  in  Ireland  until  the  chief  governor  and  council  had  first  certified  to  the 
king,  under  the  great  seal  of  that  land,  "as  well  the  causes  and  considerations  as  the 
acts  they  designed  to  pass,  and  till  the  same  should  be  approved  by  the  king  and  coun- 
cil." This  noted  statute  was  meant  as  a  preventive  of  some  of  those  evils  and  inconve- 
niences which  could  not  but  arise  from  the  existence  of  a  separate  legislature  in  Ireland, 
independent  of,  and  irresponsible  to,  that  of  England,  and  therefore  liable,  in  the  hands 
of  a  factious  aristocracy,  to  be  made  the  instrument  of  mere  selfish  rapacity  and  revenge. 
The  mischiefs  inseparable  from  the  nature  of  a  body  so  constituted  were  shown,  in  their 
most  flagrant  form,  during  the  contests  between  the  Yorkists  and  Lancastrians;  and  very 
recently,  as  we  have  seen,  the  gross  mockery  had  been  exhibited  of  a  parliament  sum- 
moned to  sanction  the  claims  of  the  wretched  impostor,  Lambert  Simnel.* 

It  was  also  enacted,  in  this  present  parliament,  that  all  the  statutes  made  lately  in 
England,  concerning  or  belonging  to  the  public  weal,  should  be  thenceforth  good  and 
effectual  in  Ireland. 

Among  several  other  acts,  passed  at  this  time,  of  an  inferior  but  still  important  charac- 
ter, there  was  one  annulling  a  prescription  claimed  by  rebels  and  traitors,  in  Ireland,  by 
reason  of  an  act,  passed  during  the  lieutenancy  of  the  duke  of  York,  ordaining  that  Ire- 
land should  be  a  sanctuary  for  foreigners,  and  that  it  should  be  treason  to  disturb  any 
refugees  in  that  country,  by  any  writ,  letters  missive,  or  other  such  authority,  from  Eng- 
land. This  dangerous  exemption  had  been  granted  by  Richard,  duke  of  York,|  when 
engaged  in  rebellion  against  Henry  VI.,  for  the  purpose  of  encouraging  his  friends  to 
repair  to  him  in  Ireland  ;  and  the  abettors  of  Simnel  and  Warbeck  had  pleaded  it  in  excuse 
of  their  late  treason.  It  was,  accordingly,  now  repealed,  and  all  receivers  and  main- 
tainors of  traitors  wore  declared  guilty  of  treason. 

One  of  the  abuses,  proved  by  these  statutes  to  be  then  prevalent,  was  the  practice, 
among  the  great  lords,  of  keeping  crowds  of  retainers;  an  abuse  carried  also,  at  this  pe- 
riod, to  a  dangerous  extent  in  England.  The  power  assumed,  too,  by  the  lords  of  the 
Pale,  of  making  war  or  peace,  as  they  pleased,  was  likewise  prohibited  ;  and  to  stir  up 
the  "  Irishry "  against  the  people  of  the  Pale,  or  make  war  upon  the  chief  governor,  was 
declared  high  treason.  The  renowned  statutes  of  Kilkenny  were  revived  and  confirmed 
by  this  parliament,  with  the  exception  only  of  that  which  prohibited  the  use  of  the 
Irish  language; — a  law  long  rendered  inoperative  by  the  general  prevalence  of  the  na- 
tive tongue  throughout  all  the  English  settlements!  The  defence  of  the  marches  being 
an  object  of  great  importance,  it  was  made  felony  to  permit  any  enemies  or  rebels  to 
pass  them;  all  proprietors  of  march  lands  were  obliged  to  reside  there  themselves,  or 
leave,  when  absent,  sufficient  deputies,  on  pain  of  losing  their  estates;  and  all  persons 
near  the  marches,  between  sixteen  and  sixty  years  of  age,  were  to  be  ready  to  repair,  on 
warning,  in  suitable  array,  to  their  defence. 

Do(jmed  tn  suffer  by  tiie  peculiar  oppressions  of  both  countries,  Ireland  was  harassed 
not  only  by  her  own  ancient  exaction,  coyne  and  livery,  but  also  by  the  English  mode  of 
extortion,  purveyance;  and  against  both  these  heavy  grievances  one  of  the  acts  of  Poy- 

*  In  descriliing  thn  state  of  publk;  feelinj;,  with  respect  to  Warbeck,  on  his  first  appearance,  IFall  says, 
"  In  Ireland  there  bo  two  kind  of  men  ;  one  soft,  gentle,  civil,  anil  cDurteons;  ....  the  other  kind  is  clean 
contrary  from  this,  for  they  be  wild,  rustical,  foolish,  fierce,  and  for  their  unmannerly  behavior  and  rude 
passions  arc  called  wild  and  savage  Irishmen.  To  these  wild  colts,"  (he  adds)  "  Perkin  showed  hym  selfe 
first." 

t  Cox. 

I  There  occur  some  striking  remarks  in  Spenser  (F'iew  of  the  State  of  Ireland,)  on  the  great  strength  of  na- 
tional character  evinced  by  the  Iiish  in  thus  forcing  the  native  language  upon  the  victor.  "  For  it  hath  ever 
been,"  he  says,  "  the  use  of  the  conqueror  to  despise  the  language  of  the  conquered,  and  to  force  him  by  all 
means  to  learn  his.  .So  did  the  Romans  always  use,  insomutUi  that  there  is  almost  no  nation  in  the  world 
but  is  sprinkled  with  their  language.    It  were  good,  therefore,  meseems,  to  search  out  the  original  cause  of 

this  evil for  I  think  it  very  strange  that  the  English  being  so  many,  and  the  Irish  so  few,  as  they  then 

were  left,  the  fewer  should  draw  Ilio  more  into  their  u.se." 


♦  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND.  395 

nings'  parliament  was  directed.  The  general  use  of  bows  and  arrows  was,  as  usual,  en- 
joined,  and  the  wild  war-cries  adopted  by  some  of  the  great  English  families,  m  imita- 
tion of  the  natives,  were  strictly  forbidden,  as  watchwords  of  faction,  and  provocatives  of 
riot.* 

As  the  chief  object  of  most  of  the  enactments  of  this  parliament  was  to  break  down, 
or  at  least  reduce,  the  enormous  power  of  the  lords  of  the  Pale,  a  measure  was  again,  at 
this  time,  brought  forward,  which  had  been  already,  more  than  once,  suspended  over 
them;  and  an  act  for  the  resumption,  with  some  few  exceptions,  of  all  the  grants  made 
by  the  crown  since  the  last  days  of  the  reign  of  king  Edward  II.,  was  passed  in  this  par- 
liament. With  the  same  view,  it  was  held  to  be  necessary  to  make  an  example  of  the 
earl  of  Kildare;  and,  although  the  charges  against  him  appear  to  have  rested  upon  little 
more  than  suspicion,  he  was  by  an  act  of  this  parliament  attainted  for  high  treason;  and 
his  brother  James  and  several  other  Geraldines  were  also  declared  traitors.  Such,  with 
the  addition  of  a  law  enacting  that  "the  lords  of  Ireland  should  wear  in  parliament  the 
same  sort  of  robes  as  were  worn  by  the  English  lords  in  the  parliament  of  England," 
were  the  whole  of  the  statutes  passed  at  Drogheda,  under  the  government  of  sir  Edward 
Poynings. 

These  laws,  when  first  enacted,  extended  no  farther  than  the  narrow  limits  of  the 
Pale  ;  but,  according  as  the  authority  of  the  crown  increased,  their  effect  and  influence 
gained  ground,  until  at  length  they  came  to  be  in  force  over  the  entire  kingdom. 

In  the  "  great  treaty  of  commerce"  signed,  at  this  time,  between  England  and  the 
Netherlands,  a  provision  was,  at  Henry's  desire,  inserted  expressly  stipulating  that  the 
duchess  of  Burgundy  should  not  be  permitted  to  aid  or  harbour  the  king's  rebels,  under 
pain  of  losinor   her  domains.     As  VVarbeck,   therefore,   against  whom   this  article  was 
levelled,  could  no  longer  remain  in  Flanders,  he  set  sail  once  more  for  Ireland,! 
hoping  to  enlist  the  people  of  that  country  in   his  cause.     Finding,  however,  in  i^nr^' 
this,  his  second  attempt,   but  little  support  or  encouragement,  he  set  sail  from 
Cork  to  Scotland,  having  been  recommended  to  James  IV.,  then  ruler  of  that  kingdom,  not 
only  by  the  duchess  of  Burgundy,  but  in  private  letters  from  the  king  of  France  and  from 
Maximilian  the  emperor. 

Once  more,  therefore,  do  we  find  this  phantom  of  the  historic  scene  assuming  the 
semblance  of  royalty,  and  moving  about  among  kings  and  princes  as  their  acknowledged 
equal.  Having  been  announced  by  the  duchess  to  James  as  "the  prince  of  England," 
that  monarch  received  him  with  royal  honours,  at  the  palace  of  Stirling,  addressing  him 
publicly  as  "  cousin."  Whether  James  really  believed  in  Warbock's  story,  it  is  not  easy 
to  discover.  But  that,  early  in  the  course  of  the  plot,  he  had  been  engaged  in  secret 
correspondence  with  the  duchess  of  Burgundy,  and  made  himself,  on  one  occasion,  the 
medium  of  communication  between  her  and  Ireland,  appears  curiously  from  the  Scottish 
records.^  Whatever  his  secret  opinion  or  knowledge  on  the  subject  may  have  been,  his 
whole  conduct  implied  a  belief  in  the  truth  of  Warbeck's  claims;  and  he  now  did  not  he- 
sitate to  bestow  on  him  the  hand  of  the  fair  Catherine  Gordon,  a  lady  of  remarkable 
beauty,  the  daughter  of  the  earl  of  Huntley,  and  orand-daughter  of  James  I. 

About  this  time,  Hugh  O'Donnell,  the  chief  of  Tyrconnel,  returned  from  a  visit  to  the 
Scottish  court,  whither  he  had  gone,  it  is  supposed,  to  consult  with  king  James  on  mat- 
ters relating  to  the  cause  and  fortunes  of  Perkin  Warbeck.  But,  out  of  the  precincts  of 
the  English  Pale,  little  interest  appears  to  have  been  taken  in  this  adventurer;  and  it  is 
far  more  probable  that  the  object  of  O'Donnell's  visit  to  Scotland,  where  he  was  received 
by  the  king  with  all  due  honour  and  state,^  was  to  ask  for  aid  for  himself  in  the  warfare 

*  The  war-cry  of  the  Butlers  was  Bviler-ahoe,  meaning,  according  to  Ware,  tlie  cause  of  the  Butlers.  The 
earl  of  Kildare's  cry  was,  Crom-ahoe, — from  a  small  castle,  says  the  same  authority,  called  Crom,  belonging  to 
that  family.     See.  for  the  cries  of  the  other  great  lords  and  chiefs.  Ware,  jjntiq.  chap  ^l. 

t  This  second  visit  of  the  impostor,  by  order  of  Margaret,  to  Ireland,  is  thus  quaintly  recorded  liy  Bernard 
Andreas,  the  poet  laureate  and  historiosrapher  of  Flenry  VII.: — "  Innone  ilium  revocante,  in  Flandriam 
profectus  est.  Post  in  Hyberniam  coronationis  gratia  prospero  vento  dcl.ntus.  magnam  barbarorum  illius 
insuls  partem  suis  callidissimis  subornavit  tractationibus." — Cited  by  Ellis,  from  a  MS.  in  the  British 
Museum. 

t  It  is  generally  believed,  that  Warbeck's  connexion  with  Jamrs  commenced  shortly  before  bis  arrival  at 
this  time  in  Sco'land  ;  but  Mr.  Tytler,  in  his  able  and  valuable  work  [History  of  Scotland,  vol  iv  chap.  3  ) 
has  shown  that  this  monarch  had  Ions  Field  secret  communication  both  with  the  duchess  of  Burgundy  and  witJi 
W^arheck,  and,  in  more  than  one  instance,  had  been  made  the  uifiliuui  of  their  correspondence  with  Ireland. 
So  early  as  the  year  1491,  the  following  entry,  it  appears,  is  found  in  the  Treasurer's  Books : — "  Given,  at 
the  king's  command,  to  an  Englishman  called  Edward  Ormond,  that  brought  letters  forth  of  Ireland  franking 
Edward's  son,  and  the  earl  of  Desmond,  i.x  lb." 

§  "  Ho  was  received  by  the  king,"  says  Tyller,  "with  great  state  and  distinction," — in  proof  of  which  the 
following  items  from  the  Treasurer's  Accounts  are  given. — •'  Item,  passing  with  letters  in  the  east  and  south- 
landis,  for  the  receiving  of  great  Odonnel,  x  shillings.  Item,  to  master  Ale.xr  Schawe's  expenses,  passing  from 
the  town  of  .■\ir  to  Edinburgh,  for  the  cupboard,  and  remaining  there  upon  the  king's  clothing,  to  the  re- 
ceiving of  Odonnel,  xx  shillings." 


396  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

he  was  then  engaged  in  with  a  brother  chieftain,  O'Connor  of  Connaught.  On  his  re- 
turn, a  great  battle  was  fought  between  them,  in  which  O'Donnell  was  the  victor;  and, 
immediately  after,  he  laid  siege  to  the  castle  of  Sligo.  But,  on  the  arrival  of  Ulick 
Burke,  lord  of  Cianricarde,  with  a  large  army,  O'Donnell  hastily  withdrew. 

In  consequence  of  his  having  been  attainted  by  Poynings'  parliament,  the  earl  of  Kil- 

dare  had  been  sent  in  custody  to  England,  where  he  still  remained  a  prisoner ;  and  so 

deeply  did  his  lady,  the  countess,  feel  this  event,  that  it  was  the  cause,  we  are  told,  of 

her  death.     One  of  the  charges  urged  against  him  was,  that  he  had  sacrilegiously 

f^Qfi  ^"'""''  down  the  church  of  Cashel;  and  the  success  of  the  defence  made  by  him, 

■  when  examined,  respecting  this  outrage,  in  the  royal  presence,  shows,  if  true,  that 

the  monarch's  relish  for  Irish  simplicity  and  humour  was  somewhat  more  awake  than  his 

sense  of  dignity  or  of  justice.     Confessing  the  fact  of  his  having  burned  down  the  church, 

Kildare  pleaded,  as  his  excuse,  that  "  he  thought  the  archbishop  was  in  it;"  which,  being 

said  with  an  odd  bluntness  peculiar  to  this  lord,  had  the  effect  of  at  once  amusing  and 

prepossessing  the  king  in  his  favour; — such  natural  frankness  appearing  incompatible  with 

the  finesse  and  intrigue  attributed  to  Kildare. 

Henry  had  advised  him,  on  the  first  hearing  of  his  case,  to  provide  himself  with  good 
counsel,  adding,  that  his  cause,  he  feared,  would  require  it.  "  I  will  then  choose,"  said 
the  earl,  "the  best  counsel  in  England."  "And  who  is  that?"  asked  Henry.  "  Marry, 
the  king  himself,"  replied  Kildare.  "  Whereat,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  the  king  laughed." 
So  much,  however,  did  all  this  simplicity  of  manner  win  upon  the  royal  mind,  that,  when 
the  counsel  against  Kildare,  in  concluding  his  ciiarge,  said  vehemently,  that  "not  all 
Ireland  could  govern  this  man,"  the  king  replied,  "Then  is  he  the  fittest  man  to  govern 
all  Ireland." 

The  earl's  cause  accordingly  triumphed ;  the  chief  O'llanlon,  with  whom  it  was  as- 
serted he  had  conspired  against  the  lord  deputy,  came  forward  to  clear  him  upon  oath; 
and  he  was  not  only  restored  by  the  king  to  honour  and  estate,  but,  by  letters  patent,  of  the 
6th  of  August  this  year,  made  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland.  The  king  thought  it  prudent 
to  retain,  as  a  hostage  for  Kildare's  fidelity,  his  eldest  son,  Gerald.  But  whatever  sus- 
picion had  hitherto  fallen  on  this  lord's  loyalty,  no  such  reproach  appears  to  have  attended 
him  during  the  remainder  of  his  long  career ;  nor  could  he,  at  all  events,  be  charged  as 
deficient  in  that  most  essential  evidence  of  loyalty — incessant  warfare  against  the  Irish. 
He  had  but  a  short  time,  indeed,  received  the  sword  from  his  predecessor,  when  he  set 
out  on  an  expedition  against  O'Brian  of  Thomond,  and  took  by  assault  the  castle  of 
Feyback,  belonging  to  Finnin  Mac  Namara.  He  afterwards  stormed  and  destroyed  the 
castle  of  Ballynetty,  as  well  as  some  other  fortified  places,  and  returned  in  triumph  to 
Dublin. 

The  flattering  prospects  opened  to  Warbeck  by  the  zealous  part  the  Scottish  monarch 
had  taken  in  his  behalf  having  now  entirely  vanished,  the  unfortunate  adventurer,  whom 
James  to  the  last  had  continued  to  treat  with  all  the  respect  due  to  his  assumed  rank, 
resolved  to  try  once  more  his  fortune  in  Ireland ;  and  a  vessel  and  a  guard  of  thirty  horse 
having  been  provided  for  him  by  his  generous  protector,  he  sailed,  accompanied  by  his 
beautiful  consort,  for  Cork.     There  he  was  joined,  soon  after  his  landing,  by  the 
■t\qj  earl  of  Desmond,  with  a  force  of  2400  men ;  and,  as  Waterford  was  then  the 
*  stronghold  of  loyalty,  they  marched  directly  against  that  city,  and  prepared  to  in- 
vest it.     A  fleet,  at  tiie  same  time,  was  ordered  to  Passage,  consisting  of  eleven  ships, 
to  make  an  attack  from  the  river,  and  also  to  land  an  additional  body  of  troops. 

For  eleven  days,  the  besieged  citizens  continued  to  defend  themselves  with  unflinch- 
ing spirit;  and,  at  length,  becoming  in  their  turn  assailants,  they  attacked  the  enemy  in 
their  own  quarters,  till  they  compelled  them  to  raise  the  siege.  Having  taken,  in  one  of 
their  sallies,  a  considerable  number  of  prisoner?,  they  carried  them  all  to  the  market-place, 
and  cutting  off"  their  heads,  left  them  stuck  on  high  stakes,  as  memorials  of  their  victory. 
On  another  occasion,  the  cannon  planted  on  Reginald's  Tower,  having  battered  in  the 
side  of  one  of  the  enemy's  ships,  the  whole  of  the  crew,  we  are  told,  perished.*  Discou- 
raged by  all  these  losses,  Desmond  found  himself  compelled  to  raise  the  siege;  while 

*  Leland.  Lodge.  Sm\lh  (MUlural  mid  Civil  History  of  IVaterfurd,  p  12-1.)  Tuckey  (Cork  Remembrancer, 
adaiin.  1497.) 

In  deference  to  these  and  oilier  Irish  authorities,  tlie  above  particulars  of  this  alleged  siege  are  given.  But 
a  letter  addressed,  this  year,  by  the  king  him.self.  to  sir  Gilbert  Talbot,  contains  a  statement  so  wholly  at  va- 
Tiance  with  the  received  account  of  Desmond's  proceedings,  a*  to  bring  into  suspicion  not  merely  the  details, 
but  the  fact  itself  of  this  siege  of  Waterford,  having  ever  occurred.  Henry  thus  writes;— "Trusty  and  well 
beloved,  we  grete  you  wele,  signifying  unto  you  that  vvlver  as  Perkin  VVarbek  and  his  wif  were  lately  sette 
ful  porely  to  the  see  by  the  king  of  Scottes,  and  aftre  that  landed  within  our  land  of  Irland  in  the  wylde 
Irissherie,  where  he  had  he  taken  by  our  cousins  Th'  eris  of  Kildare  and  Desmond,  if  he  and  his  said  wif  had 
not  secretly  stolen  &\\ay."—EHii'  Original  Lct'.crs. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  397 

Warbeck,  embarking  at  Passage,  made  liis  way  back  to  Cork,  and  from  thence  sailed  to 
Cornwall,  being  closely  pursued  by  four  ships  that  had  been  sent  from  Waterford  to  ap- 
prehend him. 

The  only  farther  connexion  with  Ireland  that  remains  to  be  noticed  in  this  adventurer's 
fate,  was  the  closing  scene  of  his  strange  life,  which  took  place  in  the  year  1499;  when, 
having  been  condemned  as  guilty  of  treason,  he  was  executed  at  Tyburn,  and,  with  him, 
suffered  the  first  who  espoused  his  adventurous  cause,  John  Waters,  mayor  of  Cork. 
His  other  Irish  abettor,  the  earl  of  Desmond,  was  far  more  fortunate  in  his  fate.  Notwith- 
standing the  overt  and  daring  part  he  had  taken  in  this  youth's  behalf,  the  king,  with 
that  clemency  which,  throughout  his  reign,  he  had  so  many  opportunities  of  evincing, 
freely  pardoned  him  all  his  offences,  and  even  received  him  into  favour. 

The  petty  warfare  in  which  Kildare  became  now  involved  with  some  of  the  northern 
chiefs,  and  which  raged  at  intervals  through  the  following  two  or  three  years,  partook  too 
much  of  the  claimish  character  of  the  feuds  of  the  Irish  themselves,  to  be  narrated  at  any 
length  as  matter  of  history.     In  consequence  of  the  unnatural  murder  of  Con  O'Neill,  by  his 
brother  Henry,  some  years  back,  the  territory  of  Tyrone  had  been  divided  between  Henry 
and  Daniel  O'Neill ;  and,  in  the  present  year,  Henry  himself  was  barbarously  assas- 
sinated by  Tirlogh  and  Con,  the  sons  of  his  murdered  brother.   This  act  produced  a  i^qq 
fresh  explosion  of  violence  among  the  whole  family;  and  Kildare,  in  abetting  Tir- 
logh, was  actuated,  doubtless,  by  feelings  of  relationship  no  less  than  by  policy,  as  Tir- 
logh was  his  own  nephew.   Being  now  joined  byO'Donnell,  Mac  Guire,  and  other  friends  of 
his  kinsman,  he  laid  siege  to  Dungannon,  the  chief  seat  of  the  O'Neills,  and  taking  the 
castles,  both  of  that  town  and  of  Omagh,  compelled  Neal  Mac  Art  O'Neill,  the  opponent 
of  his  nephew,  to  submit  and  give  hostages.     Shortly  after  his  return   from  this  expedi- 
tion, the  earl   marched  to  Cork,  and  placing  there  a  strong  garrison,  exacted  similar 
terms  of  submission  from  that  city  and  from  Kinsale. 

In  like  manner,  through  the  following  two  or  three  years,  we  find  this  indefatigable 
veteran  carrying  triumphantly,  through  different  parts  of  the  kingdom,  the  terror 
of  the  English  name  and  arms.     In  the  course  of  an  expedition  into  Connaught,  i^qq' 
he  took  and  garrisoned  the  castles  of  Athleague,  Roscommon,  Tulsk,  and  Castle- 
reagh,  and  again  marching  into  Ulster,  at  the  instance  probably  of  his  nephew,  seized 
the  castle  of  Kinard,  and  made  Tirlogh  governor  of  it. 

But  all  this  active  course  of  aggression  could  not  fail,  in  the  end,  to  awaken  a  propor- 
tionate spirit  of  resistance;  and  the  native  chiefs,  finding  how  unable  they  were  to  cope 
separately  with  Kildare,  resolved  to  try,  at  last,  the  experiment  of  confederating  among 
themselves.  Ulick  Burke,  lord  of  Clanricarde,  called  commonly  Mac  William, — the 
head  of  a  powerful  sept  of  "degenerate  English," — was  the  principal  leader  of  this  league, 
in  which  were  joined  also  O'Brian,  of  Thomond,  Mac  Namara,  Melrony  O'Carrol,  and 
other  chieftains;  forming,  with  their  united  forces,  as  it  is  said,  the  most  powerful  native 
army  that  had  been  seen  in  Ireland  since  the  conquest. 

Duly  sensible  of  the  responsibility  which  this  unusual  effort  of  the  Irish  imposed  upon 
him,  Kildare  collected  together  all  the  forces  he  was  able  to  muster;  and  being  accom- 
panied by  all  the  great  Anglo-Irish  lords,  as  well  as  by  the  mayor  of  Dublin,  with  a  band 
of  armed  men,  the  bishop  of  Ardah,  and  one  or  two  native  chiefs,  he  advanced  the 
royal  standard  against  the  rebels.     At  the  hill  of  Knoc-tuadh,*  about  seven  miles  ^rr!^ 
from  Galway,  the  two  armies  encountered;  and  after  an   obstinate  conflict,  the 
result  of  which  was  for  some  time  doubtful,  the  victory  fell  to  the  earl  of  Kildare,  and  the 
Irish  were  defeated  and  routed  with  great  slaughter;  their  loss  being  variously  estimated 
at  two,  four,  and  even  nine  thousand  men;  while,  by  a  sort  of  miracle,  it  is  said,  not  a 
single  Englishman  in  Kildare's  army  was  even  hurt.     Among  the  prisoners  were  the 
two  sons  of  Ulick  of  Clanricarde ;  and  the  towns  of  Galway  and  Athenry  surrendered  to 
the  victor.f 

It  would  appear,  from  some  Irish  annals  of  this  period,  that  in  private  pique  and  family 
differences,  between  Kildare  and  the  lord  of  Clanricarde,  lay  the  real  source  of  the  hos- 
tility that  led  to  this  sanguinary  battle.  But,  whatever  may  have  originally  provoked 
the  warfare,  its  triumphant  result  was  of  the  utmost  consequence  to  the  interests  of  the 
crown  and  of  the  English  colony;  as  the  power  of  the  natives  to  combine  successfully 
against  their  oppressors  had  now,  to  a  certain  extent,  been  tried,  and  had  utterly  failed; 

*  Meaning,  "the  Mount  of  Axes." 

t  Of  this  battle  sir  John  Davies  says,  "  Though  the  lords  and  gentlemen  of  the  Pale  joined  in  the  famous 
battle  of  Knocktow,  in  Connaught,  wherein  Mac  William,  with  4000  of  the  Irish  were  slain,  yet  was  not 
this  journey  made  by  warrant  from  the  king,  or  upon  his  charge  (as  it  is  expressed  in  the  Book  of  Howth) 
but  only  upon  a  private  quarrel  of  the  earl  of  Kildare;  so  loosely  were  the  martial  aftairs  of  Ireland  carried, 
during  the  reiga  of  king  Henry  the  seventh. 


398  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

and  the  natural  consequence  was,  an  increased  confidence  in  their  own  strength,  on  the 

part  of  the  settlers,  with  a  proportionate  decline  in  the  spirit  and  self-reliance  of  the  Irish. 

So  pleased  was  the  king  with  his  deputy's  services  on  this  occasion,  that,  on  receiving 

the  account  of  the  victory,  he  created  him  a  knight  of  the  garter. 

During  the  remainder  of  this  monarch's  reign,  there  occurred  no  event  of  any  great 

interest  or  importance ;  except  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  suspicion  attached  occa- 

*•  ^"  sionally  to  Kildare,  we  find  him  in  tiie  last  year  of  this  reign,  at  the  head  of  the 

i^^-  government,  as  he  had  been  in  the  first. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 


HENRY    VIII. 


Earl  of  Kildare  conliiiued  chief  governor — his  death — is  succeeded  by  his  son  Gerald. — Mili- 
tary exploits  of  tliis  earl — is  summoned  to  England  on  charges  of  maladministration. — Earl 
of  Surrey  lord  lieutenant. — Secret  designs  against  Kildare — his  reception  in  England. — 
Violent  proceedings  of  Desmond — feud  between  him  and  the  carl  of  Ormond. — Judicious 
policy  of  Surrey — his  views  seconded  by  the  king — despairs  of  the  conquest  of  Ireland. — 
Ormond  appointed  lord  depulj' — is  supplanted  by  Kildare. — Treasonable  practices  of  Des- 
mond.— Kildare  again  summoned  to  England — is  committed  to  the  Tower, — Ormond  dis- 
possessed of  his  title,  and  created  earl  of  Ossory. — Lord  Delvin  the  new  lord  deputy — is 
treacherously  seized  and  kept  prisoner  by  O'Connor. — Surrey's  opinions  respecting  Ireland. 
— Popularity  and  triumph  of  Kildare — is  sent  as  adviser  to  the  new  lord  deputy,  Skeffing- 
ton — supplants  him,  and  resumes  the  government. — Combination  against  him — is  again 
summoned  to  England — commits  the  government  to  his  son  lord  Thomas. — Official  reports 
on  the  state  of  Ireland. — Rebellion  of  lord  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald. — Dublin  castle  besieged. — 
Barbarous  murder  of  archbishop  Allen. — Lord  Thomas  invades  the  territory  of  the  earl  of 
Ossory — enters  into  a  truce  with  the  citizens  of  Dublin — is  excommunicated. — Death  of 
Kildare  in  the  Tower. — Warfare  througliout  Ireland. — Lord  Thomas  negotiates  for  aid 
from  foreign  powers. — Siege  of  Maynooth  by  the  lord  deputy. — Surrender  of  the  castle. — 
Lord  Thomas  takes  refuge  with  O'Brian. — Threatened  invasion  of  the  Pale. — Active  services 
of  Ossory  and  his  son. — 'Loyal  conduct  of  the  northern  chiefs. — Inefficiency  of  the  lord  de- 
puty.— Family  feuds  among  the  natives.— Collusive  character  of  the  warfare  on  both  sides. 
— Waste  and  ruin  of  the  country. — Arrival  of  lord  Leonard  Gray. — Submission  of  O'Con- 
nor.— Lord  Thomas  surrenders  in  hope  of  pardon — is  conveyed  prisoner  to  England. — Lord 
Leonard  appointed  lord  deputy. — Destruction  of  O'Brian's  bridge. — Lord  Thomas  and  his 
five  uncles  executed  together  at  Tyburn. — Expedition  of  the  lord  deputy  in  OfFaley. — Ex- 
pulsion from  tiience  of  O'Connor. — That  territory  bestowed  on  the  chief's  brother  Cahir. — 
Subsequent  conduct  of  the  brothers. — Singular  parley  between  the  lord  deputy  and  O'Con- 
nor.— Young  Gerald  Fitz  Gerald,  the  younger  brother  of  lord  Thomas — his  journey  with 
his  mother,  lady  Eleanor,  to  O'Donnell's  country — league  in  his  behalf  among  the  northern 
chiefs — his  cause  espoused  by  the  earl  of  Desmond. — Marriage  of  lady  Eleanor  to  O'Don- 
nell. — Religious  differences  beginning  to  mix  with  Irish  strife. — Fears  of  concert  between 
the  chiefs  and  the  Scottish  monarch. — Formidable  league  between  O'Brian  and  Desmond. 
— Expedition  of  the  lord  deputy  into  Munster. — Geraldine  lords  compelled  to  proffer  alle- 
giance.— Desmond  defies  the  lord  deputy's  power. — Escape  of  Young  Gerald  into  France — 
his  subsequent  adventures. 


During  the  first  years  of  the  reign  of  this  prince,  the  affairs  of  Ireland  attracted  but 
^   ^    littleof  his  attention  or  interest.     Theearlof  Kildare  was  still  retained  at  the  head 
1509   °^^'^°  government;  and  all  the  other  public  functionaries  were  left  undisturbed  in 
their  several  offices.  The  veteran  lord  justice,  during  the  few  remaining  years  of  his 
life,  continued  to  be  engaged  in  constant  warfare  with  the  natives;  and,  invading  succes- 
sively Munster  and   Ulster,  obtained,  in   both  provinces,  his  usual  meed   of  success; 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  399 

though  opposed  vigorously,  in  Munster,  by  a  large  confederate  force,  under  the  joint 
command  of  James,  eldest  son  of  the  earl  of  Desmond,  Tirlogh  O'Brian,  lord  of  Thomond, 
and  Mac  William,  a  chief  of  the  sept  of  tiie  Burkes. 

But  the  termination  of  this  remarkable  man's  career  was  now  at  hand.     Resolving  to 
invade  Ely  O'Carrol,  the  country  of  the  chieftains  of  Ely,  he  marched,  at  the 
head  of  a  large  army,  towards  that  territory;  but,  being  taken  ill  on  his  way,  at  -ici.!* 
Athy,  he  was  from  thence  removed  to  Kildare,  where,  in  the  month  of  Septem- 
ber, 1.513,  he  died,  and  was  buried  in  St.  Mary's  chapel,  in  the  choir  of  Christ  Church, 
Dublin.*     On  the  earl's  decease,  the  council  nominated  his  son  Gerald  lord  justice,  and 
the  king  afterwards  made  him,  by  patent,  lord  deputy. 

Inheriting  much  of  the  vigour  and  daring  of  the  late  lord,  Gerald  lost  no  time  in  following 
his  example;  and,  beginning  wilhO'Moore,  of  Ley,  who  had  bid  defiance  to  his  authority, 
invaded  that  chieftain's  territory,  and  drove  him  into  his  woods.   He  then  attacked 
the   country  of  Hugh   O'Reilly,  stormed  and  rased  the  castle   of  Cavan,  and,  -iciV 
having  slain  O'Reilly  himself,  and  many  of  his  followers,  chased  the  rest  into  their 
inaccessible  fastnesses,  and   burned  and  ravaged  their  country.     The  various  achieve- 
ments of  this  kind  performed    by  the  new  lord  deputy,  in  the  course  of  the  following 
three  or  four  years,  being  wholly  devoid  of  any  of  those  associations  or   incidents   that 
awaken  historical  interest,  cannot  be  too  succinctly  related.     In  the  course    of 
an  inroad  into  Imaly,  in  the  county  of  Wicklow,  he  slew  Shane  O'Toole,  a  chief-  leip 
tain  of  that  mountainous  district,  and  sent  his  head  to  the  mayor  of  Dublin.     Ad- 
vancing his  standard  then    into   Ely    O'Carrol,  he  was  joined  in   his  invasion  of  that 
territory  by  several  noblemen  of  Munster  and  Leinster,  of  English  extraction,  among 
whom  were  Piers  Butler,  earl  of  Ormond,  and  James,  the  eldest  son  of  the  earl  of  Des- 
mond.    Assisted  by  the  forces  of  these  lords,  he  laid    siege  to  the  castle  of  Limevan, 
which,  after  being  defended  for  the  space  of  a  week,  was  deserted  by  the  garrison,  and, 
shortly  after,  demolished  by  Kildare.     Thus  successful,  he  pushed  on  rapidly  to  Clonmel, 
the  inhabitants  of  which,  being  taken  by  surprise,  immediately  surrendered  to  him    the 
town ;  and  he  returned  from  his  rapid  expedition  loaded  with  trophies  and  spoil. f 

A  similar  course  of  success  attended  his  arms  the  following  year  in   Ulster,  when, 
marching  into  Locale,  he  took   by  storm  the  fortified  castle  of  Dundrum,  from 
whence  the  English  had   been  expelled   by  the  natives;  and  then,  attacking  Phe-  -I'^^j 
lim   Macgenis,   obtained  an   easy   victory  over  him,   making   the  chief  himself 
prisoner,  and  putting  to  death  a  number  of  his  followers.     From  thence,  continuing  his 
course  into  Tyrone,  he  took  and  burnt  the  castle  of  Dungannon,  and  spread  the  horrors 
of  fire  and  war  through  the  wiiole  of  that  territory.! 

The  little  attention  paid  to  Ireland  during  the  first  years  of  Henry's  reign,  left  to  a 
bold  and  self-willed  ruler  like  Kildare  so  wide  a  range  of  power,  and,  still  worse,  of  ex- 
emption from  responsibility,  as  could  not  fail  to  be  grossly  presumed  upon  and  abused. 
Of  the  great  lords  of  the  Pale  in  general,  we  have  more  than  once  had  occasion  to  ob- 
serve, that,  while  so  unmanageable  as  subjects,  they  were  no  less  rash  and  oppressive  as 
rulers;  nor  do  the  instances  of  earl  Gerald  and  his  warlike  father  form  any  exception  to 
this  general  remark, — brute  force  being  the  sole  instrument  of  their  policy,  and  con- 
quest, not  pacification,  their  leading  object.  The  very  qualities,  indeed,  that  rendered 
them  popular  among  the  natives,  were  such  as  unfitted  them  to  be  useful  or  civilizing 
leaders.  Tliey  were  loved  for  their  leaning  to  the  old  lawless  customs  of  the  land  ;  and 
having,  by  marriage,  become  connected  with  some  of  the  principal  Irish  lords,  were 
regarded,  in  general,  rather  as  chiets  of  a  great  leading  sept,  than  as  acknowledged 
rulers  of  the  whole  kingdom. 

Another  evil  attending  the  position  of  an  Anglo-Irish  chief  governer  was,  the  jealousy 
naturally  felt  of  his  great  influence  over  his  fellow-countrymen,  by  those  functionaries 
of  English  birth  who  found  their  own  authority  cast   into  the  shade,  and  by  a  power  the 
most  offensive  to  their  prejudices  and  pride.     Some  secret  schemes,  arising  out  of  such 
feelings,  had  been  found  by  Kildare,  in  the  year  1518,  to  be  actively  at  work  for 
his  ruin;  but,  by  a   prompt  and  bold  vindication  of  himself  to  the  king,  he  sue-  -t^iq 
ceeded,  for  a  time,  in  baffling  the  design.     In  the  following  year,  however,  his  ad- 
versaries, re-enforced  by  the  aid  of  VVolsey,  who  had  now  reached  the  full  meridian  of 
his  unparalleled  power,  returned  openly  to  the  attack,  and  so  far  succeeded  in  their  hos- 

*  Lodge,— who  says,  his  death  was  caused  •'  by  a  shot  he  had  received  a  little  before,  from  the  O'Moores 
of  Leix." 
t  Cox.    Ware's  Annals.  |  Cox.    Ware's  Annals, 


400  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

tile  purpose,  as  to  cause  Kildare  to  be  summoned  to  England  to  answer  charges  against 
him  for  maladministration.*  Appointing,  by  the  royal  permission,  a  knight  belonging  to 
his  own  family,  sir  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald,  of  Laccagh,  to  act  as  deputy  during  his  absence, 
the  earl  hastened  over  to  England,  with  the  view  of  clearing  himself  from  the  serious 
charges  alleged  against  him.f 

In  the  mean  time,  attention  had  been  drawn,  though  as  usual,  reluctantly,  to  the  con- 
dition of  Ireland  ;  and,  by  Wolsey's  advice,  who  deemed  it  most  politic  to  appoint  to  the 
government  of  that  kingdom  some  English  nobleman  wholly  unconnected  with  any  of 
its  parties  or  factions,  Thomas  Howard,  earl  of  Surrey,  the  son  of  the  lord  who  won 
the  great  victory  of  Flodden  FieldJ,  was  sent  thither  as  lord  lieutenant,  taking 
1520*  ^^'"^^  ^''^'^  °"'^  ^^^  '^^  ^^^  king's  guard,  and  1000  horse  and  foot.  In  appointing 
Surrey  to  this  office,  the  cardinal  is  supposed  to  have  accomplished  the  double 
object,  both  of  mortifying  the  man  he  hated,  by  depriving  Kildare  of  his  government, 
and  removing  a  rival  he  dreaded,  by  sending  Surrey  to  fill  his  place. 

One  of  the  first  tasks  to  which  the  new  lord  lieutenant  applied  himself  was  that  of 
endeavouring  to  collect  from  the  servants  and  Irish  followers  of  Kildare  such  loose  accu- 
sations against  him,  such  half  truths  mixed  with  fiction,  as  might  when  artfully  put 
together  assume  the  semblance  of  proof.  A  letter  alleged  to  have  been  addressed  by 
him  to  O'Carrol,  one  of  the  bravest  and  most  refractory  of  the  Irish  chiefs,  was,  in  par- 
ticular, the  object  of  the  lieutenant's  inquiry;  as  in  that  letter,  according  to  the  account 
he  had  received  of  it,  the  earl  had  said  to  his  correspondent,  "  Keep  good  peace  to  the 
Englishmen  in  Ireland  until  an  English  deputy  come  there.  But  wiien  any  English 
deputy  shall  come  thither,  then  do  your  best  to  make  war  upon  the  English. "J 

To  bring  home  to  Kildare  by  any  evidence,  however  procured,  the  charge  of  having 
written  such  a  letter,  no  pains  were  spared  on  either  side  of  the  channel;  and  even  Sur- 
rey gave  in  so  far  to  the  cruel  and  treacherous  policy  by  which  the  counsels  of  his  royal 
master  were  too  often  marked,  as  to  suggest  that  the  earl's  secretary,  William  Delahide, 
the  person  in  whom  he  most  confided,  should  be  sent  to  the  Tower,  and  there  tortured, 
to  force  him  to  give  evidence  respecting  this  letter.]} 

While,  in  Ireland,  these  schemes  for  his  ruin  were  secretly  ripening,  Kildare,  uncon- 
scious, apparently,  of  his  danger,  was  waiting,  in  England,  the  decision  of  Wolsey,  to 
whom  the  charges  against  him  had  been  referred  by  the  king:  nor,  in  the  mean  time, 
were  there  any  indications  in  the  manner  of  his  reception  at  the  English  court, — notwith- 
standing the  angry  tone  in  which  Henry  speaks  of  him  in  his  letters  to  Surrey,1[ — from 
which  it  could  be  concluded  that  he  was  at  all  in  disgrace.  On  the  contrary,  at  the  cele- 
brated interview  which  took  place  between  Henry  and  the  French  monarch,  on  the  Field 
of  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  we  find  Kildare  among  the  train  of  distinguished  noblemen  who  com- 
posed, on  that  occasion,  the  splendid  retinue  of  the  English  king.  He  was  also  paying, 
at  this  time,  his  addresses  to  the  lady  Elizabeth  Gray,  daughter  of  the  Marquis  of  Dorset, 
to  whom  he  was  afterwards  married  ;  and  Surrey  adverts,  in  one  of  his  letters,  to  the  ru- 
mour current  in  Ireland  of  a  projected  marriage  between  Kildare  and  "a  kinswoman  of 
the  king,"  as  well  as  to  the  alarm  felt  amongst  the  English  lest  he  should  be  again  sent  to 
assume  the  government.** 

The  spirit  of  the  natives  had  been,  in  the  mean  time,  kept  in  check  by  the  earl  of  Sur- 
rey; and  the  only  chieftain  of  any  great  mark  who  had  resisted  his  authority,  was  Con 
O'Neill,  lord  of  Tyrone.  The  lord  lieutenant,  however,  compelled  this  chief  to  take 
refuse  in  his  fastnesses,  and  at  length  reduced  him  to  obedience. 

With  that  reckless  defiance  of  all  laws,  save  those  of  their  own  fierce  will,  which  so 
•  much  characterized  the  noble  house  of  Desmond,  the  present  earl  of  this  title  had,  not 
only  without  the  leave  of  the  lord  lieutenant,  but  in  direct  opposition  to  his  orders,  invaded 


*  In  a  letter  (a.  d  1520)  from  the  king  to  the  lord  lieutenant  and  council,  frequent  reference  is  made  to  the 
charges  against  Kildare: — "  rihewiug  fartliermore  suche  conspiracye,  as  by  meanes  of  the  erie  of  Kildare  his  ser- 
vauntes,  is  daylie  there  made  with  the  Irislie  rebelles  ayeinst  you." — "  As  touching  the  sedicious  practices, 
conspiracies,  and  subtill  drifles  of  the  erIe  of  Kildare,  his  servauntes,  ayders  and  assisters." — State  Pa- 
pers., II. 

I  Ware's  .Annals. 

j  Pedigree  of  Howard.— See  Hist,  and  anliq.  of  the  Castle,  and  Town  of  .Arundel,  by  the  Rev.  M.  A.  Tierney. 
Dr.  Lingard,  by  a  slight  oversight,  makes  the  hero  of  Flodden  and  tiie  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland  the  same 
person. 

§  "  Except "  he  adds,  "  such  as  bee  towardes  me,  whom  ye  know  wele  your  silf " 

II  Surrey  to  Wolsey,  S.  P.  VII. 

IT  "  As  touching  the  sedicious  practices,  conspiracies,  and  subtill  driftes  of  the  erle  of  Kildare,  his  ser- 
vauntes, ayders,  and  assisters. "—Henry  VIII.  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  and  Council  of  Ireland,  S.  P.  II. 
**  State  Papers,  VII. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  401 

the  territories  of  Cormac  Oge  and  Mac  Arthy  Reagh,  two  Irish  lords  of  great  power,* 
These  chiefs,  however,  having  formed  a  league  with  sir  Thomas  Desmond,  the  deadly  foe 
of  the  earl,  advanced  to  meet  tlie  aorgressurs,  and  a  conflict  ensued,  in  which  Cormac's 
party  were  completely  victorious.  The  carl's  kinsman,  sir  John  Fitz  Gerald,  was  slain 
on  the  field,  and  sir  John  of  Desmond,  and  others  of  the  Geraldines,  wounded  and  made 
prisoners;  while  the  loss  of  troops  on  their  side,  is  calculated  at  eighteen  banners  of  gal- 
Joglasscs,  and  twenty-four  banners  of  horsemen. f 

This  Big[ial  defeat  of  the  earl  of  Desmond,  however  well  merited,  was  regarded  by 
Surrey  as  fraught  with  mischief  to  the  English  ;  for,  as  the  victorious  party  were  mostly 
natives,  this  brilliant  success,  he  feared,  would  lead  them  and  others  of  their  fellow  coun- 
trymen to  feel  more  confidence  in  their  own  prowess,  and  rate  less  highly  the  strength 
and  spirit  of  the  English.  There  was  also  reason,  he  thought,  to  apprehend  that  Desmond, 
with  a  view  to  repair  his  disaster,  would  seek  alliance  with  some  of  the  more  powerful 
Irish  captains,  and,  by  the  sacrifice  of  a  part  of  his  possessions,  secure  the  means  of  ob- 
taining revenge. 

Between  tiiis  lord  and  the  earl  of  Ormond  there  iiad  prevailed,  for  some  time,  dissen- 
sions, in  which  the  old  fend  of  their  families,  during  the  wars  of  the  two  Roses,  was,  in 
another  shape,  revived;  the  earl  of  Ormond  being  a  staunch  friend  to  the  English  inte- 
rests, while  Desmond,  from  the  mixed  relationship  in  which  he  stood  to  the  two  races, 
combining  the  aristocracy  of  the  one  with  the  chieltancy  of  the  other,  was  alternately 
trusted  and  suspected  by  both  parties,  and,  according  as  it  chanced,  was  friend  or  traitor 
to  each  in  their  turns.  By  the  judicious  and  amicable  management  of  Surrey,  a  reconci- 
liation was  effected  between  these  two  lords;  and,  at  the  same  time,  Cormac  Oge  and 
Mac  Carlhy  Reagh  bound  themselves  by  pledges  to  keep  peace  towards  the  earl  of  Des- 
mond. In  the  account  which  Surrey  himself  has  given  of  this  transaction,  we  find  the 
following  eulogium  on  these  two  Irish  chiefs: — "They  are  two  wise  men;  and  I  found 
them  more  conformable  to  order  than  some  Englishmen  here."};  In  the  same  discrimi- 
nating spirit  he  suggests  that  power  should  be  delegated  to  him  to  confer  the  order  of 
knighthood  on  such  ot  the  L  ish  captains  as  should  appear  to  him  worthy  of  such  a  distinc- 
tion; and  the  king,  in  adopting  his  suggestion,  thus  creditably  extends  and  improves  upon 
it: — "  We  grant  that  ye  not  only  make  O'Neal  and  such  lords  of  the  Irishrie  as  ye  shall 
think  good,  knights,  but  also  to  give  unto  the  said  O'Neal  a  collar  of  gold  of  our  livery.''^ 

Throughout  the  remaining  period  of  Surrey'sadministration,  so  far  were  the  eflbrts  made 
by  him  for  the  pacification  of  the  kingdom  from  being  attended  with  any  success,  that 
even  the  faint  dawnings  of  order  and  peace,  that  had  seemed  for  a  while  to  arise  from 
the  policy  pursued  by  him,  were  all  again  clouded  and  lost;  and  the  settled  conclusion  to 
which,  as  he  himself  states,  his  personal  knowledge  of  the  country  had  led  him,  was,  that 
by  conquest  alone  could  the  Irish  be  ever  reduced  to  order  or  peace;  and  that  to  conquer 
them  would,  for  reasons  forcibly  stated  by  him,  be  difficult,  if  notvvholly  impossible.|| 
He  was  himself,  indeed,  sufficiently  versed  in  the  warfare  of  the  Irish,  to  enable  him  to 
judge  on  this  point, — having  been  engaged  in  constant  struggles,  during  his  lieutenancy, 
with  the  O'Carrols,  the  O'Moores,  the  O'Connors,  and  the  Connells;  and  in  the  course  of 
a  late  expedition  against  these  chififs,  one  of  the  bravest  of  his  officers,  sir  Edward 
Plunket,  lord  of  Dunsany,  fell  on  the  field.  Having,  for  some  time,  earnestly  en-  ,;.,,* 
treated  of  the  king  to  release  him  from  his  arduous  and  hopeless  charge,  and  being, 
moreover,  seriously  indisposed  with  a  sort  of  dysentery,  then  prevalent  in  Ireland,  Surrey 
was  permitted  to  vacate  his  office,  towards  the  close  of  the  year  1521;  and  sir  Piers  But- 
ler, U  his  intimate  friend  and  adviser,  was  appointed  lord  deputy  in  his  place. 

The  sudden  loss  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Pale,  of  a  leader  so  thoroughly  possessed  of 
their  confidence,  was  felt  the  more  seriously  from  his  likewise  taking  away  with  him  the 
whole  of  the  forces  that  had  accompanied  him  from  England.  At  the  same  time,  the 
Scots  of  the  Isles  continued  to  menace  invasion  :  being  in  league — especially  those  called 

•  State  Papers,  VI  f. 

t  Under  every  banner  of  galloglasses  there  were  generally  eighty  men,  and  from  twenty  to  fifty  under  every 
banner  of  horsemen. 

J  Surrey  tn  VVolsey,  S.  P  XIH.  §  Henry  VUr.  to  Surrey,  S.  P.  XII. 

II  "  It  is  not  to  be  dowled,  that  whensoever  the  Irishmen  shall  know  that  your  grace  entendith  a  conqwest, 
they  woll  all  combyne  to  gyders,  and  withstonde  the  same  to  the  best  off  their  poure."— Surrey  to  Henry  VIII., 
*.  P.  XX. 

IT  Eighth  earl  of  Ormond;  but  described  by  the  king,  in  a  letter  written  about  this  time,  as  "  pretending 
himself  to  be  erie  of  Ormond."  In  consequence  of  the  earnest  wish  of  sir  Thomas  Boleyn  to  possess  the  title 
of  Ormond,  the  king  had  made  instances  to  sir  Piers  Butler  to  surrender  to  Boleyn  that  earldom;  and,  after 
some  hesitation,  Butler  complied  with  the  royal  request,  and,  in  lieu  of  bis  ancient  and  rightful  title,  waa 
created,  in  the  following  year,  earl  of  Ossory. 

50 


402  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

the  Irish  Scots — with  certain  chiefs  of  the  north  of  Ireland;  and  signs  of  disaffection  had 

already  appeared  among  some  of  the  great  native  lords.     In  this  state  of  things, 

^koo  ^^^  council  of  Ireland  addressed  a  petition  to  Wolsey,  praying  that,  as  a  means  of 

awing  both  Scots  and  Irish,  the  king  would  send  five  or  six  of  his  ships  to  scour 

the  seas  between  the  two  countries.* 

The  mutual  hatred  that  had  so  long  subsisted  between   Kildaro  and  Ormond  was  by 
no  means  abated  by  the  marriage  of  the  latter  with  Kildare's  sister,  and  broke  out  with 
refreshed  virulence  on  the  appointment  of  Ormond  to  be  lord  deputy,  when  one  of  the 
first  uses  of  his  acquired  power  was  to  demolish  several  castles  belonging  to  his  adver- 
sary.    With  the  view  of  composing  this  unseemly  strife,  commissioners  were  sent  by 
the  king  from  England,  to  make  inquiry  into  the  grounds  of  their  variance,  to  hear  the 
complaints  and  answers  of  both  parlies,  and  frame  articles  of  peace  upon  which  both 
could  auree.     It  has  been  asserted  of  these  commissioners,  that  they  were  influenced  by 
partial  feelings  towards  Kildare,  having  been  chosen  at  the  instance  of  his  father-in-law, 
the  marquis  of  Dorset.     Wliatever  grounds  there  may  be  for  this  notion,  it  is  certain,  so 
favourable  to  Kildare  was  the  report  of  the  commissioners,  that,  in  a  few  days  after,  the 
earl  of  Ormond  was  removed  from  the  government,  and  his  triumphant  rival  ap- 
l^Qd  pointed  deputy  in  his  stead.     The  only  result,  indeed,   hitherto,  of  all    the  in- 
■  trigues  against  this  extraordinary  man,  had  been  but  to   prove  to  the  court   the 
extent  of  his  power,  and  show  them  how  ill  they  could  do  without  him. 

After  taking  the  oath  customary  on  such  an  appointment,  the  new  lord  deputy,  attended 
by  his  kinsman,  Con  O'Neill,  who  carried  befijre  him  the  sword  of  state,  proceeded  to 
the  abbey  of  St.  Thomas,  and  there  entertained  the  nobles  and  commissioners  at  a 
splendid  banquet.f 

But  this  prosperous  aspect  of  Kildare's  fortunes  was  not  left,  long  undisturbed.  His 
kinsman,  Desmond,  who  was  looking  to  bolder  objects  than  more  party  triumphs,  had,  in 
the  year  1523,  entered  into  a  treaty  with  the  French  king,  who  was  then  contemplating 
an  invasion  of  Ireland. J  By  this  ciimpact  Desmond  bound  himself  to  join  that  monarch's 
army,  on  its  landing,  with  a  fi)rce  of  400  horsemen  and  10,000  infantry  ;  and  never  to 
lay  down  his  arms  until  he  had  conquered  a  portion  of  the  island  for  himself,  and  the 
remainder  for  sir  Richard  de  la  Pole,  wh),  through  his  marriage  with  Margaret,  the 
daughter  of  George,  duke  of  Clarence,  was  representative  of  the  royal  house  of  York. 
But  this  strange  alliance,  which  could  only  have  been  resorted  to  by  Francis,  as  a  means 
of  dividing  and  distracting  the  English  force,  appears  to  have  been  never  again  thought  of 
by  him;  and  Desmond  was  left  to  boar  all  the  approbrium  of  his  treason,  without  reaping 
any  of  its  expected  rewards.  Orders  were  issued  to  the  lord  deputy  to  arrest  him,  and 
Kildare  marched  into  Munster  for  that  purpose.  But,  whether  suspicious  of  some  such 
design,  or  apprised  of  it,  secretly,  as  was  thought,  by  the  deputy  himself,  Desmond  con- 
trived to  elude  pursuit;  nor  could  all  the  efforts  of  James  Butler,  and  the  other  enemies 
of  the  Geraldines,  succeed  in  effecting  his  arrest.  J 

Joining  his  forces  shortly  after  with  those  of  his  kinsman  Con  O'Neill,  Kildare  pro- 
ceeded to  attack  O'Donnell,  the  chief  of  Tyrconnel ;  but  on  learning  that  Hugh  O'Neill, 
the  claimant  against  Con,  had  risen  in  Tyrone,  ihey  concluded  a  truce  with'^O'Donnell, 
and,  turning  their  arms  against  O'Neill,  entirely  defeated  that  chief  and  slew  him. 

Mean  while,  it  was  rumoured  that  the  lord  deputy  had  writtfn  to  invite  his  kinsman 

Desmond  to  a  private  interview,  and  had  also  enoaged  the  O'Byrnes,  a  sept  of  Wicklow, 

in  that   lord's  service.     Every  new  instance  of  Kildare^s  influence  over  the  natives  was 

assumed  by  the  English  as  a  new  ground  for  suspecting  and  persecuting  him;  and  as 

proofs  were  said  to  be  forthcoming  of  his  ditloyal  correspondence  with  Desmond  he  was 

now  summoned  over  to  Eighind  to  answer  an  impeachment  on  ihis  and  other  charges. 

^   The  chief  nccnsalions  against  him  were, — 1.  That  he  had   not  according  to  the 

1526   '^'"S'^  orders  apprehended  the  earl  of  Desmond.     2.  That  he  had  formed  alliance 

■  wiih  several  of  the  king's  Irish  enemies.     3.  That  he  had  caused  certain  loyal 

subjects  to  be  hanged  f  jr  no  other  reason  but  that  they  were  dependants  on  the  family  of 

the  Butlers.     4.  That  he  had  confederated  with  O'Neill,  O'Connor,  and  other  Irish  lords, 

to  invade  the  territories  of  the  earl  of  Ormond,  then  lord  deputy. || 

*  State  Paperti,  XXIX.  |  Ware's  jannaLi. 

t  Francis,  says  Uucliesnc  (Jiist.  d'^ngklerre.)  "  fist  alliance  au  mois  de  Jiiin,  avec  Jacques  conite  de  Des- 
mond, prince  Irlan.lois,  qui  liii  proinil,  entre  autres  choses,  qu'aussi  tost  qu'il  envoyii  des  forces  dedans 
rirlande,  il  guerroieroit  a  personne,  et  asesdespens,  le  roy  Henry,  non  seiilenient  pour  conquerir  en  son  profit 
la  pariie  d'Irlande  qu'il  teiioit,  hiirsniis  I'un  des  pons  el  cliasteaux  de  Quinque  salle.  Kore,  ou  Brudal,  qui 
demeureroit  au  roi  Franfojp,  pour  la  conservation  de  ses  navires,  niais  aussi,"&c.  &.c.  Ttie  castles  whose 
names  arc  here  so  successfully  disftuised  were  those  of  Kinsale,  Cork,  and  Youghall. 

§  Archbishop  Inge  to  Wolsey,  S.  P.  XLIV.  |;  Ware's  Jlnnals. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  403 

From  Wolsey,  who  had  always  been  his  enemy,  no  mercy  could  be  expected  by  Kil- 
dare.  He  was  immedintely  committed  to  the  Tower,  and,  according  to  tome  accounts, 
condemned  to  suffer  death.  But  no  faith  is  to  be  placed  in  this  statement.  Some  form 
of  trial  must  necessarily  have  preceded  his  condemnation  ;  and  of  such  an  event  no  record 
exists.  After  lying,  for  some  time,  in  prison,  he  was  at  length  released  by  the  interposi- 
tion of  Surrey,  now  duke  of  Norfolk,  who,  together  with  the  marquis  of  Dorset,  Kildare'a 
father-in-law,  and  several  other  persons  of  high  station,  became  sureties  for  his  future 
faith  and  allegiance. 

Kildare,  on  departing  for  England,  had  left  as  his  deputy  a  kinsman  of  his  own,  James 
Fitz  Gerald,  of  Leixlip,  who,  bemg  suspected,  however,  of  shaping  his  policy  too  much 
with  a  view  to  his  noble  relative's  interests,  was,  in  a  short  time,  removed  from  the 
government,  and  Richard  Nugent,  baron  of  Delvm,  was  made  lord  deputy  in  his  place. 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  the  absence  in  England  of  thnse  two  great  rivals,  Kil- 
dare and  Ormond — the  latter  of  whom  had  been  lately  deprived  of  this  title  and  created  earl 
ofOssory — would  have  left  to  lord  Delvin  a  comparatively  smooth  and  unembarrassed 
tenure  of  power.  But  such  was  by  no  means  the  case;  for  there  soon  arose  out  of  the 
absence  of  these  two  noblemen  a  greater  danger  than  ever  could  result  from  their  pre- 
sence; as  both  the  Irish  and  English  rebels,  presuming  on  the  want  of  any  stronir  hand 
to  control  them,  were  preparing  on  all  sides  to  rise  in  open  revolt :  and  a  daring  act  com- 
mitted by  O'Connor,  chief  of  Otfaley,  had  set  such  an  example  of  bold  and  lawless  defi- 
ance as  spread  consternation  throughout  the  whole  Pale. 

To  this  O'Connor,  as  well  as  to  the  other  chiefs  bordering  upon  the  Pale,  it  had  long 
been  a  custom  of  the  English  settlers,  as  unwise  as  it  was  degrading,  to  pay  annual  pen- 
sions, or  tributes,  as  a  means  of  buying  off  their  hostility,  and  securing  exemption  from 
their  inroads.*     In  consequence,  however,  of  some  depredations  committed  by  the  present 
chief  of  Offaley,  his  wages,  or  Black  Rent,  as  it  was  called,  had  been,  of  late,  withheld ; 
and,  on  his  remonstrating  against  this  act,  a  parley  was  appointed  to  be  held  between  him 
and  the  vice-deputy,  at  a  castle  belonging  to  sir  William  Darcy,  called  Rathyn.  It 
became  soon,  however,  apparent,  that  peaceful  parley  was  by  no  means  the  ob-  -ic.to' 
ject  of  O'Connor;  for,  immediately  on  the  meeting  taking  place,  a  party  of  his 
followers,  whom  he  had   posted    in  ambush,  sallied  out  upon  the  lord  deputy,  and,  after 
killing  and  wounding  several  of  his  attendants,  made  that  lord  himself  prisoner.f 

This  daring  act  of  treachery  excited  alarm  throughout  the  whole  English  settlement; 
and  the  council  of  Ireland,  reluctantly  availing  themselves  of  the  popularity  of  the  name 
of  Kildare,  chose  his  brother,  sir  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald,  to  fill  the  imprisoned  deputy's 
place.  Mean  while,  efforts  were  made,  but  wholly  in  vain,  to  prevail  upon  O'Connor  to 
give  lord  Delvin  his  liberty;  and  a  letter  is  extiint,  from  lord  Butler  to  archbishop  Inge,f 
giving  an  account  of  his  passing  a  night  under  O'Connor's  roof,  and  obtaining  with  diffi- 
culty, a  short  interview  with  the  noble  prisoner,  during  which  the  chieftain  and  his  two 
brothers  insisted  on  being  present.  In  order  to  guard,  too,  against  any  secrets  that 
might  pass  between  them,  the  two  friends  were  compelled  to  speak  openly  and  in  Irish. 
It  was  strongly  suspected  that  in  all  these  violent  proceedings  O'Connor  was  secretly 
abetted  by  Kildare,  to  one  of  whose  daughters  the  chief  was  married. § 

Nor  was  it  only  between  the  settlers  and  the  natives  that  the  game  of  strife  was  thus, 
as  usual,  in  full  play.  The  feuds  of  the  English  among  themselves  were  no  less  bitterly 
carried  on;  and  not  only  did  Desmond  and  Ossory  still  maintain  their  mutual  strife,  but 
the  family  of  the  latter  lord  were  divided  into  fierce  factions  among  themselves;  and  both 
Edmond  JButler,  archbishop  of  Cashel,  the  natural  son  of  lord  Ossory,  and  sir  James  But- 
ler, another  of  this  lord's  kinsmen,  were  among  the  most  staunch  and  vehement  abettors 
of  the  earl  of  Desmond.  || 

Among  those  personages  of  high  station,  to  whom,  in  the  usual  rapid  succession,  the 
administration  of  the  government  of  Ireland  was  deputed,  during  this  reign,  there  appears 
to  have  been  none  in  whom  the  condition,  both  present  and  future,  of  that  country  had 
inspired  so  earnest,  and,  according  to  the  lights  of  his  time,  intelligent  an  interest,  as  in 
the  worthy  duke  of  Norfolk,  who,  when  earl  of  Surrey,  was  lord  lieutenant,  as  we  have 
seen,  of  that  kingdom,  and  retained  ever  after  the  strong  hold  he  had  gained  on  the  afTec- 

*  A  still  worse  and  more  recreant  practice  had  become  frequent  at  this  period,  which  is  thus  described  in  a 
letter  from  Norfolk  to  Wolsey  :— "  The  most  part  of  the  marchHrs  upon  Irjshe  men,  perceyving  not  how  to 
be  defended,  have  so  patysed  (practised)  with  the  Irjshe  men  next  adjoyning  to  them,  that  tlie  seide  Irishe 
men  do  couie  thorow  them,  and  do  hurl  to  others  within  them,  and  they  take  no  hurt." — S.  P-  LI. 

t  The  council  of  Ireland  to  Wolsey,  &  P.  XLV. 

J  State  Papers,  XLVII. 

§  O'Connor  married  lady  Mary  Fitz  Gerald,  Kildare'*  daughter  by  his  first  wife. 

I;  State  Papers,  LIU. 


404  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

tions  of  the  Anglo-Irish,  as  well  as  his  own  earnest  desire  to  promote  among  them  good 
government  and  peace. 

As  the  opinions  of  so  active  and  trusty  a  public  officer,  respecting  a  slate  of  affairs 
with  which  he  was  himself  personally  conversant,  cannot  fail  to  possess  considerable 
interest,  a  few  remarks,  which  occur  in  his  letters  and  official  papers,  may  here  be  ap- 
propriately noticed.  It  was  Surrey's  opinion,  as  expressed  by  himself  in  a  letter  to  Wol- 
sey,  that  "this  land  (Ireland)  will  never  be  brought  to  due  obeisance,  but  only  with  com- 
pulsion and  conquest;"*  and  he  adds,  "  most  humbly  I  beseech  your  grace  that,  if  the 
king's  pleasure  be  not  to  go  thorough  with  the  conquest  of  this  land,  which  would  be  a 
marvellous  charge,  no  longer  to  suffer  me  to  waste  his  grace's  treasure  here."  In  refe- 
rence to  this  opmion,  the  king,  in  writing  to  his  lieutenant,  desires  him  to  state  "by 
what  means  and  ways  that  land  could  be  reduced  to  obedience  and  good  order;"  and  it  is 
observable  that  Surrey's  answer,  while  professing  to  comply  with  the  royal  command, 
dwells  far  more  on  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  such  an  enterprise,  than  on  any  means  he 
is  able  ta  suggest  for  its  accomplishment.  Among  the  difficulties  which  he  foresees  in 
his  scheme,  that  of  stocking  the  land  anew  with  inhabitants,  after  the  destruction  of  its 
whole  indigenous  race, — for  on  nothing  less  does  this  military  speculator  seem  to  calcu- 
late,— appears  to  strike  him  as  the  most  puzzling.  At  the  very  time,  too,  when  the 
English  monarch  and  his  minister  were  thus  coolly  inquiring  into  the  tneans  of  extermi- 
nating the  Irish,  it  appears  from  a  statement  in  one  of  Surrey's  letters  that  there  were 
then  "but  few  English  inhabitants  in  the  four  shires  of  the  Pale."f 

With  all  his  bias  against  the  natives  in  general,  the  noble  lieutenant  could  yet  do  jus- 
tice to  individual  Irishmen.  We  have  seen  how  favourable  was  his  opinion  of  the  two 
great  chiefs,  Cormac  Oge  and  Mac  Arthy  Reagh  ;  and,  in  speaking  of  the  readiness  of 
these  lords  to  hold  their  lands  from  the  kmg,  he  adds,  "I  know  divers  other  Irishmen  of 
like  mind."^  Even  when  removed  from  the  government  of  Ireland,  Surrey  was  fre- 
quently applied  to  by  the  lords  of  the  Irish  council,  either  for  his  advice  in  particular 
emergencies,  or  the  exertion  of  his  interest  and  influence  with  the  king. 

In  the  month  of  June,  this  year,  the  duke  of  Richmond,  the  king's  natural  son  was 
appointed  lieutenant  of  Ireland;  and,  shortly  after,  sir  William  Skeffington,  the 
l'r.,Q  new  lord  deputy,  arrived  in  Dublin,  accompanied  by  the  earl  of  Kildare.   A  solemn 
procession  of  the  mayor  and  citizens  came  to  meet  them,  on  the  green  of  St. 
Mary's  abbey;  and  the  sight  of  the  popular  favourite,  Kildare,  returning  once  more,  tri- 
umphant over  his  enemies,  excited  among  all  classes  the  liveliest  feelings  of  joy. 

It  is  a  proof,  indeed,  how  powerful  was,  even  then,  the  Irish  party, — for  such  Kildare's 
may  fairly  be  called, — that,  though  having  against  him  the  crown,  the  ministers,  and 
most  of  the  English  nobility  of  both  countries,  he  yet  thus  triumphed  over  them  all  ;  and, 
by  the  mere  force  of  the  will  of  the  Irish,  was  restored  to  his  high  station.  He  had  been 
charged  openly,  by  his  rival  Ossory,  with  offencps  amountino-  to  high  treason.  Not  only 
was  the  treacherous  seizure  of  the  lord  deputy  alleged  to  have  been  planned  between 
him  and  his  son-in-law,  O'Connor,  but  also  a  general  rising  of  the  natives,  for  the  extir- 
pation of  the  English  Pale,]:  was  said  in  like  manner  to  have  been  concerted  by  him,  to 
follow  that  daring  outrage.  Under  such  enormous  charges,  had  he  been  sustained  by 
the  favour  of  the  court  or  the  minister,  the  itnpunity  with  which  he  continued  to  defy  iiis 
accusers  would  not  have  been  so  remarkable.  But  this  was  by  no  means  Kildare's  case: 
in  the  eyes  of  an  autocrat,  like  Henry,  so  blunt  and  self-willed  a  servant  was  not  likely 
to  make  himself  acceptable;  nor  would  the  cardinal,  who  is  known  to  have  hated  the 
whole  race  of  the  Geraldines,  see  reason  to  exempt  from  the  range  of  this  feeling  the 
too  popular  and  ungovernable  Kildare. 

No  stronger  evidence,  indeed,  is  wanting  of  the  resistless  force  of  this  lord's  Irish  popu- 
larity, than  the  fact  that  Wolsey,  though  sure  of  being  supported  by  all  the  first  English 
and  Anglo  Irish  nobles,  yet  did  not  venture,  during  the  two  or  three  years  of  Kildare's 
detention  in  England,  to  deprive  him  of  his  office  of  lord  deputy; — being  apprehensive, 
as  he  himself  states,  that  such  an  act  of  authority  would,  at  that  crisis,  be  attended  with 
serious  danger;  and,  that,  if  the  earl's  "  kinsfolks,  the  O'Connors,  and  other  such  wild 
Irish  lords,"  should  learn  that  he  was  actually  deprived  of  his  office,  they  would,  "for 
revenge  thereof,  overrun  the  whole  English  bounds  and  Pale."}     He  therefore  recom- 

*  State  Papers.  XV. 

t  Surrey  to  King  Henry  VIII..  S.  p.  XX. 

X  "  After  the  taking  of  the  baron  of  Delvyn,  tretowrously,  by  the  erle  of  Kildare's  son  in  laweOconour.  all 
the  Irishry  deterniyned  to  have  joyned  in  ayd  with  the  said  Oconour  for  thedistruction  of  your  English  Pale, 
through  the  practise  of  the  said  Erie,  Irustyng  that  your  grace  iherby  wolbe  moved  to  relesee  him  of  hisduress, 
and  to  send  him  to  rule  here  agaync."— Ossory  to  King  Henry  Vllt.,  S.  P.  XLIX. 

§  Wolsey  to  Vannes,  S.  P.  XLIX. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  405 

mends,  as  the  only  expedient  for  keeping  them  quiet,  that  they  should  be  still  left  in  the 
hope  of  their  favourite's  return  ;  adding,  as  a  farther  advantage  of  this  policy,  the  re- 
straint it  would  impose  on  Kiidare  himself,  who  being,  as  lord  deputy,  responsible  for 
the  peace  of  the  kingdom,  would  endeavour  to  prevent  any  such  outbreaks,  on  the  part 
of  his  adherents,  as  might  furnish  fresh  grounds  for  his  own  impeachment  and  disgrace. 

Even  Norfolk,  though  boasting  the  blood  ot  the  hero  of  Flodden  in  his  veins,  and  like- 
wise acquainted,  by  personal  experience,  with  Irish  warfare,  was  hardly  less  anxious 
than  Wolsey  himself  to  avoid  provoking  that  people  into  resistance;  and,  in  one  of  his 
letters  to  the  cardinal,  after  remarking  that  "  the  Irishmen  were  never  so  strong  as  now," 
he  admits  that  the  only  remedy  which  appears  to  him  feasible  is,  either  to  send  thither 
Kiidare  himself,  or,  at  least  to  continue  his  brother  James  in  the  government. 

The  sort  of  compromise  that  would  naturally  arise  out  of  this  balance  of  difficulties,  has 
been  seen  in  the  appointment  of  sir  William  Skeffinglon  to  be  lord  deputy,  attended  by 
Kiidare,  as,  professedly,  his  adviser,  but,  in  reality,  his  powerful  rival,  and  destined  suc- 
cessor.*    An  invasion  of  O'Moore's  territory,  then  called  Leix,  or  Ley,  to  punish  that 
chief,  for  some  acts  of  hostility,  was  the  first  achievement  of  the  new  lord  deputy; 
and  shortly  after,  accompanied  by  Kiidare,  he  made  an  inroad  into  Ulster,  where,  -icoi* 
having  taken  and  demolished  the  castle  ofKinard,  they  laid  waste  the  neighbour-    ' 
ing  districts,  and  returned  laden  with  spoil. 

But,  while  thus,  apparently,  acting  in  concert,  these  rival  leaders  were  every  day  be- 
coming more  rancorous  towards  each  other;  and  both,  eager  to  pre-occupy  the  king  on  the 
subject  of  their  differences,  sent  off  letters  and  messengers  to  England  charged  with  mu- 
tual criminations.     At  length,  impatient  of  thus  bandying  reproaches,  and  con- 
fident in  hisown  personal  influence,  Kiidare  set  sail  for  England,  and  there  pleaded  jr.i.^" 
his  suit  so  successfully,  that  he  caused  Skeffington  to  be  removed  from  the  govern-      ' '" 
ment,  and  himself  appointed  in  his  place. 

Received  in  Dublm  with  acclamations,  on  his  return,  and  presuming  too  sanguinely  on 
the  new  turn  of  his  fortunes,  Kiidare  now  threw  himself,  without  any  reserve,  into  Irish 
alliances  and  connexions;  gave  one  of  his  daughters  in  marriage  to  O'Connor,  of  Offaley, 
and  the  other  to  Fergananym  O'Carrol. — both  of  these  chiefs  obstinate  enemies  of  the 
crown  of  England  ;f — and,  falling  with  his  army  on  the  county  of  Kilkenny,  burned  and 
wasted  the  lands  of  his  rival,  the  earl  of  Ossory.  About  the  same  time.  Con  O'JNeili,  at 
his  instigation,  joined  with  him  and  his  brother  J.imes  in  an  invasion  of  the  county 
of  Louth,  where,  having  burned  down  the  English  villages,  they  ravaged  and  depopulated 
the  country,  and  drove  away  all  the  cattle. 

Another  petty  war,  of  the  same  description,  in  which  the  lord  deputy,  about  this  time 
engaged,  was  attended  with  consequences  that  threatened  danger  to  his   life.     In  the 
courseof  a  violent  feud  which  had  broken  out  in  the  family  of  his  son-in-law,  O'Car- 
rol, the  castle  of  Bir,  belonging  to  this  chief,  had  been  seized  by  the  adverse  party  ;  ^  '     ' 
and  Kiidare  undertook,  on  the  side  of  his  kinsman,  to  lay  siege  to  and  recover  the 
castle.     But,  while  directing,  in   person,  an  attack  upon   it,  he  received  a  bullet-shot 
in  the  side,I  from  the  serious  effects  of  which  he  never  after,  it  is  said,  entirely  re- 
covered. 

While  the  lord  deputy  pursued  thus  fearlessly  his  usual  self-willed  course,  he  was 
surrounded  by  watchful  enemies,  who  lost  no  opportunity  of  reporting  to  the  king  exag- 
gerated accounts  of  all  that  was  eccentric  in  his  conduct;  and  among  the  most  bitter  of 
these  spies  was  his  old  enemy  Ossory,  who,  being  in  correspondence  with  Cromwell, 
then  risingf  fast  in  the  king's  favour,  enjoyed  thus  a  channel  through  which  his  charges 
could  be  levelled  with  sure  effect.  The  son  of  this  earl,  lord  James  Butler,  had,  on  Kil- 
dare's  appointment  to  the  government,  received  the  staff'  of  lord  high  treasurer,  as  some 
counterbalance  to  the  deputy's  power;  and,  accordingly,  though  nephew  to  Kiidare,  he 
employed  all  the  means  in  his  power,  as  well  by  intrigue  as  openly  and  officially,  to  em- 
barrass the  course  of  his  kinsman's  government.  Sir  William  Skeffington,  having  been 
supplanted  by  the  present  lord  deputy,  was  another  of  his  most  unforgiving  opponents; 
and  the  Irish  council,  in  sending  John  Alen,  the  master  of  the  rolls,  to  represent  to  the 
king  the  dangers  and  grievances  of  Ireland,  were  supposed  at  the  same  time  to  have  pri- 
vately instructed  him  to  lay  serious  charges  of  misgovernment  against  Kiidare. 

*  According  to  Ossory,  Kildare's  object,  at  this  time,  was  to  "  compell  the  Irishe  to  cnnibynde  and  confedre 
with  him,  having  noo  regard  to  the  kinge's  deputie,  and  to  make  all  the  land  beleve  the  deputie  is  sent  but 
oonly  to  bee  an  instrument  to  him." 

\  Ware's  Annals. 

i  "  My  lord  of  Kiidare  waa  sholt  with  a  hand  gon  thorow  the  syde,  under  the  ribbes,  and  so  lyeth  in  great 
danger,"— Walter  Cowley  to  Cromwell,  S.  P.  LXII. 


406  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

To  maintain  his  ground  against  so  powerful  a  conribination,  unsupported,  as  he  was,  by 
any  of  the  great  English  families,  appeared  hardly  possible;  and  yet  that  some  desperate 
attempt  at  resistance  was  at  one  time  meditated  by  him,  is  rendered  highly  probable  by 
his  having  recently  furnished  his  castles  and  fastnesses — more  especially  those  of  May- 
nooth  and  Ley — with  guns,  pikes,  and  ammunition  out  of  the  royal  stores.*  The  general 
pravalence,  too,  of  a  belief,  in  Ireland,  that  he  would  defy  any  order  recalling  him  from 
his  government,  is  shown  by  a  passage  in  a  letter  from  Ossory  to  Cromwell : — "  Men 
think  here,"  says  the  writer,  "  that  all  the  parchment  and  wax  in  England  will  not  bring 
Kildare  thither  again. "f 

This  experiment,  however,  was  now  about  to  be  tried.     In  consequence  of  the  many 
public,  and,  still  more,  the  private,  complaints  made  of  his  goverment,  the  lord  deputy 
was  summoned,  about  the  close  of  this  year,  to  repair  to  England,  and  answer  the  charges 
alleged  against  him.     Though  far  from  manifesting,  as  had  been  apprehended,  any  dis- 
position to  resist  this  order,  the  earl  procrastinated  his  departure;  sent  his  countess  be- 
fore him  into  England,  iu  the  hope  that  her  influence  might  avert  the  royal  dis- 
l4^d   pl^'^sure;  and  at  length,  with  an  unwillingness  that  seemed  to  foretoken  the  dark 
■  fate  which  hung  over  him  and  his  noble  house,  sailed  for  England  in  the  spring  of 
the  year,  leaving,  as  vice-deputy,  his  son,  lord  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald,  a  youth  who  had 
scarcely  reached  his  one-and-tvvcntieth  year. 

In  the  instructions  given  to  Alen  by  the  council  of  Ireland,  empowering  him  to  inform 
the  king  of  the  state  of  his  Irish  dominions,  we  find  some  facts  alleged  which  are  worthy 
of  special  notice.  It  appears,  so  narrowed  at  this  time  was  the  extent  of  the  English  au- 
thority, that,  as  the  instructions  express  it,"  neither  the  English  order,  tongue,  nor  habit, 
was  used,  nor  the  king's  laws  obeyed,  above  twenty  miles  in  compass  ;"|  and  the  council 
declare  it  to  be  their  opinion,  that,  unless  the  laws  be  duly  executed,  the  "  little  place," 
meaning  the  Pale,  "  which  is  now  obedient,"  will  be  reduced  to  the  same  condition 
as  the  remainder  of  the  kingdom. 

Among  the  causes  assigned  for  this  rapid  decay  of  the  land,  that  to  which  the  council 
attributes  most  influence  was  the  practice  adopted,  of  late,  among  the  Englishrie,  of  taking 
Irish  tenants.  Hence  the  race,  they  say,  of  English  husbandmen  had  declined,  and  in- 
stead of  a  retinue  of  respectable  yeomen  who  lived  under  their  lord's  roof,  there  was  now 
substituted  a  rabble  of  horsemen  and  kerns,  supported  by  exaction  from  the  king's  sub- 
jects. The  other  abuses  by  which  they  account  for  tiie  decline  of  English  power,  are, — 
1.  The  liberties  and  royalties  enjoyed  by  a  few  absolute  lords.  2.  The  black  rents  and 
tributes  extorted  by  the  Irish.  3.  The  frequent  change  of  deputies,  and  the  appointment 
to  that  office  of  native  lords.  4.  The  negligent  keeping  of  the  king's  records,  to  the 
great  injury  of  the  royal  revenues  and  rights.  5.  7'he  alienation  of  the  crown  lands,  by 
which  the  king's  revenue  had  been  rendered  insufficient  for  the  defence  of  the  realm. 

A  report  was  transmitted,  apparently  about  the  same  time,  to  Cromwell,  which,  even 
allowing  for  all  deduction  from  the  weight  of  its  statements  on  account  of  the  party  spirit 
BO  evidently  pervading  it,  presents  a  most  fritrhtful  picture  of  the  general  state  of  the 
kingdom.  To  Kildare,  and  the  "  allegiance  "  borne  towards  him,  almost  superseding  the 
loyalty  due  to  the  crown  itself,^  the  writers  attribute  most  of  the  wrongs  and  enormities 
of  which  they  complain.  Among  other  instances  adduced  of  the  daring  spirit  of  the 
Irish,  the  report  mentions,  that  Edmund  Oge  O'Brian,  who  had  never  ceased  for  nearly 
a  year  to  make  active  war  upon  the  Englishrie,  had,  within  the  last  five  weeks,  made 
forcible  entry,  by  night,  into  the  castle  of  Dublin,  and  carried  away  from  thence  prisoners 
and  plunder; — an  act  which  had  filled  the  citizens  of  Dublin  with  such  dismay,  that  they 
nightly  kept  watch  in   the  fear  of  a  repetition  of  his  visit. 

The  occupation  by  the  Scots  of  a  great  part  of  Ulster,  thereby  encroaching  on  the 
king's  inheritance,  is  another  of  the  evils  complained  of  by  the  authors  of  this  report; 
and,  they  add,  so  fast  was  the  number  of  those  intruders  increasinjr,  that  fears  were  en- 
tertained, lest,  with  the  aid  of  the  rebellious  Irish,  they  would  succeed  in  dislodging  the 
king  from  his  seignory  in  that  province.  Complaints  are  also  made  of  the  increasing  en- 
croachments of  the  O'Brians,  owing  to  a  bridge  lately  built  by  them  over  the  Shannon, 
whereby  they  had  already  "in  a  manner  subdued  all  the  English  thereto  joining,  and 
specially  the  country  of  Limerick."     It  is  added,  that,  "unless  that  bridge  be  in  haste 

*  Ware's  Annals.    Cox.  t  Instructions  to  Cromwell,  S.  P.  LIX. 

X   Instructions  to  John  Alen,  S.  P.  LXIII. 

§  The  sort  of  fascination,  made  up  of  dread  and  afTection,  by  which  all  classes  were  held  in  thrall  by  Kil- 
dare, is  thus  described  in  this  report  :— "  If  the  said  coiinsaile  were  present  here,  I  would  not  faile  to  say  be- 
fore them,  in  lyme  and  place,  if  the  caas  so  required,  that  they  be  partely  corrupted  with  affection  toward 
the  erle  of  Kildate,  and  partely  in  soche  dreade  of  him,  that  either  they  will  not  or  dare  not  do  any  thing 
that  should  be  displeasante  to  him."— S(aee  Papers,  LXIV. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  407 

laid  prostrate,"  the  O'Brians  may  be  expected,  before  long,  to  encroach  still  farther  upon 
the  territory  of  the  English. 

In  reference  to  the  opinions  of  such  persons  as  set  but  slight  value  on  the  possession  of 
Ireland,  and  spoke  of  the  rudeness  and  want  of  civilization  among-  the  people,  the  report 
advances  the  following  just  and  liberal  remark: — "As  to  their  surmise  of  the  bruteness 
of  the  people,  and  the  incivilitie  of  them;  no  doubt,  if  there  were  justice  used  among 
them,  they  would  be  found  as  civil,  wise,  politic,  and  active  as  any  other  nation."* 

In  another  report  on  the  state  of  Irehnd,t  drawn  up  subsequently,  as  it  appears,  to  that 
just  noticed,  and  addressed  to  the  kit)g  himself,  there  occur  some  curious  insights  into 
the  actual  condition  of  the  country.  Sn  powerful,  it  is  stated,  had  the  great  Anglo-Irish 
lords  now  become,  that  in  none  of  those  shires  where  the  earls  of  Kildare,  Desmond,  or 
Ossory  "  held  dominion,"  could  offences  committed  by  the  king's  subjects  be  taken  cog- 
nizance of,  nor  any  measures  adopted  to  seize  the  offenders,  without  permission  from  the 
lord  to  whom  such  seignory  or  palatinate  belonged;  so  that,  as  the  report  expresses  it, 
"  your  grace  must  make  petition  to  every  of  the  said  earls,  tor  leave  to  invade  your  own 
subjects."  The  earl  of  Desmond  alone,  and  his  kinsmen,  possessed,  for  their  share, 
the  counties  of  Kerry,  Cork,  Limerick,  and  Waterford  ;  from  none  of  which  shires  did 
the  king  derive  "a  single  groat  of  yearly  profit  or  revenues,"  nor  in  any  one  of  them 
were  his  laws  observed  or  executed  ;  though,  as  the  report  adds,  a  period  had  been,  when 
those  same  shires  "  were  as  obedient  to  his  laws  as  Middlesex  is  now." 

Of  the  counties  of  Kilkenny  and  Tipperary,  which  the  earl  of  Ossory  had  under  his 
dominion,  much  the  same  account  is  given,  with  the  addition,  that  the  wretched  people 
of  those  sliires  were  harassed  and  oppressed  by  exactions  of  coyne  and  livery;  and  the 
county  of  Wexford,  which  was  held,  with  similar  rights  and  royalties,  by  the  earl  of 
Shrewsbury,  lay,  in  the  same  manner,  out  of  the  reach  of  the  king's  laws,  and  was  equally 
unproductive  to  the  royal  revenue. 

Among  other  charges  brought  in  this  report  against  the  three  great  Anglo-Irish  earls, 
it  is  stated  that,  availing  themselves  of  the  old  Irish  custom,  called  coshory,  which  enti- 
tlpd  the  chief  lord,  or  dynast,  to  exact  from  his  tenants  provisions  and  lodging  for  him- 
self and  his  retinue,  they  used  "  to  come,  with  a  great  multitude  of  people,  to  monasteries 
and  gentlemen's  houses,  and  there  continue  two  days  and  two  nights,  taking  meat  and 
drink  at  their  pleasure;"  while,  at  the  same  time,  their  horses  and  servants  were  quar- 
tered upon  the  poor  farmers  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  nothing  paid  for  their  entertain- 
ment. In  this  manner,  it  is  added,  these  lords  were  accustomed  to  pass  more  than  half 
the  year,  making  use  of  other  people's  houses,  and  sparing  their  own. 

The  conclusion  draun  by  the  framers  of  this  curious  document,  from  the  various  facts 
they  had  collected,  is  that  though  popular  opinion  attributes  to  the  "  wild  Irish  lords  and 
captains  the  destruction  of  the  land  of  Ireland,  it  is  not  they  only,  but  the  treason,  rebel- 
lion, extortion,  and  wilful  war  of  the  aforesaid  earls  and  other  English  lords,"  that  are  to 
be  held  answerable  for  all  this  ruin;  and,  in  counselling  the  king  as  to  the  means  to  be 
adopted  for  the  cure  of  these  evils,  they  say,  pointedly,  "When  your  grace  has  reformed 
your  earls,  English  lords,  and  others  your  subjects,  then  proceed  to  the  reformation  of 
your  Irish  rebels." 

At  the  time  of  the  framing  of  this  report,  Kildare's  son,  the  young  lord  Thomas,  had 

just  entered  on  his  office  of  vice-deputy ;  and  a  strong  anxiety  is  expressed  by  the  writers, 

that  some  deputy  of  English  birth,  and  appointed  for  life,  or,  at  least,  for  a  term  of  years, 

►  should  be  sent  to  Ireland   without  delay,  as  the  deputy  left  by  Kildare  is  "taken  to  be 

young  and  wilful,  and  mostly,  to  this  time,  ordered  by  liyht  counsel." 

However  amiable  may  have  been  the  natural  qualities  of  this  young  lord, — and  he  is 
represented,  in  general,  as  brave,  open,  and  generous, — the  scenes  of  violence  among 
which  he  had  been  brought  up,  and  the  examples  of  ambition,  family  pride,  and  uncon- 
trolled self  will,  which  his  own  ill-fated  race  supplied,  formed  but  an  ominous  preparation 
for  the  grave  duties  now  so  rashly  assigned  to  him.  In  addition  to  the  perils  arising  from 
his  own  utter  inexperience,  he  was  surrounded  by  watchful  enemies,  full  of  hatred  to 
him  and  his  race;  and  the  opportunity  which  alone  they  wanted  for  the  indulgence  of 
this  rancorous  feeling,  their  ingenuity  was,  of  course,  not  slow  in  creating.  A  report 
was  spread  by  them  that  the  earl  of  Kildare  had  been  beheaded  in  the  Tower,  and  that 
lord  Thomas  and  all  his  uncles  were  menaced  with  the  same  fate.J  Too  readily  trusting 
to  this  rumour,  the  young  lord,  at  the  head  of  a  guard  of  140  armed  horsemen,  rode 
through  the  city  of  Dublin  to  Dame's  Gate,  and,  crossing  the  river,  proceeded  to  St. 

»  State  Papers,  LXIV. 

t  Articleis  and  Instructions  to  our  Soweraine  Lord  the  King  for  his  Lande  of  Ireland,  S.  P.  LXIX. 

J  Stanihurst,  ap.  Holinshed. 


408  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Mary's  Abbey,  where  the  council,  according  to  appointment,  waited  his  coming.  There, 
surrounded  by  armed  followers,  who  had  crowded  with  him  into  the  council  chamber,  the 
youth  solemnly  renounced  his  allegiance  to  the  English  monarch,  and  proceeded  to  de- 
liver up  the  sword  and  robes  of  state. 

In  vain  did  Cromer,  the  lord  chancellor,  who  had  been  indebted  to  Kildare  for  his  pro- 
motion to  that  dignity,  implore  of  him,  with  tears,  to  revoke  his  purpose,  and  still  retain  the 
sword  of  state.  The  young  Geraldine  stood  unmoved  ;  while,  just  at  that  moment,  there 
burst  forth  from  the  midst  of  his  excited  followers,  the  voice  of  an  Irish  bard,  or  rhymer, 
chanting  the  praises  of  the  "silken  lord," — for  so  lord  Thomas,  from  the  richness  of  his 
caparisons,  was  styled, — and  calling  passionately  upon  him  to  revenge  his  father's  death. 
From  that  moujent,  all  farther  parley  was  at  an  end;  the  youth  cast  from  him  the  sword 
of  state,  and,  rushing  forth  at  the  head  of  his  wild  followers,  entered  upon  that  rash  and 
ill-concerted  struggle,  which  ended  in  the  ruin  of  himself  and  of  almost  the  whole  of  his 
kindred.* 

The  first  step  taken  by  the  council  was  to  send  orders  to  the  mayor  to  arrest  lord 
Thomas;  but,  as  the  city  had  been  lately  much  depopulated  by  a  plague  then  raging  in 
town  and  country,  the  public  authorities  feared  to  venture  upon  such  a  step;  and  arch- 
bishop Allen,  chief  baron  Finglas,  and  one  or  two  other  personages,  obnoxious  to  the 
Geraklines,  retired  for  safety  to  the  castle.  In  this  almost  defenceless  state  of  Dublin, 
the  O'Tooles  and  other  mountain  septs  of  Wicklow,  taking  advantage  of  the  weakness 
of  the  inhabitants,  overran  and  despoiled  the  rich  territory  of  Fingal.  But  this  aggres- 
sion was  not  left  wholly  unresisted  ;  for,  on  seeing  the  granary  of  their  city  thus  inso- 
lently plundered,  such  of  the  mhabitants  as  were  able  to  bear  arms  sallied  out  to  inter- 
cept the  prey.  Being  overpowered,  however,  with  numbers,  they  were  driven  back,  and 
many  of  their  small  force  slain. ]■ 

Though,  from  the  city,  thus  weakened  by  pestilence  and  the  sword,  no  effective  effort 
was  to  be  expected,  the  castle,  under  the  command  of  its  constable,  sir  John  White,  gave 
promise  of  a  lengthpnod  resistance;  and  as  the  possession  of  such  a  post  was  an  object  of 
importance  to  Fitz  Gerald,  he  announced  to  the  citizens,  now  panic-struck  with  their  late 
defeat,  that  if  they  would  permit  him  to  enter  the  town  and  lay  siege  to  the  castle,  both 
themselves  and  their  properties  should  be  left  uninjured.  This  proposal  was  referred  by 
the  citizens  to  the  constable,  who,  after  some  conferences  with  them,  agreed  that,  in  con- 
sideration of  their  helpless  condition,  the  demand  should  be  complied  with;  only  stipu- 
lating that  he  should  first  be  supplied  with  men  and  provisions  sufficient  to  enable  him  to 
stand  a  siege. J 

It  may  well  be  conceived  that,  by  all  those  personages  who  had  taken  refuge,  together 
vvith  the  archbishop,  in  the  castle,  the  prospect  of  a  siege  which  might  end  in  delivering 
them  up  to  the  rebels  was  viewed  with  horror  and  dismay;  and  Allen, 5  who,  more  than 
any,  had  reason  to  dread  the  hate  of  the  Geraldines,  having  resolved  to  make  his  escape 
to  England,  embarked  at  night  on  board  a  vessel  which  was  then  lying  near  Dame's  Gate. 
But,  whether  throuijli  accident  or  design,  the  ship  was  stranded  near  Clontarf,  and  the 
unf  )rtunate  archbishop,  fulling  into  the  hands  of  the  rebels  at  a  small  village  called  Ar- 
tano,  whither  he  had  fled  for  shelter,  was  there  in  the  most  brutal  manner  put  to  death; — 
lord  Thomas  himself  standing  by,  during  the  murder,  and  in  so  far  autnorizing  the 
base  and  cold-blooded  crime.  There  were  likewise  present,  it  appears,  his  two  uncles, 
sir  John  and  Oliver  Fitz  Gerald. 

Leaving  a  part  of  his  force  to  lay  siege  to  the  castle,  the  young  lord  hastened  with  the 
main  body  of  his  numerous  followers  to  invade  the  country  of  the  earl  of  Ossory.  But 
this  active  and  watchful  officer  had  already,  in  anticipation  of  his  movement,  occupied, 
with  a  large  force  suddenly  raised,  the  counties  of  Catherlough  and  Kildare;  and  the 
taking  by  storm,  after  a  siege  of  five  days,  an  old  manor  house  on  the  Slaney,  belonging 
to  the  Ormond  family,  was  the  sole  result  of  this  first  trial  of  the  young  Geraldine's 
strength.  With  the  hope  of  prevailing  upon  Ossory  to  join  his  standard,  he  despatched 
messengers  to  that  powerful  lord,  ofl^ering  to  divide  with  him  equally  the  kingdom  of  Ire- 
land, if  he  would  withdraw  his  allegiance  from  the  king.  To  this  proposition  Ossory  an- 
swered, that,  "  even  were  his  country  all  laid  waste,  his  castles  won  or  prostrate,  and 
himself  an  exile,  he  would  yet  to  the  last  persevere  in  duty  to  his  king."l| 

A  material  change  had  mean  while  taken  place  in  the  state  of  affairs  in  Dublin. 
Owing  to  an  alleged  infraction  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  force  admitted  to  lay  siege  to 

*  Stanihurst.  ap.  Holinshed.  t  Stanihurst.  J  Ibid. 

§  This  prelate  was  the  compiler  of  that  venerable  volume,  the  Black  Book  of  Christ-Church,  and  also  of  the 
Hepertorium  Firide.  which  is  likewise  still  extant. 
II  Ossory  to  W.  Cowley,  S.  P.  XCIII. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  409 

the  castle,  that  permission  was  suddenly  withdrawn  by  the  citizens ;  their  gates  were  im- 
mediately closed  upon  the  rebels,  and  almost  all  found  witlmi  the  walls  were  arrested  as 
traitors.* 

When  the  news  of  this  unprospcruus  turn  of  affairs  reach'd  lord  Thomas,  he  wag  about 
to  proceed,  assisted  by  the  forces  of  O'Connor,  O'Moore,  and  other  chiefs,  to  invade  the 
county  of  Kilkenny;  while  the  earl  of  Desmond,  with  similar  hostile  views,  was  threat- 
ening an  irruption  into  Tipperary.  When  lord  Thomas,  therefore,  anxious  to  recover  the 
ground  he  had  lost  in  Dublin,  and,  above  all,  to  obtain  possession  of  the  ordnance  of  the 
castlef,  proposed  a  truce  for  a  short  time,  to  Ossory,  that  lord,  whose  immediate  object 
was  to  oppose  his  entire  force  to  the  inroad  of  Desmond,  readily  assented  to  the  arrange- 
ment. This  point  having  been  gained,  Fitz  Gerald  directed  his  march  to  Dublin.  But 
60  fully  prepared  did  he  find  the  inhabitants  for  resistance, — tlieir  spirits  having  been 
cheered  by  an  encouraging  message  from  the  king, — that  both  in  an  assault  made  by  hrm 
on  the  castle  from  Ship  Street,  and  also  an  attempt  to  enter  the  city  by  Newgate,  he  was 
entirely  foiled  by  the  skill  and  bravCry  of  the  townsmen. 

Among  his  army  were  a  number  of  inhabitants  of  the  Pale,  on  whom,  as  compulsory 
followers  of  his  standard,  the  citizens  counted  as  secretly  friends  to  their  cause.  In  this 
cheering  hope  they  were  farther  confirmed,  on  finding  that  the  arrows  shot  over  the 
walls  were  most  of  them  without  heads,  and  that  some  even  conveyed  letters  giving  in- 
formation of  the  besiegers'  designs.  These  encouraging  circumstances  led  them  to  resolve 
upon  a  sally;  and,  having  given  out  from  the  walls  that  new  succours  had  arrived  front 
England,  they  rushed  forth,  through  fire  and  flame,  on  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  who, 
judging  from  this  boldness  that  the  rumoured  re-enfofcements  had  actually  arrived,  imme- 
diately fled,  leaving  one  hundred  of  their  galloglasses  slain,  and  most  of  their  cannon  in 
the  hands  of  the  citizens.  Fitz  Gerald  himself  lay  hid  all  night  at  the  Friary  in  Francis 
Street,!  and  from  thence  escaped,  at  break  of  day,  to  his  camp. 

In  addition  to  this  serious  check,  he  also  learned  that  the  earl  of  Ossory  was  overrun- 
ning, with  a  large  force,  the  counties  of  Catherlough  and  Kildare,  and  forcibly  dislodging 
from  their  lands  and  homes  the  adherents  of  the  Geraldines  in  that  quarter.  He  was 
therefore  readily  disposed  to  enter  into  a  truce  with  the  citizens,  and  the  following  wer6 
the  terms  proposed  by  him: — 1.  That  they  should  release  such  of  his  men  as  they  had 
taken  prisoners.  2.  That  the  city  should  pay  him  1000/.  in  money,  and  500/.  in  wares. 
3.  That  they  should  furnish  him  with  ammunition  and  artillery.  4.  That  they  should 
procure  the  king's  pardon  both  for  him  and  his  followers,  and  moreover  obtain  for  him  the 
deputation  of  the  government  of  Ireland  for  life.J 

To  the  first  of  these  propositions — which,  considering  tire  defeat  the  noble  negotiator 
had  just  sustained,  was  not  a  little  unconscionable — the  citizens  answered,  that,  if  his 
would  restore  to  them  their  children,  they  would  most  readily  give  him  back  his  men. 
This  natural  retort  had  reference  t6  an  outrage  committed  by  Fitz  Gerald,  in  his  late 
march  upon  Dublin,  when,  meeting  on  his  way,  as  he  approached  the  town,  a  number  of 
children  belonging  to  the  better  class  of  citizens,  who  had  been  removed,  in  consequence 
of  the  plague,  into  the  country,  he  took  them  all  prisoners,  and,  as  appears  from  this  an- 
swer, still  continued  to  keep  them  confined. 

To  the  second  and  third  articles  it  was  significantly  answered',  that,  so  impoverished 
were  they  by  his  rebellions,  they  could  spare  neither  money  nor  wares;  and  that  if  he 
purposed,  as  he  said,  to  return  to  his  allegiance,  he  would  have  no  need  of  ammunition 
or  artillery.  They  also  added,  that,  instead  of  artillery  to  be  employed  against  his  prince, 
he  ought  rather  to  have  asked  for  parchment  whereon  to  engross  his  own  pardon.  || 

Such  is  the  account,  as  transmitted  from  historian  to  historian,  of  the  leading  particu- 
lars of  this  memorable  siege,  as  well  as  of  the  parley  that  followed  ; — the  latter  termi- 
nating, we  are  told,  in  the  acceptance  of  the  terms  of  the  citizens  by  lord  Thomas. 
There  are  good  grounds,  however,  for  distrusting  most  of  these  generally  received  details ; 
and  all  we  can  learn  from  official  records  is,  that  the  armistice  was  to  last  for  six  days; 
that  the  citizens,  in  the  event  of  their  failing  to  obtain  for  Fitz  Gerald  the  king's  pardon, 
and  the  office  of  deputy  for  his  life,  were,  on  a  certain  day,  to  deliver  up  to  him  the  city; 
and  that  three  of  the  most  eminent  of  their  body  should  be  given  as  hostages  for  the  per- 
formance of  this  agreement. IT 

*  Stanihurst. 

t  "  The  rebell  hath  in  effecte  consumed  all  his  shoot ;  and,  except  he  wynneth  the  castell  of  Dublin,  he  is 
destitute  of  shoote,  which  is  a  gret  cumforte  and  advantage  for  the  kinge's  army." — J.  Alen  toCrumwell,  S.  P. 
LXXVII. 

t  Stanihurst.    Harri?,  Hist,  nf  Dublin.  §  Stanihurst.  II  Ibid. 

TT  State  Papers,  LXXVIII. 

51 


410  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  sentence  of  excommunication,  in  its  most  vengeful  and 
tremendous  form,  was  issued  against  lord  Thomas,  and  his  uncles  John  and  Oliver,  for  the 
cruel  murder  of  Allen,  archbishop  of  Dublin.*  A  copy  of  this  tremendous  curse  was 
transmitted,  we  are  tuld,  to  the  lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  for  the  cruel  purpose  of  being 
shown  to  Kildare,  who  was  then  confined  there  a  prisoner.  But  the  wretched  earl  was 
probably  spared  the  infliction  of  this  pang;  as  it  appears  that,  on  receiving  the  first  intel- 
ligence of  his  son's  rebellion,  he  was  so  struck  to  the  heart  with  the  news,  being  already 
afflicted  with  palsy,  that  his  death  followed  soon  after. 

The  new  lord  deputy,  sir  William  Skeffington,  wIkj  landed  at  Dublin  soon  after  the 
truce  concluded  with  lord  Tliomas,  v/as  in  so  infirm  a  state  of  health  on  his  arrival,  as  to 
be  unable,  for  some  time,  to  take  the  field;  and  not  only  himself,  but  almost  the  whole 
of  his  army  and  officers,  lay,  for  a  considerable  time,  shut  up  and  inactive,  within  the 
walls  of  Dublin  and  Drogheda.f  Mean  while,  there  raged  throughout  the  whole  king- 
dom a  confused  medley  of  petty  warfare,  in  which,  from  the  consanguinity  of  the  Geraidine 
families  with  both  of  the  rival  races,  the  rebel  camp  was  filled  with  a  motley  array  of 
English  and  Irish;  while,  on  the  royal  side,  the  greater  number  of  the  northern  chieftains 
had  ranged  themselves  under  the  flag  of  loyalty  and  the  Ekiglish. 

Presuming  upon  Skeffington's  inactivity,  the  "  traitor,"  as  Fitz  Gerald  was  commonly 
styled,  accompanied  by  a  force  of  not  more  than  100  horsemen  and  about  300  kerns  and 
galloglasses,  traverse  daringly  the  territories  of  the  Pale, — now  presenting  himself  be- 
fore Trim,  from  wlience,  having  burned  down  a  great  part  of  the  town,  he  carried  away 
numbers  of  cattle  j  now  laying  siege  to  Dunboyne,  within  but  a  few  miles  of  Dublin,  and, 
after  a  defence  prolonged  for  some  days  by  the  in  barbital  its,  who  had  in  vain  applied  to 
head-quarters  for  succour,  entirely  burning  and  destroying  the  town.  This  outrage,  com- 
mitted within  a  few  miles  of  the  seat  of  government,  the  lord  deputy  sufl^ered  to  pass 
without  any  punishment,  and  even  entered  into  a  truce  with  the  young  rebel, — "  which, 
as  meseemeth,"  adds  a  contemporary  writer,  "  was  nothing  honourable." 

Small  and  precarious  as  were  his  resources,  Fitz  Gerald's  cause  now  assumed  an  ap- 
pearance of  success,  which,  though  dependent  for  its  chance  of  continuance  on  the  mere 
pleasure  of  the  government,  was  sufficiently  specious  to  deceive  himself  and  all  the  more 
sanguine  of  his  followers.  Presuming  on  this  confident  feeling,  he  declared  openly  his 
intention  to  burn  down  Trim,  Athboy^  the  Howan,  Naas,  and  other  corporate  towns,  lest 
She  English  should  plant  garrisons  or  establish  store-houses  for  provisions  in  those  places. 
With  the  same  view,  and  by  the  advice  of  bis  chief  ally,  O'Moore,  he  threatened  to  raze  to 
the  ground  his  own  garrisons  in  Kildare,  lest,  as  he  said,  "Englishmen  should  have  any 
profit  of  them."f 

We  have  already  seen,  in  the  course  of  this  reign,  an  earl  of  Desmond  applying  for 
aid  to  foreign  powers  ;5  and  now,  again,  in  lord  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald^  we  find  another  heir 
of  a  great  Anglo-Irish  family  turning  his  eyes  to  foreign  shores  with  a  like  hostile  feel- 
ing towards  England.  He  had  already,  with  this  view,  appointed  the  official  of  Meath, 
who  was  one  of  the  divines  that  formed  his  council,  to  embark  at  Sligo,  in  a  Spanish  ship, 
for  Spain,  and  thence  proceed  to  Rome  ;•  taking  along  with  iiim  a  number  of  old  muni- 
ments and  precedents,  for  the  purpose  of  proving  that  the  English  king  held  Ireland  of 
the  see  of  Rome.  He  was  also  instructed  to  request  of  the  emperor  and  the  bishop  of 
Rome  to  assist  lord  Thomas  in  defence  of  the  faith  against  the  king  of  England;  in  re- 
turn for  which  he  would  solemnly  pledge  himself  to  hold  of  those  powers  the  realm  of 
Ireland,  and  to  pay  tribute  for  it  yearly. || 

While  the  hopes  of  Fitz  Gerald's  adherents  were  kept  alive  by  this  prospect  of  foreign 
aid,  his  own  garrisons  at  Maynooth,   Portlester,  Rathangan,  Lea,  and  other  places, 

*  State  Papere,  EXXXI.  The  following  extract  will  eive  some  notion  of  the  awfiil  violence  of  tiiis  curse:— 
"  We  invocate,  and  call  in  v<;ngeaiice  against  the  said  Thomas,  and  every  of  the  persons  aforesaid,  the  celes- 
tial place  of  heaven,  with  all  the  multitude  of  the  angels,  that  lliey  be  accursed  before  them,  and  in  their 
sight,  as  spirits  condemned  ;  and  tlie  devil  to  stand  and  be,  in  all  their  doings,  on  their  right  hand  ;  and  all 
their  acts  to  be  sinful,  and  not  arcept"ahle  before  God,  .  .  .  that  God  Almighty  may  rain'  upon  them  the 
flames  of  fire  and  sulphur  to  their  eternal  vengeance  ;  and  Ilwt  they  may  clothe  themselves  with  the  maledic- 
tions and  high  curse,  as  thev  daily  clothe  tliemselves  with  their  garments." 

h  J.  Alen  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  LXXXII.  J  Ibid. 

§  Earl  James,  the  eleventh  earl,  who  twice  engaged  in  a  treaty  with  foreign  powers  against  Henry  VIII., — 
in  1523  with  the  king  of  France,  and  in  1528  vviih  the  emperor.  His  uncle  Ttiomas,  the  twelfth  earl,  who 
succeeded  him,  at  an  advanced  age,  in  the  year  1529,  was  strongly  suspected  of  also  holding  a  treasonous 
intercourse  with  the  emperor.  "  This  instant  day,"  says  the  writer  of  a  letter  among  the  Slate  Papers, 
•'  report  is  made  by  the  viker  of  Dongarvan,  that  themprour  hath  sent  certain  letters  unto  thcrle  of  Des- 
mound,  by  the  same  chapleyn  or  embassadour,  that  was  sent  unto  James,  the  late  erle;  and  the  common 
bruyl  is  that  Iiis  practice  is  to  wyn  the  Geraltynes  and  the  Breenes,  and  t4iat  themprour  entendeth  shortly  to 
send  an  army  to  invade  the  citees  and  townes  by  the  see  coostes  of  this  land. '—Wise  to  Urumwell,  &  P. 
LXXIV. 

II  J.  Alen  to  Crumwell,  5.  P.  LXXXII. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  411 

afforded  him  the  means,  if  properly  managed,  of  maintaining  liis  ground  till  such  aid 
from  abroad  should  arrive;  and  all  his  substance,  wealth,  and  most  of  his  ordnance,  had 
been  removed  by  him  into  the  castle  of  Lea.  He  counted  but  few  of  the  great  chiefs 
among  his  supporters;  and  even  of  these  there  were  some  now  threatening  to  withdraw 
their  aid,  while  all  tiie  ciiief  Irish  lords  of  the  north,  with  the  exception  only  of  O'Neill, 
had  written  letters  to  the  lord  deputy,  proffering  their  allegiance.*  Even  that  restless 
sept,  the  O'Tooles  of  Wicklow,  who,  according  to  some  accounts,  had  fought  against  the 
citizens  during  the  late  siege  of  Dublin,  were  now  ranged  on  the  loyal  side.  Among 
those,  too,  really  opposed  to  lord  Thomas,  were  a  great  number  that  had  not  yet  openly 
declared  themselves,  through  a  fear  that  his  rebellion  would  be  ultimately  pardoned,  as 
had  been  those  of  his  father,  grandfather,  and  others  of  his  ancestors,  and  that  all  who 
had  opposed  him  would  be  left  helplessly  exposed  to  his  vengoance.f 

In  this  state  of  the  public  mind,  gir  VVilliam  Skeffington,  who  was  now  sufficiently  re- 
covered in  health  to  take  the  field  at  the  head  of  his  army,  laid  siege  to  the  castle 
of  Maynooth,  which  Fitz  Gerald  had  just  put  into  a  state  of  defence.     So  strongly,  -ik'i'i 
indeed,  had  he  fortified  it,  both  with  men  and  ordnance,  that,  if  we  may  credit  sir 
William's  boastful  account  of  the  siege,  nothing  equal  to  it  in  strength  had  been  seen  in 
Ireland  since  the  English  first  held  dominion  in  the  land.J; 

In  the  full  hope  that  this  powerful  castle  would,  if  attacked,  be  able  to  hold  out  until 
his  return,  lord  Thomas  had  hastened  to  inspect  the  state  of  his  five  other  strongholds, 
Rathangan,  Catherlough,  Portlester,  Lea,  and  Athy;  and  then  proceeded,  with  the  view 
of  collecting  fresh  partisans,  into  Connaught,  He  had  been  led,  however,  to  count  too 
confidently,  as  well  upon  the  strength  of  the  fortress  of  Maynooth,  as  on  the  continued 
delay  and  inaction  of  the  lord  deputy,  who,  now  conscious  that  loss  of  character,  as  well 
as  of  time,  was  to  be  retrieved  by  him,  left  Dublin  on  the  13lh  of  March,  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  commenced  the  siege  of  Maynooth. J 

After  repeated  attacks,  day  and  night,  during  the  space  of  nine  days,  a  breach  was  at 
last  opened  into  the  base-court  of  the  castle,  through  which,  on  the  following  day,  after  a 
grand  assault,  the  besiegers  entered,  slaying  about  sixty  of  the  ward  of  the  castle,  and 
losing  but  a  yeoman  of  the  king's  guard,  together  with  six  others  killed  in  the  assault.H 
This  important  position  having  been  thus  gained,  the  castle  itself,  after  a  short  resistance, 
surrendered;  there  being  then  within  its  walls  the  dean  of  Kildare,  the  captain  of  the 
garrison,  Christopher  Paris,  together  with  Donagh  O'Dogan,  master  of  the  ordnance,  sir 
Simon  Walsh,  priest,  and  Nicholas  Wafer,  one  of  those  servants  of  the  Earl  of  Kildare 
who  waylaid  and  murdered  archbishop  Alen.  These,  with  some  archers  and  gunners, 
amounting  to  the  number  of  about  thirty -seven,  were  all  taken  prisoners,  and  their  lives 
spared  until  the  lord  deputy  and  his  council  should  have  inquired  into  and  pronounced 
judgment  upon  their  offences.H 

On  the  Thursday  following,  the  prisoners  were  examined,  and  their  several  depositions 
taken;  and  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  being  arraigned  before  the  provost  marshal 
and  the  captains,  they  were,  on  their  own  confession,  condemned  to  die.  Twenty-five 
of  their  number  were  beheaded  in  front  of  the  castle,  while  one  was  hanged ;  and  the 
heads  of  all  the  chief  persons  were  immediately  placed  on  the  castle  turrets.  Among  other 
intelligence  obtained  from  the  prisoners,  it  was  deposed  by  a  priest,  not  named,  in  whom 
Fitz  Gerald  placed  much  confidence,  that  the  emperor  had  promised  to  send  him  10,000 
men  by  the  first  day  of  May,  and  that  the  Scotiish  monarch  had  also  engaged  to  furnish 
the  rebels  with  aid.** 

In  the  mean  time,  lord  Thomas,  having,  with  the  help  of  his  relative,  O'Connor,  suc- 
ceeded in  collecting  a  considerable  army  in  Connaught,  was  hastening  with  his  force  to 
the  relief  of  Maynooth,  when  the  gloomy  news  of  the  fate  of  that  garrison  reached  hina, 
and  spreading  rapidly  from  thence  to  his  partisans,  throughout  the  kingdom,  struck  suoli 
a  damp  at  once  into  the  spirit  of  his  cause,  as  it  never  after  entirely  recovered.     The 

*  "  Meny  letters  have  bene  sent  from  the  Irisshe  men  to  my  lord  doputie  of  ther  good  myndes  towerd  the 
kynge's  grace  ;  notwithstanding  the  borderers,  as  Oconer,  Oraillie,  and  other,  have  much  robbed  the  countrie 
eeth  oure  landying.  There  is  not  oon  of  them  hut  that  will  take  his  advantage,  when  he  seeth  histioie, 
albeit  now  they  withdrawe  them  seltfes  from  the  traytor."— Brabazon  to  Crumwell,  S  P.  LXXXIII. 

t  J.  Alen  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  LXXXIl. 

t  The  Lord  Deputy  and  Council  of  Ireland  to  Henry  VIII.,  S.  P.  LXXXVII. 

§  "  Maynooth  was  accounted,"  says  Lodge,  "  fur  the  abundance  of  its  furniture,  one  of  the  richest  houses 
under  the  crown  of  England." 

II  By  all  our  historians,  the  surrender  of  Maynooth  to  sir  VVilliam  Skeffington  is  attributed  to  the  treachery 
of  the  governor  of  the  castle,  Christopher  Paris.  But  neither  for  this  charge,  nor  for  any  of  the  anecdotes 
grafted  upon  it,  does  there  appear  to  be  any  foundation  in  our  official  records.  Of  this,  indeed,  a*  well  as 
of  many  other  auch  tales  foisted  into  our  history,  the  source  may  obviously  be  traced  to  the  dull  inventioua 
of  Stanihurst. 

IT  Slate  Papers,  LXXXVII.  **  Ibid. 


412  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

large  tumultuary  force  he  had  collected  now  daily  dwindled  away;  till  at  length,  when 
compelled  to  seek  for  refuge  in  O'Brian's  country,  a  small  train  of  gentlemen,  yeomen,  and 
priests,  to  the  number  of  about  sixteen,  formed  the  whole  of  his  escort.  His  first  inten- 
tion had  been  to  sail  from  thence  to  Spain,  to  solicit  assistance  from  the  emperor.  But 
this  plan  he  afterwards  abandoned  ;  and,  sending  as  Ins  envoys  to  the  imperial  court,  sir 
James  de  la  Hyde  and  a  priest  named  VVaish,  resolved  to  await  the  chance  of  events  ; 
his  hope  being  that  he  should  find  himself  able,  with  the  aid  of  foreign  or  Scottish  au.x- 
iliaries,  to  take  the  field  in  the  ensuing  midsummer ;  when,  by  a  combined  movement,  in 
which  O'Connor,  O'Neill,  and  Manus  O'Donnell  were  expected  to  join,  the  fjnglish  Pale 
was  to  be  invaded.* 

Of  all  these  schemes,  still  as  they  arose,  full  information  was  conveyed  to  the  lord 
deputy  and  council  by  Neill  Connelagh,  Mac  Guire,  the  lord  O'Donnell,  Clancboy,  and 
other  Ulster  chiefs  enlisted  in  the  English  interests,  and  all  as  ready  to  assist  in  quelling 
tj'^eir  rebellious  countrymen  in  the  field  as  they  had  beerj  to  denounce  them  in  the  coun- 
cil. On  this  occasion,  too, — as  on  all  others  vvhere  active  and  honest  zeal  was  called  for, 
— the  loyal  services  of  the  earl  of  Ossory  and  his  son,  the  lord  treasurer,  were  promptly 
and  effectively  forthcoming.  Already  had  they  managed  to  detach  from  the  league  no\v 
forrned  among  the  captains,  one  of  the  most  daring  and  active  of  their  number,  O'JVJoore, 
of  Ley; — hoping  through  his  m^ans  to  hold  in  check  some  of  the  less  friendly  of  ^he 
chiefs,  and  more  especially  Fits  Gerald's  ally  and  relative,  O'Connor. 

Among  the  measures  suggested  by  Qssory  to  the  government,  it  was  strongly  recom- 
mended by  him  that  there  should  be  a  resumption  of  all  grants  of  the  king's  revenues 
and  customs,  more  particularly  of  those  to  privileged  places;  and  likewise  that  the  act 
called,  in  general  Poynings'  Law,  should,  during  the  parliament  about  to  assemble,  be 
Busperjded.f 

Had  the  powers  of  the  state  been  now  wielded  with  even  a  moderate  degree  of  vigour 
snc}  skill,  the  young  Geraldine's  rebellion,  instead  of  being  suffered  tq  protract  its  strug- 
gle for  more  than  a  year,  might  have  been  crushed  in  a  few  weeks  after  its  firqt  outbreak. 
But,  besides  the  inaction  of  the  lord  deputy  himself,  owing  to  his  continued  state  of  ill- 
health,  he  also  embarrassed  frequently,  by  his  interference,  the  measures  and  counsels  of 
those  who  acted  for  him  ;  and,  had  we  no  other  clew  to  his  character  than  his  qwn  official 
letters,  the  inflated  pomp  of  their  tone,  compared  with  the  meagerqess  of  the  results  they 
have  to  communicate,  would  mark  sufficiently  the  order  of  minds  to  which  he  belonged. J 
To  meet  the  dangers  that  menaced  the  kingdom,  there  had  been,  at  an  early  period  of 
his  deputyship,  a  general  call  for  the  appointment  of  a  marshal  of  the  army  ;  and,  in  the 
spring  of  this  year,  sir  John  Saintclpw  had  been  appointed  to  that  office.  He  does  not 
appear,  however,  to  have  taken  much  part  in  the  warfare  that  followed;  the  chief  ser- 
vices in  which  were  performed  by  the  earl  of  Ossory  and  his  son,  lord  James,  as  we  find 
duly  acknowledged  in  the  grant  made  to  them,  two  ycfirs  after,  when  the  ancient  title  of 
their  family,  Ormond,  was  restored. 

The  address  of  Ossory,  in  drawing  away  froni  the  rebel  standard  the  brave  and  power- 
ful chief,  O'Moore,  had  deprived  the  Gcraldinesof  their  best  prop  and  hope.  The  same 
experiment  was  tried  in  other  quarters,  and  with  no  less  success ; — the  prevalence  of 
factions  among  the  Irish,  in  the  very  interior  of  their  homes  and  families,  rendering  such 
quick  changes  of  party  frequent  and  familiar.  In  this  very  rebellion,  the  instances  of 
different  members  of  the  same  family  .^ofhting  on  opposite  sides,  were  by  no  means  un- 
common. Thus,  while  the  great  O' Brian,  as  he  was  styled,  espoused  warmly  the 
cause  of  lord  Thomas,  his  eldest  son,  joining  the  followers  of  the  earl  of  Ossory,  took  the 
field  against  his  own  father  and  all  his  kindred.  In  the  same  manner,  Cahir  O'Connor, 
the  brother  of  the  chief  who  adherod  longest  to  the  cause  of  Fitz  Gerald,  agreed  to  fight 
during  this  war  on  the  side  of  the  English,  on  condition  that  he  should  have,  "  at  the 
king's  wages,"  12  horsemen  and  IGO  kern.^ 

One  farther  instance  may  here  be  added,  as  well  of  the  inveteracy  of  private  dissension 
among  the  people,  as  of  the  fatal  advantage  taken  of  it  by  their  rulers.  Some  movements 
in  Munster,  at  the  beginning  of  this  year,  having  shown  a  disposition,  on  the  part  of  the 
Mac  Carthys  and  Geraldines,  to  take  up  arms  in  favour  of  lord  Thomas,  the  earl  of 

•  Skeffington  to  King  Henty  Vllt.,  S.  P.  XCII. 

I  "  Wherfor  it  shiiUie  be  best,  in  my  minde,  that  the  acte  that  restravneth  to  hnlde  parliament  without 
certyficat  into  Englande,  be  put  in  siispence  during  this  parliament."— Ossory  to  W.  Cowley,  S.  P.  XCIII. 

J  "The  deputic  followiih  tlie  counsail  of  suche  as  have  nether  strength,  activilie,  practise,  or  yit  good 
will  to  further  the  kinges  most  necessary  affiiires."— /iirf. 

J  Ayltner  and  Alen  to  rrumvvell,  S.  P.  XrVIII. 


HISTORY    OF    IRELAND.  413 

Ossory  hastened  to  the  scene  of  this  gathering  revolt,  and  going  among  the  Geraldines, 
"  sowed  such  strife  between  them,"  to  use  his  own  language,  "  that  they  continued  lonf 
after  full  of  war  and  debate,  the  one  destroying  the  other."* 

While  thus,  in  the  south  and  the  west,  internal  division  and  treachery  were  busily 
sapping  the  strength  of  Fitz  Gerald's  friends,  all  the  great  captains  of  the  north,  with  but 
one  or  two  exceptions,  took  their  stand  firmly  on  the  side  of  the  government;  and  the  lord 
deputy,  in  announcing  to  the  king  his  intention  speedily  to  march  into  O'Connor's 
country,  mentions,  as  the  chiefs  to  whose  services  he  looks  forward,  O'Donnell,  Mac 
Guire,  Neill  Connelagh,  O'Reilly,  Neill  Mor,  Hugh  Roe,  Mac  Mahon,  the  O'Hanlons, 
and  several  others.f  Such  being  tlie  immense  superiority  on  the  side  of  the  government 
it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  young  "  traitor"  with  his  few  and  precarious  allies, 
should  be  able  to  maintain  any  longer  the  struggle.  It  was  only  by  the  connivance,  indeed, 
of  some  of  those  opposed  to  him,  that  he  had  been  enabled  to  continue  his  resistance,  or 
escape  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  English.  In  the  course  of  an  incursion,  under  the 
lord  treasurer,  into  Offaley,  in  which  he  was  attended  by  the  leading  gentry  of  Kildare, 
as  well  as  by  O'Moore  of  Ley,  this  chief,  while  skirmishing  with  the  rebels,  forbore  from 
killing  any  of  lord  Thomas's  troops,  and  aimed  at  those  only  belonging  to  his  brother 
chieftain  and  rival,  O'Connor.  Many  of  the  rebels,  also,  on  being  made  prisoners,  met  in 
the  royal  ranks  with  sympathizing  Geraldines,  by  whom  they  were  assisted  to  escape; 
and  lord  Thomas  himself,  in  the  course  of  these  skirmishes,  fell,  more  than  once  into  the 
hands  of  the  king's  troops,  and  was  again  let  go  by  them.j 

A  war  thus  collusjvely  carried  on  was  not  likely  very  soon  to  terminate.  But  a  far 
more  prompt  and  decisive  policy  was  now  about  to  be  adopted;  and  the  arrival  in  Ire- 
land of  lord  Leonard  Gray,  an  officer  of  high  military  character,  was  viewed  as  the  prelude 
to  his  succeeding  Skeffington  in  the  office  of  lord  deputy. 

However  little  there  may  have  been  of  actual  fighting  between  the  two  parties,  the 
work  of  ravage  and  devastation,  which  has  formed,  at  all  times,  a  main  branch  of  Irish 
warfare,  was  maintained,  by  both,  with  the  usual  ruinous  efficiency;  and  a  paper,  drawn 
up  after  a  short  absence  from  Ireland,  by  chief  justice  Ayliner,  and  the  master  of  the  rolls, 
John  Alen,  expresses  their  surprise  at  the  frightful  change  they  found  in  the  condition  of 
the  country ;  no  less  than  six  of  the  eight  baronies  that  formed  the  county  of  Kildare 
having  been  burnt  and  depopulated,  while  pari  of  Meath  had  undergone  the  same  doom; 
and,  but  for  the  lord  treasurer,  who  lay  at  Naas,  with  a  portion  of  the  army,  the  remainder 
of  Kildare  and  the  county  of  Dublin  would  have  been  laid  waste  to  the  city  gates.} 
When,  together  with  all  this,  it  is  taken  into  account  that  the  plague  was  then  raging 
through  the  country,  the  picture  of  the  misery  that  must  have  every  where  prevailed  is 
rendered  complete. 

Among  other  ruins  that  marked  the  course  of  the  spirit  of  havoc  then  abroad,  were 
the  prostrate  walls  of  the  noble  castle  of  Powerscourt,  erected  by  the  late  earl  of  Kil- 
dare.y 

No  time  was  lost  on  the  arrival  of  lord  Leonard,  in  preparing  a  force  for  the  invasion 
of  Offaley,  in  which  district,  and  the  continued  alliance  of  its  hardy  chief,  now  lay  Fit?; 
Gerald's  sole  hope.  Provided  with  victuals  for  twenty-one  days,  tlie  army  mustered,  aa 
had  been  appointed,  at  Naas;  and  was  now  but  waiting  for  the  lord  deputy  to  place  himself 
at  its  head.  But  sir  William  Skeffington  was  still  lying  ill  and  helpless,  at  Maynooth; 
where,  to  add  to  the  dreariness  of  his  position,  all  the  country  around  the  castle  had  been 
laid  desolate  to  the  very  gates.  Still,  unwilling  that  any  but  himself  should  enjoy  the 
credit  of  leading  the  enterprise,  he  continued  to  procrastinate,  from  day  to  day,  keeping 
lord  Leonard's  force,  as  well  as  his  own,  consuming  idly  in  the  field  their  stock  of  prQVi-^ 
sions;  while  lord  James  Butler  also,  at  the  head  of  120  horsemen  and  50Q  foot,  and  the 
Irish  allies,  O'Moore  and  Cahir  O'Connor,  were  all,  in  like  manner,  with  their  respective 
forces,  kept  waiting  the  lord  deputy's  recovery.lT 

Among  other  important  projects,  delayed  or  frustrated  by  the  same  cause,  are  mcT\: 

*  Osgory  to  W.  Cowley,  &  P.  XCIII.  Lord  Leonard  Gray,  in  one  of  his  letters,  speaks  even  more  bitterlj^ 
of  the  contentious  spirit  of  this  Anglo-Irish  sept :— "  As  for  neues,"  he  says,  "  we  have  none  worlhie  writing 
synes  the  date  of  our  other  letters  ;  but  the  bastarde  Geraldynes,  by  the  permission  of  God  be  killing  one, 
another."— Gray  and  Brabazon  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  CLXVIU. 

t  Skeffington  to  Henry  VI [I.,  S.  P.  XCVII. 

t  Aylmer  and  Alen  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  XCVIII.  §  Ibid. 

i  "  The  Tholes  entered  by  tradyment  into  Powers  Courte,  con  of  the  fairist  garrysons  in  this  countrie. 
(the  buylding  wherof  cost  the  oolde  erle  of  Kildare  and  the  inliabitauntis  of  the  countie  of  p.ublin  4  or  5  000, 
niarkis,  for  the  defence  of  the  said  Tholes  and  the  Dimes,)  and  prostrated  the  same  down  to  ite  grounded"— 
fbid. 

V  Ibid. 


414  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

lioned  the  expedition  for  the  destruction  of  O'Brian's  bridge, — an  object  considered  to 
be  of  great  importance, — the  taking  of  the  town  of  Dungarvan,  and  the  subjection  or  re- 
formation of  the  O'Brians  and  Geraldines  of  Munster.* 

Finding  himself,  at  lengtli,  sufficiently  recovered  to  be  able  to  venture  on  the  expedi- 
tion, Skeffingham  marched  his  army  to  Offaley,  and  entered  the  borders  of  that  country  ; 
whereupon,  O'Connor,  to  whom  there  remained  now  no  other  alternative  than  either  to 
submit,  or  to  be  utterly  ruined,  came  in  and  surrendered  himself  to  the  lord  deputy. 
Deprived  thus  of  his  only  efficient  ally,  lord  Thomas  saw  that  all  farther  struggle  was 
hopeless.  He  therefore,  in  a  letter  to  lord  Leonard,  which  shows  of  what  weak  materials 
such  firebrands  may  be  composed,  entreated  that  lord  to  be  his  intercessor  with  the  king, 
and  to  obtain  for  him  "  his  pardon,  his  life,  and  lands."!  He  was  accordingly  admitted  to 
a  parley,  and  confessing  humbly  his  heinous  offences  towards  the  king,  gave  himself  up 
into  the  hands  of  lord  Leonard  and  the  council,  to  be  disposed  of  according  to  the  royal 
pleasure.  In  communicating  these  terms  to  the  king,  the  council  added,  from  themselves, 
an  humble  prayer,  that,  in  consideration  of"  the  words  of  comfort  spoken  to  lord  Thomas, 
to  allure  him  to  yield  himself  up,"  the  royal  clemency  might  be  extended  towards  him, 
"  more  especially  as  regarded  his  life.f" 

In  the  month  of  August,  this  year,  the  ill-fated  young  lord  was  sent  prisoner  to  Eng- 
land ;  and  such  was  the  importance  attached  to  the  security  of  his  person,  that  lord 
Leonard  Gray  was  specially  appointed  to  conduct  him  to  England  and  deliver  him  safe 
into  the  hands  of  the  king.  But,  however  welcome  to  offijnded  majesty  was  such  a  vic- 
tim, the  hopes  of  mercy  held  out  to  Fitz  Gerald  not  only  damped,  but  considerably  em- 
barrassed, the  royal  triumph. §  His  five  uncles,  too,  though  all  obnoxious,  and  some  of 
them  known  to  have  been  as  deeply  involved  in  the  rebellion  as  himself,  were  still  left  at 
large.  About  the  beginning,  however,  of  the  following  year,  these  five  brethren  surren- 
dered themselves  to  the  lord  Gray,  and  were  by  him  sent  prisoners  to  England,  where, 
together  with  their  ill-fated  nephew,  to  whom  hopes  of  pardon  had  been  so  delusively 
held  out,  they  were  all  executed  at  Tyburn. 

Notwithstanding  this  sweeping  vengeance  of  the  law,  there  were  still  left  in  Ireland 
direct  representatives  of  the  house  of  Kildare;  for  the  late  earl's  second  wife,  lady  Eliza- 
beth Gray,  the  daughter  of  the  marquis  of  Dorset,  had  borne  him  two  sons,  the  eldest  of 
whom,  Gerald,  was,  at  the  time  of  lord  Thomas's  death,  about  twelve  or  thirteen  years 
of  age.  He  was  then  in  O'Brian's  country,  under  the  care  of  James  de  la  Hyde  ;  while 
the  second  son,  Edward,  had  been  conveyed,  in  some  mysterious  manner,  to  his  mother, 
the  countess  of  Kildare,  then  at  Beaumanoir,  in  Leicestershire.il  As  Gerald,  the  elder 
brother,  had  been  declared  publicly  an  enemy,  those  interested  in  his  safety,  whether  as 
relatives  or  partisans,  had  him  removed  from  place  to  place  as  security  and  secresy  re- 
quired; and,  after  remaining  some  time  among  the  Geraldines,  in  O'Brian's  country,  he 
was  from  thence  secretly  conveyed  to  his  aunt,  lady  Eleanor,  the  widow  of  the  late  chief 
of  South  Munster,  Mac  Carthy  Reagli,  and  then  residing  in  that  territory. 

The  destruction  of  O'Brian's  bridge,  an  object  considered,  as  we  have  seen,  to  be  of 
great  importance,  and  which  had  been  more  than  once  unsuccessfully  attempted,  was  at 
this  time  effected  by  a  force  under  the  joint  command  of  the  lord  deputy,  the  earl  of 
Ossory,  and  his  son,  lord  James  Butler.  The  consequence  attached  by  the  higher  au- 
thorities to  this  enterprise  may  be  judged  not  only  from  the  rank  of  the  commanders  con- 
ducting it,  but  also  from  the  complaints  made  by  Butler,  in  his  account  of  the  expedition, 
that  neither  the  baron  of  Delvin  nor  the  baron  of  Slane  was  present,  and  that  few  of  the 
English  Pale  had  lent  their  aid.  The  treachery  of  the  Irish,  however,  to  each  other, — 
that  unfailing  resource  of  their  enemies, — stood  instead  of  more  honourable  means;  and 
the  chief's  son,  Donough  O'Brian,  was  the  ready  traitor  in  this  emergency,  both  to  his 
family's  and  his  country's  interests. IF  The  possession  of  the  castle  of  Carrigogunnel — an 
ancient  place  of  great  strength,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Limerick,  which  had  been  in 
the  hands  of  one  or  other  of  the  O'Brians  for  more  than  200  years — was  the  prime  object 
of  Donough's  ambition  ;  and  lord  Leonard  Gray,  now  lord  deputy,  having  agreed  to  deliver 
this  castle  into  his  custody,  he,  in  return,  lent  his  aid  in  the  present  aggression  on  his 

*  Ossory  to  W.  Cowley,  State  Papers,  C. 

t  Lord  Thomas  Fit/.  Gerald  to  Lord  Leonard  Gray,  State  Papers,  CL 

t  The  Council  of  Ireland  to  Kins  Henry  VHI.,  State  Papers,  CIIL 

§  "  The  doying  whorof  the  (apprehension  of  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald)  albeit  We  accept  it  thankfully,  yet,  if 
he  had  been  apprehended  after  such  sorte  as  was  convenable  to  his  deservynges,  the  same  had  been  moche 
more  thankfull  and  better  to  our  contentacion."— King  Henry  VIH.  to  Skeffyngton,  State  Papers,  CVI. 

|(  Countess  of  Kildare  to  Crunnvell,  State  Papers,  C.XXXVII. 

17  Donoiigli  O'lirian  had  married  TIellen,  youngest  daughter  of  Piers,  earl  of  Ormond. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  415 

father's  territory.  Pointing  out  a  by-road  to  the  bridge,  entirely  unknown  before  to  the 
English,  he  thus  saved  them  the  delay  and  difficulty  of  carrying  their  ordnance  across 
the  river,  and  enabled  them  more  readily  to  bring  all  their  force  to  the  attack.* 

This  bridge  was  protected,  at  each  end,  by  a  castle  of  "hewn  marble," — both  castles 
built  in  the  water,  at  some  distance  from  the  land,  and  both  well  defended  by  gunners, 
galloglasses,  and  horsemen.  The  lord  deputy  began  by  attacking  the  larger  of  these  two 
garrisons;  but  finding  that  his  ordnance  look  no  effect,  he  caused  that  part  of  the  river 
between  the  land  and  the  castle  to  be  filled  up  with  fagots  or  fascines;  and  gaining  thus 
a  footing  for  his  scaling-ladders,  found  himself  enabled  to  take  possession  of  both  the 
castles  and  the  bridge,  and  with  the  loss  of  only  two  gunners  in  the  assault.  The  whole 
of  the  structure  was  then  broken  down  and  destroyed;  and  of  sucii  moment  to  the  peace 
of  the  Pale  was  this  feat  considered,  that  we  find  the  lord  deputy,  a  few  months  after,  re- 
ferring to  the  destruction  of  O'Brian's  bridge,  as  a  service  worthy  of  being  classed  along 
with  that  other  great  act  of  his  administration,  the  seizure  of  Fitz  Gerald  and  his  five 
uncles.f 

About  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  February,  this  year,  a  rumour  had  reached  Ireland 
that  lord  Thomas  and  his  five  kinsmen  were  about  to  return  thither  immediately. 
So  often  had  former  earls  of  Kildare  been  known  to  triumph  over  their  enemies,  -icofj 
and  such  was  the  spell  the  Irish  connected  with  the  name  of  Fitz  Gerald,  that  it 
was  not  till  the  news  arrived  of  the  frightful  executions  at  Tyburn,  which  took  place,  as 
already  has  been  mentioned,  on  the  third  of  this  month,  that  the  hope  was  surrendered  by 
them,  of  seeing  their  favourites  return  safe  and  triumphant.     It  must  have  aggravated, 
too,  the  bitternesoof  their  feeling,  did  they  know  that  the  ill-fated  young  lord  hunself  was 
not  allowed,  durmg  his  confinement,  the  commonest  necessaries  of  life;  but  "  bare-footed 
and  bare-legged,"  as  a  melancholy  letter  of  his  own  describes  his  condition,  was  indebted 
to  the  charity  of  his  fellow-prisoners  for  the  few  tattered  garments  that  covered  him.| 

One  of  the  principal  events  of  this  year  was  the  expedition,  or  "hosting,"  of  the  lord 
deputy  into  Offaley,  and  his  expulsion  from  thence  of  Brian  O'Connor.     This  pow- 
erful  chief,  though  one  of  the  most  active  of  Fitz  Gerald's  supporters,  had,  on  his  -1-07 
submission  at  the  close  of  the  rebellion,  been  suffered  to  remain  in  possession  of 
his  territory.     As  he  still,  however,  according  to  English  authorities,  continued  to  violate 
every  pledge  of  peace  he  had  given,  the  lord  deputy  prepared  to  invade  his  country. 
Attended  by  the  baroDs  of  Delvin  and  Slane,  and  the  lord  Killeen^  who  had  all  joined  him 
with  their  respective  forces  at  Rathwere,  he  marched  from  thence  through  the  territories 
of  O'Mulmoy,  O'Mulloghliny  and  Mac  Geoghegan,  compelling  these  captains  to  abandon 
the  cause  of  O'Connor,  and  even  to  join  with  the  ranks  of  the  invaders  against  him. 
Entering  on  the  borders  of  Offaley,  they  took  by  storm  the  castle  of  Brakland,  and  deli- 
vered it  into  the  hands  of  the  chief's  brother,  Cahir  O'Connor,  who,  following  the  unna- 
tural example  of  Donough  O'Brian  and  others,  had  leagued  himself  with  his  family's 
enemies.  5 

From  thence,  under  the  guidance  of  lord  Delvin,  they  penetrated  into  a  part  of  O'Con- 
nor's country,  where,  as  the  council  state  in  their  despatch,  "no  English  host  had  ever 
been  known  to  enter."||  Here,  laying  siege  to  the  castle  of  Dengen,  which  the  chief 
himself  had  erected  in  the  middle  of  a  large  bog,  they,  notwithstanding  the  earnest  en- 
treaties of  Cahir  O'Connor,  demolished  the  castle  to  the  ground,  leaving  but  a  small  angle 
of  it  standing; — "to  the  intent,"  as  the  lord  deputy  expresses  himself,  "that  the  Irish 
might  see  to  what  purpose  the  keeping  of  their  castles  served."ir  In  the  assault,  eighteen 
of  the  defenders  of  the  castle  were  slain,  and  their  heads  stuck  up  as  memorials  of  the 
event;  while  Cahir  was  rewarded  for  his  treachery  by  having  the  government  of  that  ter- 
ritory committed  to  his  care.  With  the  view,  too,  of  securing  Ofl^aley  to  the  crown,  it 
was  proposed  that  either  Cahir  should  be  elsewhere  provided  for,  and  that  district  stocked 
with  English  inhabitants,  or,  if  this  were  thought  too  costly  an  experiment,  that  he  should 
be  denizened,  and  created  baron  of  Offaley,  to  hold  that  land  of  the  king's  gift,  according 

*  The  Council  of  Ireland  to  Crumvvell,  State  Papers,  CLXI. 

t  "  I  have  seen  men,  for  less  interprises  than  the  apprehension  of  Thomas  Fitzgeralde,  and.  afterwards,  the 
taking  of  all  his  fyve  uncles  and  the  braking  of  O'iSrene's  bridge,  highly  advanced." — Gray  to  Crurawell, 
State  Papers. 

I  "  I  never  had  eny  inony,  sins  Team  into  pryson,  but  ,i  nobufi,  nor  I  have  had  notliyr  hosyn,  dublet,  nor 
shoys,  nor  shyrt,  but  on ;  nor  eny  olhyr  garment,  biit  a  syngyl!  fryse  gowne,  for  a  velve  furryd  wylhe  bowge, 
and  so  I  have  gone  wolvvard,  and  barefote,  and  barelegyd,  divirse  times  (whan  ytt  hath  not  ben  very  warnie  ) 
and  so  I  shuld  have  don  styll,  and  now,  but  that  pore  prysoners,  of  tlieir  gentylncs,  hath  sumfyme  geven  me 
old  hosyn,  and  shoys,  and  old  shyrtes."— Lord  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald  to  Hothe,  Stale  Papers,  CLVIII. 

S  Gray  and  Brabazon  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  CLXIX. 

j  The  Council  of  Ireland  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  C'LXX. 

V  Gray  and  Brabazon  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  CLXIX. 


416  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

to  English  laws  and  inheritance.  This,  they  suggested,  might  have  the  efFect  of  render- 
ing him  a  good  subject ;  and  the  reason  assigned  by  them  for  this  expectation  is,  like  much 
that  relates  to  Ireland,  at  once  amusing  and  melancholy.  Should  he  consent  to  accept 
of  these  favours,  he  must  then,  they  think,  be  loyal,  in  his  own  defence;  as  "Irishmea 
would  so  hate  him  afterwards,  that  he  would  have  but  little  comfort  of  them,  and  so  must 
look  to  the  king's  subjects  for  protection  against  them."* 

Events  proved,  however,  that  all  this  anxiety,  as  to  the  mode  of  disposing  of  him,  had 
been  most  thanklessly  thrown  away.  Before  the  year  had  quite  expired,  Brian  O'Connor 
was  again  in  possession  of  OfFaley,t — while  his  brother  Cahir,  notwithstanding  his  com- 
pact with  the  English,  again  declared  himself  the  king's  enemy,  and  made  common  cause 
with  Brian.f  As  this  conduct  of  the  O'Connors  called  for  chastisement,  the  lord  deputy 
again  marched  into  their  country;  but  the  only  result,  as  it  appears,  of  his  inroad,  was  the 
destruction  of  a  large  stock  of  corn  found  in  the  abbeys  of  Kilieigh  and  Castle  Goshil,  and 
the  carrying  away  from  Kilieigh  of  "  a  pair  of  organs,"  to  be  placed  in  the  college  ot 
Maynoolh,  together  with  glass  sufficient  to  glaze  not  only  the  windows  of  the  church  of 
that  college,  but  most  of  the  windows  of  the  castle  of  Maynooth  itself  § 

For  some  months  after  this  fruitless  expedition,  O'Connor,  betaking  himself  to  his  bogs 
and  woods,  continued  to  baffle  all  the  attempts  made  by  the  deputy  to  obtain  possession 
of  his  person,  or  even  to  expel  him  from  that  territory.  At  length,  driven  to  extremity, 
the  hardy  chief  declared  himself  willing  to  enter  into  articles  of  submission ;  and  a  parley 
was  held  on  the  borders  of  the  Pale,  between  him  and  lord  Leonard,  in  the  cautious  forms 
of  which,  as  concerted  previously  by  the  parties,  we  perceive  how  strong  were  the  fears 
of  treachery  felt  on  both  sides;  while,  in  the  privilege  allowed  to  the  chief  of  holding 
parley  with  vice-royalty,  a  sort  of  recognition  is  implied  of  that  princely  rank  to  which, 
in  right  of  their  ancient  dynasties,  the  Irish  chieftains  laid  claim. 

O'Connor  having  declared  that  he  "  would  in  nowise  come  into  the  Pale  to  parle,"  it 
was  agreed  that  the  interview  between  him  and  the  lord  deputy  should  take  place  near 
a  ford  called  Kenneford,  on  the  borders  of  Offaley.  There,  in  a  large  open  field,  the 
chief,  as  arranged  by  the  articles,  was  to  take  his  station,  alone,  leaving  all  his  retinue  at 
three  miles'  distance;  v/hile  the  lord  deputy,  with  a  certain  number  of  troops, — not  less 
than  35(j  horsemen,  kern,  and  gunners, — ^was  to  come  over  the  ford  to  meet  him,  leaving 
the  remainder  of  his  forces  behind  till  the  close  of  the  conference.  During  the  parley, 
watch  was  to  be  kept  on  a  high  hill,  where  also  a  trumpeter  and  four  horsemen  were  to 
be  stationed  ;  and  this  trumpeter,  on  pain  of  death,  was  to  sound  an  alarm  if  he  saw  any 
danger.  Such  were  the  forms  (and,  perhaps,  not  peculiar  to  this  occasion)  in  which 
O'Connor  made  his  submission,  entreating,  at  the  same  time,  that,  through  the  interces- 
sion of  the  lord  deputy,  he  might  be  permitted  to  hold  Offaley  of  the  crown. H 

Our  last  notice  of  the  young  lord  Gerald,  who  was  now  the  hope  and  rallying  point  of 
the  rebel  party,  left  him  in  Desmond  under  the  care  of  his  aunt,  lady  Eleanor,  the  widow  of 
the  late  dynast  of  that  territory.  This  lady  was  now  about  to  be  married  to  another  great 
Irish  chieftain,  O'Donnell  ;1T — ^being  partly  moved,  it  was  thought,  to  this  step,  by  the  hope 
of  securing  a  friend  and  assertor  of  the  rights  of  her  outlawed  nephew ;  and  in  the 
■jc^a'  month  of  June,  this  year,  we  find  her  accompanied  by  the  young  Gerald  and  her 
■  own  son,  Mac  Carthy  Reagh,  passing  through  Thomond  on  her  way  toO'Doimell's 
country.  From  Galway  she  was  escorted  to  the  end  of  her  journey  by  Ulick  de  Burgh, 
—the  same  who,  was  some  years  after  created  earl  of  Clanricarde. 

This  journey  through  so  great  a  part  of  the  kingdom,  from  the  extreme  south  to  the 
north,  performed  thus  safely  by  a  youth  whose  apprehension  was  of  such  importance  to 
the  king's  party,  showed  very  strongly  the  state  of  popular  feeling;  while  the  lord 
deputy's  supposed  connivance  at  these  daring  movements  of  the  Geraldines,  so  much  at 
variance  with  his  public  declarations,  drew  down  those  suspicions  on  his  faith  and 
loyality  which  led  ultimately  to  his  ruin.     When  arrived  at  O'Donnell's  mansion,  the 

♦  The  Council  of  Ireland  to  Crumwell,  State  Papnrs,  CLXX. 

t  Senlle[;er,  &c.  to  Crumwell,  Slate  Papers,  CLXXXIX.— In  reference  to  this  success  of  O'Connor,  the  fol- 
lowing severe  reproof  occurs  in  a  letter  from  Crumwell  to  the  lord  deputy,  dated  from  Oatlands :— "  The  ex- 
pulsyon  of  liym  (O'Connor)  was  taken  very  well,  but  t!ie  permyssion  of  him  to  have  sucho  a  scope  to  worke 
niyschyffat  his  pleasure,  as  no  dought  he  must  nedes  be  remayneing  in  dyspayre  of  restytution,  was  neyther 
wysedom,  nor  yet  good  presydent.  Rediibbe  yt,  my  lord,  in  the  juste  punyshement  of  his  traytour's  carkas, 
and  letfe  his  treason  be  a  warning  to  youe,  and  to  all  that  shalle  have  to  doo  for  the  kinges  magestye  ther, 
never  to  trust  traytour  after,  but  to  use  thavm,  withoute  tracte.  after  theyr  demerytes."— Slate  Papnrs  CXCI. 

I  Brabazon  to  Crumwell,  Slate  Papers,  CXCIII.  §  Cray  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  CXCIV. 

II  "  The  Manner  and  Forme  of  the  Parliament  betwene  Lord  Leonarde  Gray,  the  Kinges  our  Soveraign 
Lorde  Hys  Highness  Dcputie  of  Irelonde,  and  Bryan  OcUonour."^ Slate  Paper. 

IT  "  The  late  erle  of  Kildare,  his  suster  is  gon  to  be  married  to  Manus  O'Donnell,  with  whom  is  gon  yong 
Gerrot,  Delahides,  and  others;  which  1  like  not.  I  was  never  in  dispaire  in  Ireland  till  now."— Brabazon  lo 
Aylmcr  and  Alcu,  S.  P.  CCXXIX. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  417 

party  were  met,  as  had  previously  been  concerted,  by  the  youth's  near  relative,  O'Neill ; 
a  compact  was  sworn  between  the  two  cliiefs  to  support  the  rights  of  young  Gerald, 
and  envoys  were  sent  to  solicit  the  aid  of  the  Scottish  monarch  in  their  cause.* 

Manus  O'Donnell,  now  the  husband  of  lady  Eleanor,  Imd  lately  succeeded,  on  the 
death  of  his  father,  to  the  lordship  of  Tyrconnel,  having  been  inaugurated,  according 
to  a  custom  of  high  antiquity,  upon  the  rock  near  Kilmacrenan  church.  Though  bear- 
ing an  hereditary  grudge  to  O'Neill,  he  had  now  been  induced,  for  the  sake  of  young 
Gerald,  to  act  in  concert  with  that  chief;  and  a  like  sacrifice  of  private  feud  to  the  gene- 
ral interests  was  made  by  O'Connor  of  Connaught,f  who,  though  long  at  war  with 
Manus  O'Donnell  for  the  possession  of  the  castle  of  Sligo,  now  consented,  with  the  view 
of  facilitating  the  general  league,  to  divide  equally  between  O'Donnell  and  himself  all 
the  profits  of  this  castle,  as  well  as  the  rent  likewise  of  Connaught.  Among  other 
arrangements  made  by  them  for  Gerald's  safety  and  honour,  a  guard  of  twenty-four  horse- 
men, well  armed  and  apparelled,  was  appointed  to  wait  upon  him  at  his  pleasure. | 

In  the  month  of  July,  this  year,  lord  Leonard  Gray  proceeded  on  a  military  progress 
through  a  great  part  of  the  kingdom,  receiving  the  submission  of  all  the  chiefs  through 
whose  countries  he  passed,  taking  the  sons  of  some  as  pledges  of  their  good  faith,  and 
seizing  and  destroying,  in  many  instances,  their  castles  and  strongholds.  In  this  manner, 
attended  by  the  viscount  Gormanstown,  and  other  lords  of  the  Pale,  he  traversed  Offaley, 
Ely  O'Carrol,  Orniond,  and  Arra,  and  from  thence,  through  Thomond,  into  Galway.J 
In  the  town  of  Galway  he  remained  seven  days,  and,  during  that  time,  it  is  said, 
sacrilegiously  seized  and  confiscated  the  precious  ornaments  of  the  ancient  church  of  St. 
Nicholas.  But  this  story,  though  so  long  current,  has  no  pretensions  whatever  to  truth. || 
Some  self-willed  acts  of  this  lord,  in  the  course  of  his  progress,  brought  down  much 
censure  upon  him,  from  his  fellow-commanders.  But  the  crimes  alleged  against  him 
were,  his  open  leaning  to  the.Geraldines,  and,  still  worse,  his  favouring,  to  a  disloyal  ex- 
tent, the  native  Irish  themselves.  Among  the  acts  by  which  he  gave  most  offence  were 
the  following: — Finding  Mac  William  invested  with  the  captainry  of  Clanricarde,  he 
forcibly  deposed  him,  and  set  up  in  his  place  Ulick  de  Burgh,  afterwards  earl  of  Clanri- 
carde;— a  mark  of  favour  which  could  not  fail  to  be  ascribed  to  partiality  towards  the 
Geraldines,  of  whom  Ulick,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  most  active  partisan.  Another  act 
that  brought  upon  him  still  greater  odium,  was  his  selection  of  the  chief  O'Connor,  who 
had  been  so  lately  in  open  rebellion  against  the  king's  government,  as  not  merely  his 
guide,  but  his  close  and  confidential  adviser. 

All  the  chiefs  who  had  made  their  submission,  during  this  hosting,  were  bound  to  the 
observance  thereof  by  indentures  as  well  as  by  oaths.  But  Ormond,  in  stating  this  fact, 
adds,  that  neither  from  them,  nor  any  other  of  all  the  "  Irishrie,"  did  he  count  on  security 
or  good  faith  for  a  moment  longer  than  the  king's  forces  continued  among  them. IT 

The  threatening  league  of  the  northern  chiefs  could  boast,  with  its  other  supports,  the 
sanction  of  a  noble  name,  but  too  well  known  in  the  records  of  rebellion  during  this  and 
former  reigns,  lord  James  of  Desmond,  the  present  pretender  to  the  earldom.  The  lord 
of  that  title  who,  in  the  years  1523  and  1528,  entered  into  a  league  with  foreign  powers 
for  the  invasion  of  Ireland,  having  died  without  male  issue,  there  arose  a  contest  for  the 
right  of  inheritance  between  the  two  branches  of  the  family,  which  was  continued  by 
their  respective  descendants;  and  the  present  claimants  were  James  Fitz  John,  whose 
father  had  usurped  and  bequeathed  to  him  both  title  and  possession,  and  James  Fitz 
Maurice,  regarded  generally  as  the  rightful  heir  to  the  earldom.  The  father  of  the  pre- 
sent possessor,  who  died  in  the  year  1536,  had,  by  connecting  himself  with  the  O'Brians, 
caused  much  embarrassment  to  the  government.  It  was,  indeed,  chiefly  by  the  aid  of 
that  powerful  sept  that  he  had  been  enabled  to  acquire  possession  of  almost  the  whole  of 
the  country  belonging  to  the  earldom  ;  as  well  as  of  those  castles,  garrisons,  and  lands, 
in  the  county  of  Limerick,  which  had  belonged  to  the  late  earl  of  Kildare,  but  which,  by 
the  attainder  of  that  lord,  had  accrued  to  the  king. 


*  Ormond  to  the  Council  of  Ireland,  S.  P.  CCXXXVIII. 

t  This  chief  called  the  great  O'Connor  of  Connaught,  was  the  most  powerful  of  the  live  chieftains  of  that 
name;  the  four  others  being,  O'Connor  of  Offaley,  O'Connor  Roo,  O'Connor  Don,  and  O'Connor  Corcuniroo. — 
See  S.  P.  CCXLV. 

I  Ormond  to  the  Council  of  Freland,  S.  P.  CCXXXVIII. 
§  Brabazon,  &c.  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  CCXLIII. 

II  In  an  account  kept  by  sir  William  Brabazon,  vice-treasurer  at  this  time  in  Ireland,  of  payments  made 
for  articles  confiscated,  we  find  an  acknowledgment  of  the  receipt  of  fory-flvc  shillings  from  lord  Leonard 
as  the  price  of  some  ornaments  confiscated  at  Galway.  On  this  very  slight  foundation  the  whole  story,  it  is 
probable,  has  been  fabricated. 

M  Ormond  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  CULXXXII. 

62 


418  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Of  a  like  complexion  was  the  course  pursued  by  James  Fitz  John,  tlie  present  pos- 
sessor of  the  title.  Still  allying  himself  with  the  O'Brians,  and  other  "  rebels,"  for  ob- 
jects of  plunder  and  aggression,  he  yet  continued  to  negotiate  with  the  heads  of  the 
government,  and  employed  all  the  weight  of  his  powerful  position  to  prevail  upon  them 
to  recognise  his  title.  He  also  occasionally  even  lent  his  aid  to  the  king's  forces;  and, 
during  a  late  progress  of  the  lord  deputy,  had  joined  his  camp  at  Owney,  "  with  a  good 
band  of  men."*  But  it  was  shown  in  that  instance,  that  he  was  hardly  less  dangerous 
as  a  confederate,  than  as  an  enemy  ;  for,  on  some  dispute  respecting  a  hostage,  arising 
between  him  and  the  deputy,  the  earl  of  Desmond  drew  out  his  men  in  battle  array 
against  the  king's  troops;  and  it  was  only  through  the  interference  of  sir  Thomas  Butler, 
the  earl's  intimate  friend,  that  he  was  induced  to  withdraw  his  troops,  and  return  quietly 
to  his  own  territory.f  For  much  of  this  headstrong  conduct,  the  government  itself  was 
in  a  manner  answerable,  having,  on  a  previous  occasion,  yielded  to  him  with  a  degree  of 
submissiveness  which  could  not  fail  to  encourage  farther  presumption.  In  the  course  of 
one  of  his  negotiations  with  the  lord  deputy,  respecting  the  terms  of  his  proffered  submis- 
sion, the  commissioners  employed  to  conclude  the  treaty  agreed  to  meet  for  that  purpose 
at  Cionmell.  But  Desmond,  insisting  on  the  strange  privilege  bestowed  upon  one  of  his 
ancestors,  of  never  entering  into  any  wailed  town,  refused  to  come  to  Cionmell ;  and  the 
royal  commissioners,  forgetful  of  their  own  and  their  sovereign's  dignity,  condescended 
to  wait  upon  him  in  his  camp.f 

Mean  while  the  contest  between  him  and  young  Fitz  Maurice  for  the  right  of  inheri- 
tance continued  to  be  maintained  by  their  respective  parties;  while  the  government, 
though  clearly  of  opinion  that  justice  and  right  were  on  the  side  of  Fitz  Maurice,  yet, 
with  a  policy  far  more  prudent  than  either  just  or  dignified,  forbore  from  pronouncing 
any  decision  in  his  favour ;  deeming  it  prudent  to  defer  declaring  which  was  the  rightful 
heir  till  they  could  ascertain  wiiich  was  the  more  likely  to  prove  the  better  subject.  So 
extensive,  however,  was  the  influence  acquired  by  Desmond  in  Munster,  where  he  had 
drawn  to  his  side  all  the  most  distinguished  Geraldines, — the  lord  of  Kerry,  the  lord 
Barry,  the  Knight  of  the  Valley,  and  the  White  Knight, — that  the  council  advised  the 
expedient  of  sending  to  Ireland  the  other  claimant,  young  Fitz  Maurice,  who  was  then 
with  the  king  in  England,  and  using  him  as  an  instrument  to  divide  the  party,  and  reduce 
the  influence  of  his  powerful  competitor. 

But  the  countenance  afforded  by  Desmond  to  the  young  Gerald — already  strong  in  the 
affections  and  sympathies  of  the  Irish  people — was  the  wrong  most  resented  by  the  Eng- 
lish party  ;  and  to  such  hypocritical  lengths  did  they  proceed,  in  their  efforts  to  wean 
him  from  this  youth's  cause,  that  in  articles  delivered  to  him  by  the  royal  authority,  it  was 
unblushingly  stated  that  the  king,  in  his  proceedings  respecting  Gerald,  "had  never 
intended  any  thing  towards  him  but  honour  and  wealth,  and  to  have  kindly  cherished  him,  as 
his  kinsman,  in  the  same  manner  as  his  brother  Edward  was  cherished  by  his  mother,  in 
England."  The  articles  require,  therefore,  that  Desmond  should  write  to  Gerald  Fitz 
Gerald,  and  "advise  him,  in  the  same  manner  as  his  uncle,  the  lord  deputy,  had  done,  to 
make  his  submission  to  the  king."^ 

The  movements,  indeed,  of  this  young  lord,  and  the  native  chiefs  who  espoused  his 
cause,  were  become  the  principal  objects  of  public  solicitude  and  alarm. If  A  strong  sus- 
picion, as  we  have  seen,  had  arisen,  that  Gerald's  uncle,  the  present  lord  deputy  secretly 
favoured  the  designs  of  those  by  whom  his  nephew  was  abetted  and  harboured.  But 
there  appear  no  valid  grounds  for  this  suspicion;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  satisfactory 
evidence  of  efforts  made  by  him  to  recover  this  boy  out  of  the  hands  of  the  confederates, 
occurs  more  than  once  in  his  official  correspondence.  Thus,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the 
king,  we  find  him  reporting  that  he  had  concerted  measures  with  William  WiseH — a 
gentleman  of  Waterfbrd,  then  high  in  favour  at  court — for  the  apprehension  of  young 

*  Gray  to  Henry  VIII.,  S  P.  CCXLIV. 

t  "  Confession  of  the  Vicoiinte  Gorrnanistowne,  non  of  ttie  Kinges  most  lionournI)1e  Consaile,"  &c.  &c 

i  "  And  ferthpr  we  advertise  your  good  lordship  that  we  have  parted  with  James  ofDesmonde  in  the  feldes, 
wilboute  the  town  of  I'lonniell.'— Smtief-er.  &c.  to  Criiinwell,  S.  P.  t'LXXXIX. 

Desmond,  on  his  submission  in  the  year  1541,  "renounced  and  forsook  the  said  privileee  and  e.xemptione." — 
S.  P.  CCCXXXIV,  «o*e. 

§  According  to  O'Sullivan.  the  Catholic  historian,  his  grandfather,  the  lord  of  Bear  and  Bantry,  was  one 
of  those  hy  whom  young  Cerald  was  sheltered  during  the  time  of  liis  concealment ;— "  a  Dermysio  Osullevano, 
avo  meo,  Bearra"  Principe." 

|l  One  the  suggestions  for  the  recovery  of  Gerald  was,  that  he  should  be  bought  of  the  Irish  chiefs.  "  It  is 
good,"  says  Brabazon,  in  a  letter  to  Crumwell.  "  that  hv  sum  manor  of  meanes,  this  hoy  might  be  had,  tliogh 
he  shuld  be  bought  of  sum  of  ihe  traytors  aboute  him,  and  tliei  to  Imve  their  pardons,  wlioez  power,  after  his 
taking,  is  nothing."— S.  /'.  CCLXX. 

V.  Gray  to  Henry  VIll.,  S.  P.  CCXXVIU. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  419 

Gerald;  and,  writing  at  a  later  period  to  Cromwell,  he  mentions  with  earnestness  his 
own  anxious  endeavours  to  prevail  upon  O'Neill  to  deliver  the  youth  into  his  hands. 
One  of  the  bitterest,  indeed,  of  lord  Leonard's  enemies*  has  left  on  record  reluctant  tes- 
timony of  the  pains  taken  by  him  to  remove  his  nephew  out  of  reach  of  the  influence  of 
the  northern  chiefs.  Notwithstanding  all  this,  a  year  or  two  after,  when  this  gallant  and 
active  public  officer  was  brought  to  trial  for  high  treason,  the  charge  of  having  leagued 
with  tlie  earl  of  Desmond,  O'Neill,  O'Donnell,  and  others,  to  raise  are  hellion  in  favour  of 
Gerald,  formed  one  of  the  chief  grounds  of  that  impeachment,  by  which  he  was  so  cruelly, 
and,  as  it  appears,  unjustly,  brought  to  the  biock.f 

What  definite  purpose  the  confederates  proposed  to  themselves  in  this  new  league,  of 
which  the  young  Gerald — or,  as  he  was  now  styled,  the  earl  of  Kildare — formed  the  pro- 
fessed object,  does  not  appear  to  have  been  well  ascertained,  even  among  themselves. 
Their  application  for  aid  to  the  emperor,  and  the  French  king,  implied  the  hope  of  being 
enabled  to  cast  off  the  English  yoke;  and  not  independence  only,  but  the  bright  and  flat- 
tering prospect  of  beholding  once  more  the  ancient  monarchy  of  their  country  restored 
and  triumphant,  appears  to  have  floated  in  dazzling  dreams  before  their  eyes.  As  a 
record  of  that  day  expresses  it,  "O'Neill's  mind  is  to  be  king  of  Ire'iand,  and  to  proclaim 
himself  king  at  the  Hill  of  Tara."  But  afar  more  ready  and  feasible  object  of  the  confede- 
racy, was  the  seizing  by  force  on  all  the  late  earl  of  Kildare's  lands,  now  forfeit  to  the 
crown,  and  upholding  Gerald,  in  defiance  of  the  law,  as  their  rightful  possessor. 

In  addition  to  all  these  various  grounds  of  dissension,  religious  diflx'rences,  which  have 
formed  ever  since  one  of  the  most  active  ingredients  of  Irish  strife,  had  begun,  at  this 
time,  to  influence  considerably  the  views  and  counsels  of  the  Geraldme  parly,  whose 
leaders  had  hitherto  opposed  every  step  of  the  new  faith  ;  and  to  the  title  of  "  tyrant," 
which  they  had  long  bestowed  upon  the  English  monarch,  now  added  bitterly,  that  of 
"heretic."|:  With  the  Scottish  monarch,  James  V.,  who  was  no  less  hostile  to  the  Lu- 
theran doctrines  than  themselves,  they  were  evidently  in  constant  communication;  and 
the  bishop  O'Donnell,  and  others,  despatched  by  them  to  Rome,  repaired  previously  to 
the  Scottish  court  for  farther  instructions.^  There  were  likewise  settled  at  this  time  in 
Ulster  no  less  than  2000  Scots,  whose  ancestors  had  fled  thither  for  refuge,  when  driven 
out  of  the  isles,  and  with  whom  James,  the  present  monarch,  was  secretly  tamperinsr,  to 
secure  their  aid  in  his  plans  for  embarrassing  the  English  government  in  Ireland.  With 
this  view,  he  had  twice  sent  for  Alexander  Karrogh,  the  captain  of  the  Ulster  Scots,  to 
hold  personal  conference  with  him  ;  and  the  mysterious  silence  preserved  by  this  chief, 
with  respect  to  the  object  of  his  two  visits,  was  viewed  by  the  English  party  as  ominous 
of  mischief.jl 

Some  of  these  Scottish  settlers  of  Ulster  having,  in  the  year  1538,  got  forcible  posses- 
sion of  the  lands  of  Lecale,  the  lord  deputy,  in  the  course  of  a  "hosting"  vvhich  he  now 
made  into  that  territory, — professedly  with  the  hope  of  releasing  his  nephew  out  of  the 
hands  of  O'Neill, — took  from  Mac  Gennis,  a  northern  chief,  the  bold  castle  of  Dundrum, 
one  of  the  strongest  holds  in  the  kingdom,  and,  seizing,  in  all,  eight  castles,  during  his 
circuit,  expelled  the  Scots  from  their  usurped  lands.^  He  is  accused  of  having,  in  the 
course  of  this  expedition,  burnt  the  cathedral  church  of  Down,  defaced  the  monuments  of 
the  saints  Patrick,  Bridget,  and  Columb-kill,  and  committed  many  other  such  wanton  acta 
of  sacrilege.  But  for  this  generally  received  story  there  appear  to  be  no  more  real  grounds 
than  for  the  similar  charge  brought  against  him,  respecting  the  collegiate  church  of  St. 
Nicholas  at  Galway.  Lord  Leonard  Gray  remained  to  the  last  attached  to  the  ancient 
faith  ;  and  at  this  very  time,  when  historians  represent  him  as  defacing  and  destroying  the 
monuments  of  catholic  worship,  he  was,  on  the  contrary,  provoking  the  taunts  of  some  of 
his  reformed  fellow  statesmen,  by  kneeling  devoutly  before  the  "Idol  of  Trim," — as  an 


*  Thomas  Alen  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  CCLVfl. 

t  The  following  circiimstaiice  menlioned  by  Stanihiirsf,  who  had  met  and  conversed  with  Gerald,  after 
the  restoration  of  his  title,  would  tell  strongly  in  favour  of  lord  Leonard,  on  this  point,  had  the  story  coma 
from  a  somewhat  more  trustworthy  source. — "  As  touching  the  tirst  article  that  brought  him  most  of  all 
out  ofconceipt  with  the  king,  I  mooved  question  to  the  erie  of  Kiklare,  whether  the  tenor  thereof  were  true 
or  false?  His  lordship  thereto  answered,  bona  fide,  that  he  neuer  spake  with  the  lord  Greie,  neiier  sent  mes- 
senger to  him,  nor  receiiied  message  or  letter  from  him." — Stanihurst,  apud  Holinshed,  -S   P.  CXCIV. 

X  "The  cause  of  this  traicterous  conspirid  treason,  as  the  traictours  doo  pleynly  declare,  both  the  said  pre- 
tensid  erIe  of  Desmotid  and  O  Nele,  and  O  Downyll,  is,  that  the  king's  highness  is  an  heretik  against  the 
feith.  bycause  he  obeyith  not,  and  belevith  not  the  bisshop of  Romes  usurpid  prymacy."— R.  Cowley  to  Crum- 
well. S.  P.  CCL.XXV. 

5  J.  Alen  to  Crumwell  S.  P.  CCLXXII.  |j  ibid. 

If  Gray  to  Crumwell,  .S'.  P.  CCLXXIX. 


420  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

ancient  image  of  the  Virgin,  in  the  church  of  that  town,  was  now  mockingly  styled, — and 
hearing  "  three  or  four  masses"  in  succession.* 

Though,  under  other  circumstances,  a  league  so  general  as  that  now  formed  among 
the  chiefs,  might  have  proved  perilous  to  the  English  power,  there  was  much  in  the  pre- 
sent state  of  the  public  mind,  depressed  and  disheartened  as  all  had  been  by  the  crushing 
results  of  the  late  conflict,  that  afforded,  for  a  time,  sufficient  security  against  any  very 
serious  infraction  of  the  peace.  It  appears  that  there  were  few,  even  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Pale,  who  had  not,  at  some  period  or  other  of  the  last  rebellion,  supplied  lord  Thomas 
with  aid,  in  men,  money,  or  victuals;  and  the  consciousness  that  their  lands  and  goods 
were  thereby  placed  at  the  king's  mercy,  kept  them  in  continual  alarm. 

Towards  the  latter  end  of  this  year,  the  numbers  and  strength  of  the  Geraldine  league 
had  considerably  increased ;  and,  in  addition  to  those  who  had  hitherto  been  its  chief 
leaders, — O'Donnell,  O'Neill,  O'Brian,  and  the  earl  of  Desmond — the  confederacy  was 
now  farther  strengthened  by  the  accession  of  O'Neill  of  Claneboy,  O'Rourke,  Mac 
Loughlin,  Mac  Dermot,  and  many  other  Irish  captains,  besides  a  great  host  of  Scots,  both 
of  the  "out  isles"  and  the  main  land  of  Scotland.  In  this  critical  juncture,  it  was  singu- 
larly fortunate  for  the  government  that  the  mutual  hostility  so  long  subsisting  between 
the  lord  deputy  and  the  house  of  Butler,  should  have  been,  on  both  sides,  generously  aban- 
doned; and  that  lord  James  Butler,  now  earl  of  Ormond.f — through  the  recent  death  of 
his  father,  and  the  king's  restoration  of  the  ancient  title, — co-operated  cordially  with  lord 
Leonard  Gray  in  all  those  measures  which  the  present  crisis  required4 

The  danger  that  now  more  immediately  threatened  the  Pale  arose  from  the  coalition 
formed  between  tiie  great  O'Brian,  as  he  was  specially  styled,  and  the  earl  of  Desmond, — 
the  two  most  daring  and  powerful  of  the  national  champions;  and  as  it  was  accounted, 
doubtless,  the  more  prudent  as  well  as  more  vigorous  policy,  to  anticipate  whatever  blow 
might  be  intended,  and  thus  prevent  at  once  tiie  aggression  and  the  perilous  infection  of 
its  example,  a  force,  under  the  joint  command  of  the  lord  deputy  and  the  earl  of  Ormond, 
was  marched,  at  the  close  of  this  year,  into  Munster.  The  principal  object  of  this  expe- 
dition, as  stated  in  a  despatch  froni  Ormond  himself,  was,  "by  policy  and  strength  to 
pluck  from  O'Brian  all  his  forces  and  wings  on  this  side  the  Shannon  ;"5  and  its  leading 
events  shall  here  be  as  briefly  narrated  as  the  copious  details  on  the  subject,  furnished  by 
official  records,  will  permit. 

Regaining  possession,  in  some  treacherous  manner,  of  the  castle  of  Roscrea,  which  be- 
longed to  Ormond  by  inheritance,  but  had  been  seized  by  the  Mac  Meaghers  of  Ikerin, 
the  commanders  proceeded  from  thence  to  Modren,  a  castle  belonging  to  the  O'Carrols, 
where  the  chief  of  that  sept  came  in,  on  safe-conduct,  and  surrendered  himself  and  his 
wife,  as  hostages  to  the  lord  deputy.  Thither  were  sent  to  him  also  the  hostages  of  Mac 
Brian  of  Arra,  Regan  of  Owney,  O'Dwyer  of  Kilnamanna,  and  a  number  of  other  chiefs 
of  the  neigbouring  districts,  pledging  each  of  them  to  preserve  allegiance,  and  pay  to  the 
king  a  certain  yearly  tribute.  Continuing  his  march  into  Munster,  lord  Leonard  suc- 
ceeded in  reducing  to  allegiance  Gerald  Mac  Shane,  the  White  Knight,  the  lord  Barry, — 
the  latter  nobleman  not  having  come  near  any  lord  deputy  for  years, — Mac  Carthy  Reagh , 
the  Red  Barry,  and  other  adherents  of  the  earl  of  Desmond;  all  of  whom  came  in  person 
to  the  earl  of  Ormond's  house  at  Thurles,  and  there  bound  themselves,  by  oaths  and 
hostages,  to  preserve  allegiance  to  the  crown. 

At  Imokilly,  the  deputy  delivered  up  to  James  Fitz  Maurice — the  rightful  claimant  of 
the  earldom  of  Desmond,  who  appears  to  have  accompanied  the  expedition — all  the 
castles  and  lands  in  that  barony  which  had  been  usurped  by  James  Fitz  John,  together 
with  all  other  castles  between  Youghall  and  Cork,  excepting  those  only  which  belonged 
to  lord  Barry,  who  had  just  given  in  his  submission.  In  like  manner,  the  lands  of  Kerri- 
curriky,  and  others  belonging  to  his  grandfather,  were  now  put  into  the  hands  of  James 
Fitz  Maurice.ll 

In  O'Callaglian's  country  the  deputy  remained  encamped  for  four  days  and  nights,  in- 
tending to  have  passed  the  river  Avonmore,  now  the  Blackwater,  and  from  thence  to  have 

*  "  They  ihre  wold  nnl  come  in  tlie  chappll,  where  the  Moll  of  Trym  storie,  to  thinteiit  they  wold  not  occa- 
sion tlie  people;  nniwi  ilistiiniling  my  lord  depiitie,  veray  devoulely  kneleng  bel'or  Hir,  liard  thre  or  fower 
masses."— "1".  Aleii  to  ("niiinvell.  Slate  Papers.  C'CI.VII. 

This  statue  was  hiirnt  soon  after;  and  the  gifts  of  the  pilgrims,  in  the  same  church,  taken  away.  Among 
other  cherished  relics  destroyed,  at  this  time,  was  the  ancient  atalfof  St.  I'atriik. 

t  The  title  of  Ormond  had  been  restored  to  this  lord's  father,  on  the  death  ofXhomasBoleyn,  earl  of  Ormond, 
without  issue  male,  in  the  year  1537. 

X  "This  unytie  that  is  nowe  knit  helwixt  him  and  me,  shall  not,  God  willing,  dissever  for  my  parte."— Or- 
mond to  Crumwell,  5.  P.  CCLXXXIl. 

§  Ormond  to  Crumwell,  «.  /'.  CULXXXII.  II  Ibid. 


HISTOUY  OF  IRELAND.  421 

proceeded  to  the  county  of  Limerick.  But  the  river  was  then  so  much  swollen,  that  the 
army  was  unable  to  pass;  and,  in  the  mean  time,  the  earl  of  Desmond  made  his  appear- 
ance on  the  opposite  bank, — whether  attended  by  any  armed  force  does  not  appear, — and 
from  thence  signified  to  them  that  he  had  taken  part  with  O'Brian  against  the  earl  of 
Ormond;  that  he  would  continue  still  to  stand  by  that  chief;  and  that,  moreover,  O'Brian 
would  have,  on  his  side,  "  all  the  Irishry  of  Ireland."  The  lord  deputy,  it  is  added,  "  being 
sore  moved  by  these  words,"  immediately  drew  off  his  army,  and  marched  back  to  Cork; 
with  little  hope,  it  is  clear,  either  on  his  part,  or  that  of  Ormond,  that  a  single  one  of 
those  lords  and  chiefs,  who  had  so  lately  given  in  their  submission,  would,  with  such  strong 
inducements  to  revolt,  remain  long  true  to  their  forced  engagements.  It  is  worth  re- 
marking, that  the  force  thus  employed  to  strike  awe  into  the  whole  kingdom  consisted  but 
of  400  men  under  lord  Leonard  Gray,  and  about  the  same  number  of  horsemen,  kern  and 
galloglasses,  under  the  command  of  the  earl  of  Ormond.* 

It  was  in  the  course,  probably,  of  this  "hosting"  of  the  lord  deputy,  that  the  battle  took 
place  between  him  and  the  chiefs  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell,  which  became  so  memorable  in 
the  Irish  annals,  under  the  name  of  "the  Battle  of  Belahoe;"f  but  of  which,  in  contem- 
porary English  records,  there  occurs  not  the  slightest  mention.  The  two  chiefs,  it  ap- 
pears, had  combined  in  a  predatory  inroad  into  Meath, — att^acted  far  less,  however,  by 
the  glories  of  Tara,  than  by  the  plunder  and  havoc  expected  from  their  foray  ;  and,  having 
destroyed  the  towns  of  Ardee  and  Navan,  were  returning  loaded  with  spoil,  when,  being 
pursued  by  lord  Leonard,  they  were  overtaken,  near  the  Ford  of  Belahoe,  and,  after  a 
weak  attempt  at  resistance,  were  all  confusedly  put  to  flight,  leaving  their  booty  in  the 
hands  of  the  pursuers. 

However  meager  were  the  immediate  results  of  the  lord  deputy's  circuit,  its  general 
effect,  as  manifesting  watchfulness,  and,  still  more,  union,  among  the  ruling  powers,  was 
by  no  means  imuseful  nor  speedily  forgotten.  The  hope  of  aid  from  foreign  powers, 
which  the  northern  chiefs  had  been  led  to  indulge,  was  recently  revived  by  the  meeting, 
at  Paris,  between  the  emperor  a»d  the  French  king.J  But  at  no  period  does  there  ap- 
pear to  have  been  much  ground  for  this  hope  ;  and  an  event  which  occurred  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  present  year, — the  escape  of  young  Gerald  into  France, — dissolved  at 
once  the  sole  bond  which  had  held  the  leaders  of  so  many  factions,  for  a  time,  together, 
and  awakened  in  the  Irish  a  spirit  of  concert  no  less  formidable  than,  luckily  for  their 
masters,  it  was  rare. 

The  safe  removal  of  Gerald  to  the  continent  had  been  contrived  by  his  tutor,  Levrous, 
and  the  chief  O'Donnell,  who  had  him  secretly  conveyed,  at  night,  in  a  small  cockboat, 
on  board  a  ship  bound  for  St.  Malo.  Besides  other  precautions  employed  to  conceal  his 
person  and  rank,  he  "  had  on  him,"  we  are  told,  "  only  a  saffron  shirt,  and  was  bareheaded, 
like  one  of  the  wild  Irish."}  The  account  given  of  this  youth's  adventures,  after  his  de- 
parture from  Ireland,  is  garnished  with  much  of  that  dull  and  circumstantial  fiction,  in 
which  the  chronicler,  who  is  our  sole  authority  for  most  of  these  stories,  delights  to  in- 
dulge.y  That  efforts  were  made  by  the  English  king,  through  his  agents  abroad,  to  ob- 
tain possession  of  Gerald,  either  by  stratagem  or  negotiation,  is  sufficiently  proved  by 
existing  documents;  and  such  were  the  notions  of  his  rank  and  importance  which  this 
eager  pursuit  after  him  excited  abroad,  that,  wherever  he  went,  the  idea  prevailed  that 
he  was  really  king  of  Ireland,  and  that  the  English  monarch  had  cruelly  disinherited  him 
of  his  right.ir  Notwithstanding,  however,  the  plans  devised  by  Henry  to  have  him  seized, 
the  youth  succeeded  in  reaching  his  kinsman,  cardinal  Pole,  at  Rome,  and  remained  in 
Italy,  under  his  protection,  several  years.  Through  the  munificence  of  this  illustrious 
man,  as  well  as  the  patronage  of  Cosmo  I.,  grand  duke  of  Tuscany,  he  was  enabled  to 

*  Ormnnd  to  Ciumwell,  S.  P  CCLXXXII. 

t  "That  prosperous  fight."  s.iyssir  John  Da  vies,  "  at  Belahoo,  on  tlie  borders  of  Meath,  the  memory  whereof 
is  yet  famous."  He  cites,  as  his  authority,  an  Irish  MS.,  the  Book  of  Hovvth.  There  is  also  an  account  of 
the  leading  events  of  the  conflict  in  the  .\nnals  of  tlie  Four  Masters,  ad  ann.  1539.  The  pretended  particu- 
lars of  this  battle  given  by  Cox,  Leland,  and  others,  out  of  Holinshed,  are  all  from  the  suspicious  mint  of 
Stanihurst;  who,  although  ho  lived,  as  we  have  seen,  near  enough  to  the  time  of  these  events,  to  have  con- 
versed with  Ger.-ild  after'he  was  restored  toiiis  title,  is  little  to  be  trusted  in  any  of  his  details;  and,  in  this 
instance,  has  evidently  eked  out  whatever  he  may  have  found  in  the  Irish  annals  with  flat  and  peurile  fig- 
ments of  his  own. 

X  "  Remembrances  to  my  Lord  Pryve  Scall,"  S.  P.  CCLXXXVIII. 

§  "  The  sayd  Fytzgarethe  was  convayed  aborde  the  ship  in  the  nyght,  in  a  small  cocke,  havyng  on,' but  a 
safTronyd  shurtt  and  barheaddvd,  lyke  one  of  the  wyllde  Yreslie,  and  with  him  3  persons."— Warner  to  the 
English  Ambassador,  S.  P.  CCCVI. 

P  Stanihurst,  ap.  Holinshed. 

ir  "And,  in  all  this  countre,  wher  he  passyd,  he  was,  and  is  to  this  day,  narayd  to  be  king  of  Yrland, 
and  that  the  king  our  master  haihe  disheretyd  hnu  of  hys  ryght."— Warner  to  the  English  Ambassador,  S. 
p.  CCCVI. 


422  HISTORY  OF  Ireland. 

acquire  such  learning  and  accomplishments  as  befitted  the  high  rank  to  which  he  was 
born.  This  rank  he  partially  recovered  in  the  course  of  the  following  reign,  when  he 
was  taken  into  favour  by  Edward  VI. ;  and,  as  soon  as  queen  Mary  came  to  the  throne, 
the  honours  and  estates  of  his  ancestors  were,  by  letters  patent,  restored  to  him. 


CHAPTER  XLVI. 


HENRY  VIII. — {Continued.) 

Course  of  the  Reformation  in  Ensjland — principal  events  that  marked  its  progress — first  steps 
towards  its  introduction  into  Ireland — opposed  by  Achbishop  Cromer — supported  by  Arch- 
bishop  Browne. — Act  of  supremacy — strongly  opposed  by  the  spiritual  Proctors. — This  and 
other  measures  defeated  by  them. — Parliament  frequently  prorogued. — Bill  for  the  exclu- 
sion of  Proctors  from  parliament. — Grant  to  the  king  of  the  twentieth  part  of  the  church 
revenues. — Character  of  Archbishop  Browne — is  rebuked  by  the  king — his  differences  with 
the  Bishop  of  Meath. — Few  of  the  persons  in  authority  adopt  the  new  creed, — Oath  of  supre- 
macy taken  by  two  Archbishops  and  eight  Bishops. — Commission  for  the  suppression  of 
religious  houses. — Numerous  applications  for  a  share  of  the  spoil. — Urgent  requests  of 
Archbishop  Browne. — Mild  form  of  the  change  in  Ireland. — No  instance  of  severe  punish- 
ment on  account  of  opinion. — Prevalence  of  peace  throughout  tiie  kingdom. — Recall  of  Lord 
Leonard  Gray. — Peace  concluded  with  O'Neill. — Assemblage  of  Irish  at  Fowre. — Liberal 
policy  of  the  king — conciliates  the  Irish  chiefs. — Desmond  disposed  to  submit — efforts  of 
Ormond  to  win  him  over. — Loyal  disposition  of  most  of  the  Irish  lords. — O'Connor  refrac- 
tory.— This  chief  also  submits. — Cliivalrous  conduct  of  Tirlogh  O'Toole. — Submission  of 
Desmond — amicable  arrangement  between  liim  and  Ormond. — Parley  with  O'Brian. — Exe- 
cution of  Lord  Leonard  Gray. — Parliament  attended  for  the  first  time  by  the  Irish  chiefs. — 
Title  of  King  of  Ireland  bestowed  upon  Henry. — Proclamation  of  a  general  pardon. — Great 
rejoicings. — Kindness  of  the  king  to  Desmond  and  other  lords. — O'Neill  and  O'Donnell 
make  their  submission. — Titles  and  honours  bestowed  on  O'Neill,  the  O'Brians,  and  Mac 
William. — Praise  of  the  king's  policy. — Much  of  the  credit  due  to  Sentleger. — Irish  troops 
employed  in  France — their  distinguished  bravery. — Great  expedition  under  Lennox  and 
Ormond  against  Scotland. 

A  FEW  years  before  the  period  we  have  now  reached,  that  great  religious  revolution  of 
which  Germany  had  been  the  birth-place,  extended  its  influence  to  the  shores  of  Eng- 
land, and  was  now  working  a  signal  change  in  the  spiritual  condition  of  that  kingdom. 
In  Germany,  from  an  early  date,  the  struggles  of  the  emperors  with  the  popes  had  con- 
duced to  engender  a  feeling  of  ill-will  towards  Rome,  which  required  but  little  excite- 
ment to  rouse  it  into  hostility.  In  the  German,  too,  as  well  as  in  the  English  reformation, 
finance  may  be  said  to  have  gone  hand  in  hand  with  faith:  as  it  was  the  abuse  of  his 
spiritual  privileges  by  the  pope,  for  the  purpose  of  fiscal  exaction,  that  gave  to  Luther  his 
first  advantay'e-ground  in  attacking  the  Roman  see. 

Nor  was  England  wholly  unprepared,  by  previous  experience,  for  the  assaults  now 
made,  not  only  on  the  property,  but  the  ancient  doctrines  of  her  church;  as  the  sect  of 
the  Lollards  may  be  said  to  have  anticipated  the  leading  principles  of  the  Reformation; 
while  the  suppression  and  spoliation  of  the  alien  priories,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  V.,  and  a 
similar  plunder  committed  by  Edward  II.,  on  the  rich  order  of  the  Knights  Templars,  had 
furnished  precedents,  though  on  a  comparatively  small  scale,  for  the  predatory  achieve- 
ments of  the  present  monarch.  A  brief  account  of  the  leading  events  that  marked  the 
progress  of  the  reformed  faith  in  England,  from  about  the  time  of  Fitz  Gerald's  outbreak 
to  the  period  where  we  are  now  arrived,  vvill  not  be  unuseful  towards  a  clear  exposition 
of  the  course  and  effects  of  that  great  religious  change  in  Ireland. 

The  first  decisive  step  taken  in  the  difference  between  Henry  VIII.  and  the  see  of 
Rome,  was  in  the  year  1534,  when  the  pope,  by  declaring  the  validity  of  the  king's  mar- 
riage with  Catherine  of  Arragon,  pronounced  sentence  against  the  union,  so  much  desired 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  423 

by  him,  with  Anne  Boleyn.  As  this  sentence  was  only  enforced  by  a  mere  threat  of  ex- 
communication, in  case  the  king  should  persist  in  his  project  of  a  divorce,  an  opening  was 
left  through  which  some  compromise,  it  is  thought,  might  have  been  effected.  But  the 
hasty  act  of  Clement's  successor,  Paul  III.,  precluded  finally  any  such  chance  of  recon- 
ciliation. From  that  moment,  the  boundaries  of  spiritual  and  temporal  power  began,  on 
both  sides,  to  be  violently  transgressed.  Not  content  with  declaring  Henry  himself  ex- 
communicated, and  laying  his  whole  kingdom  under  an  interdict, — measures  which, 
whatever  might  have  been  their  prudence,  were  within  the  scope  of  his  spiritual  powers, — 
Paul,  by  this  bull,  deprived  the  English  king  of  his  crown;  dissolved  all  leagues  of  catho- 
lic princes  with  him;  released  his  subjects  from  their  oaths  of  allegiance,  and  delivered 
his  kingdom  up  a  prey  to  any  invader. 

While  the  pontiff  was  thus  rashly  outrunning  the  bounds  of  his  spiritual  dominion,  the 
English  monarch,  on  the  other  hand,  self  invested  with  the  supreme  headship  of  the 
church,  was  bringing  the  terrors  of  temporal  punishment  to  enforce  the  new  powers 
he  had  assumed,  and  show  how  expeditiously  a  people  may  be  schooled  into  reformation 
by  a  free  use  of  the  rack,  the  halter,  and  the  stake. 

However  injudicious,  indeed,  as  regarded  mere  policy,  was  the  anathema  hurled  at 
Henry  by  the  Roman  pontiff,  it  is  to  be  recollected,  that  inteiiigence  had  shortly  before 
reached  Rome  of  the  trial  and  execution  of  the  venerable  Fisher,  arciibishop  of  Roches- 
ter,— a  crime  which,  deepened,  as  it  was,  by  the  insults  cast  on  the  aged  victim,  was 
heard  on  the  continent,  we  are  told,  with  indignation  and  tears.*  Soon  after  followed 
the  sentence  on  the  illustrious  sir  Thomas  More,  who,  because  he  refused  to  acknow- 
ledge that  the  king  was  supreme  head  of  the  church, — a  proposition  which,  three  years 
earlier,  it  would  have  been  lieresy  to  assert, — was  sentenced  to  die  the  death  of  a  traitor; 
nor  could  all  his  genius  and  knowledge,  his  views  extending  beyond  the  horizon  of  his 
own  times,  or  the  playful  philosophy  that  graced  both  his  life  and  his  writings  obtain 
from  the  tyrant  any  farther  mark  of  mercy  than  the  mere  substitution,  in  the  mode  of  ex- 
ecuting him,  of  the  axe  for  the  halter. 

Having  achieved  thus  his  double  object, — supreme  sovereignty  over  the  church,  aa 
well  as  the  state, — Henry's  next  step,  to  which  the  former  had  been  but  preparatory, 
was  the  spoliation  of  the  clergy;  and  whatever  wrong  and  ruin  followed  in  the  wake  of 
his  predatory  course,  no  compassion  is,  at  all  events,  due  to  the  higher  clergy  and  spiri- 
tual peers,  who  were  themselves  the  obsequious  abettors  of  all  the  tyrant's  worst  measures. 
Whether,  like  Gardiner,  adhering  still  to  the  creed  of  Rome,  or,  like  Cranmer  and 
others,  secretly  reformers,  the  prelates  of  both  the  religious  parties  were  equally  tools  of 
the  throne;  and  alike  servilely  lent  their  aid  to  every  aggression  on  the  rights  and  pro- 
perty of  the  church. 

The  proceedings,  as  unmanly  as  they  were  merciless,  against  the  ill-fated  Anne 
Boleyn,  whom  the  king,  having  first  branded  without  scruple,  then  butchered  without 
remorse,  have  no  farther  relation  to  Ireland  than  as  showing  how  rapidly  scenes  of 
pageantry  and  bloodshed  succeeded  each  other  in  this  frightful  reign.  By  a  parliament 
convened  at  Dublin,  an  act  was  passed,  pronouncing  the  marriage  of  the  king  with 
Catherine  of  Arragon  to  be  null  and  void,  declaring  the  inheritance  of  the  crown  to  be 
in  the  king  and  his  heirs  by  queen  Anne,  and  pronouncing  it  high  treason  to  oppose  this 
succession.  Scarcely,  however,  had  this  act  passed,  when  intelligence  arrived  of  the 
trial  and  execution  of  Anne  Boleyn,  and  the  marriage  of  the  king  to  lady  Jane  Seymour. 
As  the  Irish  legislature,  like  that  of  England,  at  this  period,  was  a  body  employed  but  to 
register  edicts,  the  same  parliament  that  had  just  passed  this  act,  no  less  readily  repealed 
it,  and  pronounced,  by  another  law,  sentence  of  attainder  upon  the  late  queen  and  all 
who  had  been  condemned  as  her  supposed  accomplices.! 

It  is  not  a  little  curious  to  observe  how  slow  in  ripening  were  the  evil  qualities  of 
Henry's  nature,  and  how  long  dormant  in  him  was  that  love  of  cruelty  which  the  bound- 
less power  he  afterwards  attained  enabled  him  so  monstrously  to  indulge.  For  no  less 
than  five  and  twenty  years  after  his  accession,  we  find  recorded  of  him  but  two  instances 
of  severity,  and  one  of  them  a  case  admitting  of  justification.;  It  was  not  till  he  pre- 
tended to  sovereignty  over  the  thoughts,  the  inward  consciences  of  his  subjects,  and  as- 
sumed a  right  to  dispose  of  their  souls,  as  well  as  their  bodies, — it  was  not,  in  short,  till 
he  had  tasted  blood,  as  a  bigot,  that  his  true  nature,  as  brute  and  tyrant  fully  broke  out. 

Having  now  assumed  to  himself  a  sort  of  spiritual  dictatorship,  and  usurped,  in  his 

*  Pole  deUnitat  ,— quoted  by  Turner,  Hist,  of  Henry  VIII.  chap  xxvii. 
t  Leland,— who  refers  to  Ir.  Slat.  28th  Hen.  VIII.,  not  printed. 
..  ^J}^^  °"'y  persons  who,  during  that  period,  had  suffered  for  crimes  against  the  state,  were  Pole,  earl  of 
touffolk,  and  Slatford,  duke  of  Buckingham. 


424  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

own  person,  that  privilege  of  infallibility  against  wliich  he  had  rebelled,  as  claimed  by 
the  pope,  Henry  proceeded  to  frame  and  promulgate  a  formulary  of  faith  for  his  whole 
kingdom,  which,  instead  of  being  submitted  to  the  boasted  tribunal  of  private  judgment, 
was  ordered  to  be  adopted  by  all  implicitly,  under  pain  of  tortures  and  death. 

The  king's  position,  in  thus  holding  supremacy  over  two  rival  creeds,  from  both  of 
which  he  himself  materially  dissented,  and  such  as  entirely  suited  his  tastes,  both  as  dis- 
putant and  persecutor;  and  even  enabled  him,  as  in  the  case  of  the  wretched  Lambert, — 
with  whom  he  condescended  to  hold  a  public  disputation, — first,  to  browbeat  his  trembling 
antagonist  in  argument,  and  then  to  complete  the  triumph  by  casting  him  into  the 
flames.  The  penal  power  was,  indeed,  in  his  hands,  a  double-edged  sword,  for  whose 
frightful  sweep  his  complaisant  legislators  had  provided  victims  from  both  religions.  For, 
as  all  who  denied  the  king's  supremacy  were  declared  traitors,  and  all  who  rejected  the 
papal  creed  were  pronounced  heretics,  the  freest  scope  was  afforded  to  cruelty  for  the 
alternate  indulgence  of  its  tastes,  whether  in  hanging  conscientious  catholics  for  treason, 
or  sending  protestants  to  perish  in  the  flames  for  heresy.  On  one  occasion,  singled  out 
of  many,  the  horrible  fruits  of  this  policy  were  strikingly  exhibited.  In  the  same  cart 
were  conveyed  to  execution  three  catholics  and  three  protestants;  the  former,  for  deny- 
ing the  king's  supremacy,  the  latter,  for  denying  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  The 
catholics  were  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered,  the  protestants  burned. 

In  the  year  1539,  the  last  of  those  spiritual  ordinances  by  which  Henry  sought  to  coerce 
the  very  consciences  of  his  subjects,  made  its  appearance,  in  the  form  of  an  Act  for  abo- 
lishing diversity  of  opinions;  or,  as  it  was  called, — from  the  savage  cruelty  with  which 
its  enactments  were  enjoined, — the  bloody  Statute  of  the  Six  Articles.  This  violent  law, 
by  which  almost  all  the  principal  catholic  doctrines  were  enjoined  peremptorily,  under 
pain  of  death  and  forfeiture,  was  aimed,  with  ominous  malignity,  against  those  of  the 
king's  own  ministers,  who,  while  appearing  to  adopt  so  obsequiously  all  his  views,  were, 
he  knew,  secretly  pledged  disciples  of  the  new  German  school  of  faith.  Most  amply, 
however,  has  this  duplicity  been  avenged,  by  the  lasting  stain  brought  upon  the  memo- 
ries of  those  spiritual  peers — Cranmer  himself  among  the  number — who,  affecting  to  be 
convinced  by  a  speech  which  the  king  had  delivered  in  the  course  of  the  debate,  gave 
their  assent  to  this  arbitrary  statute  and  the  barbarous  penaltiej  by  which  it  was  en- 
forced.* There  were  only  two  among  the  prelates,  Latimer  and  Shaxton,  who  had  the 
courage  to  refuse  their  sanction  to  this  sanguinary  act.f 

While  such,  in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  was  the  odious  policy  of  this  monarch's  reign, 
the  spirit  of  its  civil  administration  was  no  less  subversive  of  all  popular  right  and  free- 
dom. By  an  act,  unparalleled  in  servility,  the  parliament  gave  to  the  king's  proclama- 
tion the  same  force  as  to  a  statute  enacted  by  their  own  body;  thus  basely  surrendering 
into  the  hands  of  the  monarch  the  only  stronghold  of  the  nation's  liberties. 

Such,  briefly  sketched,  were  the  leading  events  that  marked  the  progress  of  the  re- 
formed faith  in  England,  during  a  few  years  preceding  the  period  to  which  I  have  brought 
down  the  civil  history  of  Ireland;  and  I  have  been  induced  thus  far  to  wander  beyond 
the  bounds  of  my  prescribed  task,  in  order,  by  bringing  before  the  reader  both  pictures  in 
juxta-position,  to  show  how  different  was  the  course  and  character  of  the  Reformation  in 
the  two  countries. 

In  articles  entered  into  by  the  earl  of  Ossory,  on  receiving  a  grant  from  the  crown  in 
the  year  1534,  of  the  counties  of  Kilkenny,  Waterford,  and  Tipperary,  as  well  as  of  the 
territories  of  Ossory  and  Ormond,  we  find  the  first  step  taken  by  the  king  towards  the 
enforcement  of  the  reformed  faith,  in  Ireland;  one  of  the  engagements  then  entered  into 
by  this  earl  having  been  to  resist  the  usurped  jurisdiction  of  the  bishop  of  Ronie.J  In 
less  than  a  fortnight  from  the  date  of  these  articles,  the  violent  rebellion  under  lord 
Thomas  Filz  Gerald  broke  out;  and  amidst  the  general  strife  and  confusion  which  then 
prevailed,  little  was  thought  of  or  done  for  the  advancement  of  the  new  doctrines.  It 
does  not  appear,  indeed,  that  any  strong  measures  for  that  object  had  been  resorted  to 
before  the  spring  of  the  following  year,  when  a  writ  was  issued  for  the  apprehension  of 
Cromer,  archbishop  of  Armagh,  on  a  charge  of  treason  ;  that  prelate  having  vehemently 
resisted  the  king's  claim  of  spiritual  supremacy,  and  laid  a  solemn  curse  upon  all  who 
should  give  their  assent  to  the  proposed  change. 

*  "  NotwitlistandiriK  my  lonl  of  Canterbury,  my  lord  of  Ely,  my  lord  of  Salisbury,  my  lords  of  Worcnstor, 
Rochester,  and  St.  Davycs,  defeiidod  the  contrary  a  long  time,  yet  (iiiallyhis  liigbncss  confounded  them  all 
with  goodlie  learning."— J)f,S.  cited  by  Lingard. 

t  Hume. 

i  "Grant  of  the  gnvornmenl  of  Kilkenny,  Tipperary,  Waterford,  O.ssnry.  and  Ormond,  to  O.ssory,  who  en- 
gages to  assist  Skeffyngton  and  the  king's  deputy  for  the  lime  being,  to  reduce  Desmond  and  to  resist  the 
pope.— 5«ate  Paper,  LXXIl. 


HISTbRY  OF  IRELAND.  425 

On  the  otlier  hand,  tlie  cause  of  the  new  creed  found  a  no  less  strenuous  cliauipion  in 
George  Browne,  the  archbishop  ot  Dublin,  who  had  been  recently  advanced  to  that  see, 
and  was  the  first  of  the  clergy  in  Ireland  th:it  declared  in  favour  of  the  reformed  faith. 
To  him,  as  a  member  of  the  commission  appointed  to  bring  that  realm  to  a  due  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  king's  spiritual  supremacy,  was  specially  intrusted  the  management  of 
this  arduous  task.  But  Browne's  report  of  the  results  of  his  mission  afforded  no  hope  of 
any  such  assent  to  tiie  royal  creed  as  it  had  met  willi  from  the  great  mass  of  the  English 
people.  His  most  effective  opponent,  Cromer,  was  a  prelate  whose  "gravity,  learning, 
and  sweetness  of  demeanour,"*  had  rendered  him  generally  popular,  and  who  had  drawn 
to  his  own  opinions,  on  this  subject,  most  of  the  suffragans  and  clergy  within  his  jurisdic- 
tion. Two  messengers  were  accordingly  despatclied  by  them  to  Rome;  and  it  was  much 
feared  by  Browne  and  his  party  that  the  pope  on  learning  the  state  of  affairs,  would 
order  O'Neill  to  oppose  the  projected  changes.f 

Seeing  no  hope,  therefore,  from  the  church  commission,  Browne  advised  the  calling  of 
a  parliament  in  Ireland,  which,  following  the  example  of  the  English  legislature,  should 
enforce  by  statute  the  general  acknowlegement  of  the  king's  supremacy.  In  pursuance 
of  this  advice,  a  parliament  was  held  the  following  year,|  in  the  city  of  Dublin,  and 
among  the  earliest  measures  submitted  to  it  was  an  act  fr  establishing  tho  supremacy  of 
the  crown,  or,  as  it  was  briefly  styled,  the  Act  of  the  Supreme  Head.^  It  was  also  pro- 
posed to  this  parliament  that  there  should  be  no  appeals  to  Rome,  on  pain  of  praemunire  ; 
that  the  clergy  should  pay  first-fruits  to  the  king,  instead  of  to  the  pope,  and  that  all  who 
defended  or  asserted  the  authority  of  the  bishop  of  Rome  were  subject  to  the  penalty  of 
praemunire.  By  another  act,  the  twentieth  part  of  the  annual  profits  of  all  ecclesiastical 
promotions  were  to  be  granted  to  the  king,  his  heirs  and  successors,  for  ever. 

These  measures,  in  the  course  of  their  enactment,  were  opposed  vehemently  by  the 
spiritual  proctors,||  a  class  of  men  who  had  formerly  been  summoned  to  parliament  only 
as  counsellors,  or  assistants,  without  any  voice  or  suffrage,  but  who  had  for  some  time  as- 
sumed a  right  to  vote  as  members  of  that  body,  and  so  much  obstructed,  at  this  crisis,  the 
plans  and  measures  of  the  reformers,  that  an  act  was  passed,  at  a  later  period,  declaring 
the  proctors  not  to  be  members  of  the  body  of  parliament.  Owing  to  the  exertions  of 
this  party  in  the  commons,  aided  by  the  king's  sergeant,  Patrick  Barnwell,  the  measure 
of  the  grant  to  the  king  of  the  twentieth  part  of  the  church  revenues,  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral, did  not  pass  before  the  month  of  October,  1537. IT  Another  important  measure,  de- 
layed for  several  months  by  the  same  cause,  was  an  act  for  the  suppression  of  certain 
monasteries  and  religious  houses  comprised  in  a  commission  sent  over,  for  that  purpose, 
by  the  king. 

In  the  correspondence  of  the  lord  deputy  and  council,  at  this  period,  we  find  an  un- 
worthy intrigue  disclosed,  having  for  its  object  to  obtain  from  Cromwell  the  advancement 
of  Basnet,  a  staunch  follower  of  the  new  doctrines,  to  the  dignity  of  the  dean  of  St. 
Patrick's  cathedral.lT  The  minor  details  of  the  transaction  come  hardly  within  the  range 
of  regular  history;  but  the  fact  that  Cromwell,  fi)r  the  essential  aid  he  lent  to  this  intrigue, 
by  promoting  Basnet  to  the  deanery,  received  the  sum  of  sixty  pounds,  shows  that,  even 
at  that  dawning  hour  of  the  reformed  creed,  a  corrupt  traffic  in  spiritual  patronage  already 
prevailed  among  its  promoters. 

In  the  month  of  January  (1537)  the  parliament  was  again  assembled;  but  so  perse- 
veringly  did  the  proctors  still  continue  their  opposition,  having  now  openly  on  their  side 
the  bishops  and  abbots,  that  little  progress  was  made  in  any  of  the  bills  remaining  to  be 
disposed  of;  and  even  of  those  which  the  commons  agreed  to  pass,  some  were  afterwards 
thrown  out  by  the  upper  house.  In  this  manner,  the  bill  for  granting  to  the  king  the 
twentieth  part  of  all  ecclesiastical  revenues,  though  passed  by  the  house  of  commons, 
was  rejected  by  the  spiritual  lords.*"  It  became  necessary,  therefore,  again  to  prorogue 
the  parliament,  and  employ  the  recess  in  devising  some  remedy  for  this  continued  ob- 
struction in  the  way  of  their  measures. 

*  Ware's  Hist,  of  the  Bishops. 

t  "The  common  people  of  this  isle,"  says  Browne,  "are  more  zealoim  in  their  blindness  than  the  saints 

and  martyrs  were  in  truth  at  the  beainning  of  the  gospel .  It  is  feared  O'Neill  will  be  ordered  by  the  bishop 

of  Rome  tooppose  your  lordship's  orders  from  the  king's  highness,  for  the  natives  are  much  in  numbers  within 
his  power." — Browne  to  Crumwell,  Harleiaii  Miscel  vol.  v. 

X   A.  D.  1536. 

§  The  Lord  Deputy  and  Council  of  Ireland  to  Crumwell,  State  Paper;;,  CXXVII. 

II  "Of  which  (proctors)  Patrick  Bernewell,  the  kinges  serjaunt  is  ooii,  pryncypall  champion;  who.  and  in 
effect  all  his  lynage  of  the  Bernewells,  have  hieen  gret  doers  and  adherentes,  pryvay  counsaillors  to  the  late 
erle  of  Kildare." — Robert  Cowley  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  CXLIX. 

U  The  Lord  Deputy  and  Council  of  Ireland  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  ULXIV. 

*♦  Gray  and  Brabazon  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  CLXVIII. 

53 


426  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

On  being  consulted,  llic  king's  council  declared  that  the  proctors  had  "  no  voice  in 
parliament,"  and  referred  to  entries  on  the  rolls  as  proving  that,  even  in  cases  where 
their  assent  or  dissent  was  recorded,  it  was  not  considered  to  be  material,  nor  allowed 
any  weight  in  the  decision  of  the  matters  in  question.  In  accordance  with  this  opinion, 
an  act  was  prepared  to  put  down  the  "usurpation  of  proctors,"  which,  on  the  re-assem- 
bling of  parliament,  was  one  of  the  first  measures  passed;  and  the  refractory  spirit  which 
had  so  long  thwarted  the  plans  of  the  government  having  been  thus  far  got  rid  of,  the  act 
for  the  grant  to  the  king  of  the  twentieth  part  of  the  "spirituality,"  as  well  as  for  the 
suppression  of  the  religious  houses,  was  without  much  difficulty  carried.  So  welcome 
was  this  grant  to  Henry,  with  whom  money  was,  at  all  times,  a  pressing  consideration, 
that,  in  a  special  letter  addressed  to  the  lords  spiritual,  he  expressed  his  acknowledg- 
ments for  the  gift.'*' 

The  position,  at  this  juncture,  of  Browne,  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  was  not  a  little 
arduous  and  trying  ;  for,  as  lie  had  been  the  first  of  the  clergy  to  embrace  the  Reforma- 
tion, so  he  continued  to  be  almost  the  only  one  who  took  active  steps  for  its  advancement ; 
and  while,  by  the  over-zeal  of  a  fresh  convert,  he  made  himself  odious  to  the  party  he 
had  deserted,  his- self-sufficiency  and  assuming  pomp  made  him  no  less  offensive  to  those 
whose  doctrines  he  had  espoused.  A  letter  addressed  to  him  about  this  time  (1537)  by 
the  king,t  after  charging  him  with  "lightness  in  behaviour,"  adds, — "  Such  is  the  ela- 
tion of  your  mind,  in  pride,  that,  glorying  in  foolish  ceremonies,  and  delighting  in  We 
and  Us,  all  virtue  and  honesty  is  almost  banished  from  you."  In  replying  to  these 
heavy  charges,  which  wear  the  appearance,  it  must  be  owned,  of  exaggeration,  the  arch- 
bishop sets  forth  his  own  spiritual  services  in  "declaring  to  the  people  the  only  Gospel 
of  Christ,"  and  inducing  his  hearers  "  utterly  to  despise  the  usurped  power  of  the  bishop 
of  Rome."  But  the  steps  taken  by  him  to  advance  the  king's  temporal  interests,  are 
those  he  dwells  upon  with  the  most  emphasis  and  self-complacency  ;  reminding  his 
majesty  that  he  had  been,  not  only  the  first  spiritual  man  that  moved  the  twentieth  part 
of  first-fruits,  but  that  he  had  promoted,  as  far  as  in  him  lay,  the  "  like  first-fruits  of  all 
monasteries,  not  before  motioned. "J 

Between  this  prelate  and  lord  Leonard  Gray  there  occurred  frequent  and  bitter  dif- 
ferences, for  which  their  variance  on  religious  questions  may  be  thought  sufficiently  to 
account.  But  even  with  Staples,  the  bishop  of  Mealh,  the  only  prelate  who  joined  in  sup- 
porting the  king's  supremacy,  this  domineering  archbishop  could  not  bring  himself 
amicably  to  agree.  Who  can  wonder  that  the  people  of  Ireland  should  have  almost 
unanimously  rejected  a  creed  of  which  Henry  VIII.  was  the  supreme  head,  and  this 
most  assuming  and  worldly  minded  prelate  the  earliest  apostle 'I^  So  narrow,  in  fact, 
was  the  footing  gained,  at  this  time,  by  the  new  doctrines,  even  among  the  higher 
authorities  of  the  Pale,  that,  with  the  exception  of  lord  James  Butler,  the  master  of  tiie 
rolls,  the  vice-treasurer,  Brabazon,  the  arcidnshop  of  Dublin,  and  one  or  two  others  of 
little  note,  all  the  ofScial  personag-es  constituting  the  government,  including  the  lord 
deputy  himself,  remained  still  attached  to  the  ancient  faith. || 

The  only  test  or  symbol  of  the  new  orthodoxy  required,  as  yet,  from  either  ecclesias- 
tics or  laymen,  was  the  taking  of  the  oath  binding  them  to  acknowledge  the  king's 
supremacy  ;  and  it  may  be  presumed  that  neither  by  the  clergy  nor  laity  was  this  sub- 
stitution of  the  supremacy  of  the  crown  for  that  of  the  pope  cunsidered  as  a  change 
seriously  affecting  their  faith,  since  almost  all  the  native  lords  and  clergy  came  forward, 
as  we  shall  see  presently,  to  confirm  their  allegiance  by  this  form  of  oath.  If,  in  place 
of  a  mere  acknowledgment  of  the  king's  supremacy, — a  claim,  the  extent  of  which 
neither  the  chiefs  nor  perhaps  the  clergy  themselves  clearly  unJerstood, — the  renuncia- 
tion of  some  tenet  or  observance  endeared  and  fiallowed  by  old  tradition  and  daily  habit, 
had  been  demandod  as  the  pledge  of  orthodoxy,  the  same  tranquil  submission  would  not 
liave  attended  the  first  advances  of  the  reformed  creed. 

Without  pausing,  liowever,  to  consider  what  were  the  causes  of  Ireland's  exemption, 

♦  King  Henry  VIU.  to  Die  Spirilual  Lords  of  Ireland,  Slate  Papers,  CC. 

t  State  Papers,  CLXXIV 

t  Archbishop  Browne  to  King  llonry  VIII  .  S  P.  CI-XXXVI. 

§  The  cli.iracter  given  of  this  prelate  by  Staples,  bishop  of  Mcath,  is,  as  far  as  \vc  can  judge,  not  over- 
coiflured  : — "  He  now  bostyth  hyine  self  to  ruell  al  the  clergy  under  our  soveran  lord,  and  he  hath  gyvyne 
such  a  last  of  hys  good  demeanour  as  thai  every  honest  man  is  not  only  wtsry  theroff,  but  rekonyth  that  pryd 
and  arrogance  hath  ravvshyd  h\nie  from  theryglit  remembrance  of  Ijymeself.  " — Bisli jp  i^taples  to  Sentleger, 
B.  P.  COXXXIll 

li  "  Excepte  it  be  the  Archibysrliope  of  Dublyn.  whiclio  dothe  here  in  prcching  sett  f.ullie  Codes  woric, 
wilh  dew  obedyence  to  thcr  prynce,  and  ujy  good  loiil  Butler,  the  master  of  the  rollus,  Air.  Thezaurer,  and 
on  or  2  more,  whiclie  are  of  snialle  repytaclnuis,  here  is  ellys  noon,  from  the  hyeste,  may  abyde  the  lieryng 
of  hiti,  spirituall,  as  they  call  ihcin,  nor  temiicrall."— .'\garj  to  Crunuvcll,  S.  P.  CC'X\  U. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  427 

St  thi3  period,  from  that  dragooning  process  of  conversion  to  wliich  England  was  so 
brutally  subjected,  suffice  it  to  say,  that  such,  at  this  lime,  was  the  comparative  state  of 
the  two  kingdoms;  and  that  whatever  of  peace  and  religious  tolerance  these  islands  could 
boast  had  all  taken  refuge  on  the  Irish  shore.  This  very  year,  while  the  scaffolds  of 
England  were  reeking  with  Christain  blood,  and  men  were  expiring',  by  a  slow  tire,  with 
the  words  "  none  but  Christ,  none  but  Christ,"  upon  their  lips,  not  only  were  the  axe, 
the  faggot,  and  halter,  left  entirely  without  employ  in  Ireland,  but  the  harshest  punish- 
ment we  find  inflicted  for  religious  offences,  during  that  period,  was  the  commitment  ot 
the  delinquents  to  Dublin  castle.  Thus,  a  grey  friar  was  imprisoned  for  having  preached 
against  the  "  breaking  or  pulling  down  of  churches,"  and  a  like  punishment  was  inflicted 
by  Browne  in  two  several  cases; — the  offender,  in  one  instance,  having  been  the  suffra- 
gan of  the  bishop  of  Meath,  wiio,  in  a  late  sermon  preached  by  him,  had  prayed,  first,  for 
the  bishop  of  Rome,  then  for  the  emperor,  and  lastly,  for  the  king,  saying  of  the  latter, 
"  I  pray  God  he  never  depart  this  world,  until  that  he  hath  made  amends."*  The 
other  offender  committed  by  the  archbishop  was  a  prebendary  of  St.  Patrick's,  -icop' 
named  Humphrey,  who  when  performing  service  in  his  own  church,  had  not  only 
omitted  to  read  the  "  Form  of  the  Beads"  (certain  instructions  for  praying,  drawn  up  by 
Browne  himself,)  but  when  his  curate  went  up  into  the  pulpit  for  that  pi'.rpose,  suddenly 
interrupted  him,  and  began,  with  the  choir,  to  sing  high  mass;  and  for  this  offence 
against  his  formulary  the  archbishop  sent  him  to  prison.f 

While  such  are  the  stretches  of  power  with  which  even  this  proud  and  contentious 
churchman  appears  to  have  been  chargeable,  the  general  forbearance  of  the  civil  authori- 
ties, during  the  whole,  I  may  say-,  of  this  reign,  from  all  violent  means  of  enforcing  the  new 
creed,  was  even  still  more  worthy  of  wonder  and  praise.  The  mixed  composition,  per- 
haps, of  the  preseTit  government,  in  which  were  brought  together  adherents  of  both  the 
contending  creeds,  might  have  had  some  share  in  producing  the  tolerance  and  general 
tranquillity  that  now  prevailed;  for,  not  merely  was  this  balance  of  counsels  in  the 
governing  body  likely  to  lead  to  a  middle  and  tolerant  course,  but  a  sort  of  security  was 
thus  afforded  to  both  the  religious  parties,  that  nothing  violent,  was  likely  to  be  attempted 
against  either  by  a  government  counting  as  its  most  forward  leaders  such  men  as  lord 
Butler  and  the  lord  Leonard  Gray;  the  one  a  friend  of  the  reforming  archbishop,  and  a 
warm  abettor  of  all  his  innovations;  the  other  a  known  adherent  of  the  ancient  faith, 
having  knelt  publicly,  as  we  have  seen,  in  one  of  hie  late  circuits,  before  the  statue  of 
the  blessed  virgin  at  Trim.]: 

Such  mutual  tolerance,  on  matters  of  belief,  appears  the  more  remarkable  at  this  very 
crisis,  when  one  of  the  principal  objects  of  the  league  formed  by  O'Donneli,  O'Neill,  and 
the  Geraldines,  was  supposed  to  be  the  defence  of  their  country's  creed  against  the  inno- 
vations of  the  English  reformers;  and  when  it  was  believed  that  they  were  actually 
negotiating  with  foreign  powers  for  a  force  to  aid  them  in  this  design.  An  event  that 
occurred  this  year,  about  midsummer,  conduced  to  strengthen  such  an  impression. 
Among  the  papers  of  a  Franciscan  friar,  who  had  been  apprehended  and  committed  to 
the  castle  of  Dublin,  was  found  a  letter  addressed  to  O'Neill,  and  professing  to  be 
written  by  the  bishop  of  Metz,  in  the  name  of  the  council  of  cardinals.  The  object  of 
this  letter  was  to  exhort  O'Neill,  as  he  valued  "  the  glory  of  the  mother  church,  the 
honour  of  St.  Peter,  and  his  own  security,"  to  oppose  himself  to  the  spreading  heresy. 
The  writer  informs  him  of  an  ancient  prophecy  of  St.  Laserian,  an  Irish  archbishop  of 
Cashel,  which  predicts  tliat  "  the  church  of  Rome  shall  surely  tall  when  the  Catholic 
faith  is  once  overthrown  in  Ireland;"  and  accordingly  exhorts  him  to  "animate  the 
people  of  the  Holy  Island  in  this  pious  cause."^  The  bearer  of  this  letter— in  which, 
among  other  marks  of  imposture,  the  prophecy  is  attributed  to  an  archbishop  of  Cashel, 
of  whom  there  is  no  trace  m  our  annals — was  on  the  point  of  being  sent  over  prisoner  to 
England,  when  he  put  an  end  to  his  life  in  Dublin  castle. 

Early  in  the  following  year,  two  archbishops  and  eight  bishops,  after  hearing  a 
sermon  preached  by  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  in  support  of  the  king's  supremacy,  tkqq 
and  the  "extinguishment"  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  all  took  the  oaths  relating  both      '    ' 
to  the  succession  and  the  supremacy. j| 

*  Archbishop  Browne  to  Crumwell,  S.  P.  CCXXV. 

t  Id.  S.  P.  CCXXVI. 

i  In  speaking  of  this  statue,  Browne  says,  "  There  goitha  a  coinmen  brewte  aniongos  the  Yrisli  men,  that 
I  entende  to  pluke  down  Our  Lady  of  Tryme,  with  other  places  of  Pilgramages,  as  the  Holy  Crosse  and  souch 
like  ;  which  in  deade  I  never  attempted,  although  my  conscience  wolde  right  well  serve  ine  to  oppresse  such 
ydolles."-S.  P.  CCXXXVl. 

§  Harleian  Miscall,  vol.  v.— Co.t.  ij  The  Council  nf  Ireland  to  Crumwell,  State  Papers,  CCLXII. 


4-2S  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Altliougli  llie  act  for  tlie  suppre.'ssion  of  religious  hoiiaes  was  passed  in  tlie  year  1537, 
the  appointment  of  a  commission  to  carry  it  into  effect  did  not  take  place  till  the  present 
year;  when  following^  the  course  pursued  in  England,  a  form  of  inquiry  was  employed  to 
usher  in  an  act  already  detern)ined  upon,  and  the  suppression  of  the  religious  houses  was 
quietly  effecltd.  In  the  mean  while,  the  spoils  expected  from  this  harvest  of  rapine  were 
already  in  fancy  parcelled  out  among  the  great  lords  and  officers  of  the  Pale,  both  lay  and 
spiritual.  It  had  been  suggested,  in  the  year  1537,  that,  to  reward  the  services  of  lord 
James  Butler,  and  his  father,  without  fartiier  encroachment  on  the  king's  lands,  a  grant 
should  be  made  to  them  of  the  monastery  and  lands  of  Duiske,  together  with  some  other 
march  abbey,  either  in  Kilkenny  or  Tipperary.*  But  this  suggestion  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  carried  into  effect.  The  lord  chancellor  Alen  endeavoured  to  secure  for  him- 
eelf  the  monastery  of  St.  Thomas  Court,  near  Dublin;!  but  the  site  and  circuit  of  that 
venerable  abbey  were  granted,  in  the  year  l.'i43,  to  sir  Thomas  Brabazon,  then  vice-trea- 
surer, the  ancestor  of  the  earls  of  Meath. 

Equally  unsuccessful  was  archbishop  Browne,  notwithstanding  his  zeal  for  the  cause  of 
reform,  in  endeavouring  to  secure  for  himself  a  share  of  this  religious  plunder.  On  the 
first  rumour  of  the  coming  of  the  cocjmission,  lie  wrote  to  request  of  lord  Cromwell,  that 
he  would  obtain  for  him  a  "  very  poor  house  of  friars,"  as  he  describes  it,  named  the  New 
Abbey, — a  "houseof  the  obstinates'  religion,  which  lay  very  commodious  for  him  by  Bally- 
more."  This  monastery,  however,  had  already  been  given  away,  and, — still  more  pro- 
vokingly,  in  the  eyes  of  the  prelate,— had  been  bestowed  upon  an  Irishman. J  He  next 
endeavoured  to  obtain  from  Croinwcll  a  grant  of  the  nunnery  of  Grace  Dieu,  should  that 
house  be  among  the  number  of  those  suppressed.  But  here  again  his  suit  was  fruitless; 
and  after  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  preserve  it,  this  nunnery  was  suppressed,  along  with  the 
rest,  and  its  site  and  possessions  granted,  in  the  year  1541,  to  sir  Patrick  Barnwell,  ances- 
tor of  the  lord  Trimleston.^ 

Some  over-zealous  Irisli  writers,  unwilling  to  admit  that  so  long  an  interval  of  peace 
and  tolerance  could  have  been  enjoyed  thus  under  a  government  almost  entirely  English, 
have  brought  forth  one  alleged  instance  of  religious  martyrdom,  in  the  person  of  Dr.  John 
Travers,  an  Irish  secular  priest,  who  published  a  book  in  defence  of  tlie  papal  supremacy. 
Had  it  been  fur  writing  this  controversial  work  that  capital  punishment  was  inflicted 
on  Travers,  his  right  to  the  place  he  holds  in  the  Irish  martyrology  could  not  have  been 
questioned.  But  tliis  was  by  no  means  the  case: — he  had  taken  a  most  active  part  in 
lord  Thomas  Fitz  Gerald's  rebellion,  and  it  was  for  this  offence  that,  having  been  tried 
and  found  guilty  of  treason,  he  was  executed  at  Tyburn. ||  Such  is  the  single  alleged  in- 
stance of  severe  punishment,  on  account  of  religion,  which,  even  by  those  most  desirous 
to  fix  such  a  charge  on  the  Irish  government,  could  be  referred  to  during  the  whole  of 
the  thirteen  years  that  elapsed  from  the  first  introductiori  of  the  reformed  creed,  to  the 
last  days  of  tiiis  reign. 

The  notion  prevailing  at  this  time  among  the  alarmists  of  the  Pale,  and  since  adopted 
by  all  our  hisiorians,  tliat  religion  was  a  leading  motive  of  the  late  league  among  the 
chiefs,  appears  to  be  but  little  sustained  hy  recorded  facts.  Had  any  great  zeal  for  the 
interests  of  religion  been  felt,  either  within  or  without  the  Pale,  there  would  have  been, 
on  both  sides,  more  show  of  energy  and  character,  but,  on  neither  mucli  enjoyment  of 
tolerance  or  peace.  So  little,  indeed,  did  Henry's  spiritual  claims  alarm  the  consciences 
of  the  native  chiefs,  that,  a  year  or  two  after,  when  entering  into  articles  f)f  submission, 
all  the  mobt  eminent  among  them  readily  took  the  oath,  acknowlediring  the  king  supreme 
head  of  the  church.  While  thus,  from  pliancy  of  conscience,  or,  perhaps,  mere  ignorance 
of  the  nature  of  the  pledge  required  from  them,  these  lords  contributed,  by  their  easy 
submission,  to  prolong  the  tranquillity  that  now  prevailed,  the  same  object  wa-s,  in  like 
manner,  ministered  to  by  another  large  class  of  persons, — the  unreformed  clergy  of  the 

*  Gray.  &c.  to  riuiiuvoU.  "  .As  for  llic  name  oflionour  of  tho  erledome  of  Ormoiiil,  it  is  iiol  liuiteftill  they 
liave  it ;  t)iit  as  for  the  laiides,  our  advise  is,  ttip  Iting  deparie  not  vwih  them,  hut,  in  the  Imp  thereof,  geve 
Iheni  the  abbaye  of  Duslje,  with  thappertrn.iunccs,  ivych  is  determined  to  be  suppressed."— S,  /'.  CLXVIII. 

f  J.  Alen  to  Cnimwell.  "(Xinsiderme  that  I  have  no  liouse  ill  Dublin  to  lie  in,  neitlier  provision  to  l;eep 
(.on  liors  Ilier  f.)r  my  self,  that  it  would  plese  your  lordt-hip  that  I  maie  have  the  iiioiiastcry  of  St  Thomas 
Court  to  ferme,  wherhy  I  sli^tibe  the  more  able  lo  s,:vve.  the  king,  and  vit  hi.'!  t-rare  nothins;  hindered  of  his 
profit '—Slate  Papers.  t;(;l,XVIII. 

I  ••  Where  as  I  wrote  nnio  your  l.irdesehip  for  the  obti'yilement  of  a  very  poure  house  of  friars,  named  the 
N'eu  Al)liay,  an  house  of  ilie  ob.-tynates  ri:ligi(in,  which  lay  very  eninmodio'iis  for  me  by  Ballymore,  to  repaire 
unto  ill  tyines  of  iiede;  I  am  elene  dispatched  of  any  pleasureB  there,  and  the  profeite  Ihi'ireofgyven  toan  Irish 
nioii  ;  so  Ihat  I  am  eompt^d  an  unvvorthie  parson."— Slate  I'apers,  CCXXVI.  He  then  solicits  in  the  same 
strain,  for  a  grant  of  the  abbey  of  Grace  Dieu. 

5  See.  for  parti,  ulars  of  this  prant,  Arch.iall's  Monast.  Ilibern.  p.  218. 

{  Co,\  — Ware's   )f'rHer:i 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  429 

Pale;  who,  when  tliey  found  that  by  preaching  in  defence  of  the  pope,  they  would  incur 
the  penalty  of  prEernunire,  refrained  from  preaching  altogether,  and  gladly  took  refuge  in 
the  safe,  though  inglorious,  policy  of  silence.*  A  similar  course  was  pursued  by  the  ill- 
fated  lord  Leonard  Gray  himself;  and,  accordingly,  though  known  to  be,  in  his  heart,  at- 
tached to  the  ancient  doctrines,  no  charge  against  him  on  the  score  of  religion  appears  in 
the  articles  upon  which  ho  was  impeached. 

It  may  be  thougiit  that  the  frequent  "  hostings"  of  the  lord  deputy,  throughout  the  king- 
don),  seem  rather  at  variance  with  the  picture  of  general  quiet  here  presented.  But  it 
must  be  recollected,  that  these  circuits,  or  progresses,  were  meant  for  the  display,  rather 
than  the  employment,  of  military  force, — more  as  precautionary  measures  of  police  than 
as  movements  of  actual  warfare:  and  the  bloodless  result  of  most  of  the  journeys  of  this 
description,  under  lord  Gray,  serves  much  to  corroborate  all  that  has  been  said  of  the  state 
of  peace  that  generally  prevailed. 

Another  striking  proof  of  this  fact  may  be  found  in  the  cessation,  to  a  remarkable  de- 
gree, of  that  petty  warfare  of  the  Irish  septs  among  themselves,  which  had,  from  time  im- 
memorial, been  the  habit  and  curse  of  the  land.  The  single  exception,  indeed,  to  the 
respite  which,  even  in  this  respect,  the  whole  kingdom  now  enjoyed,  is  found  in  the  in- 
stance of  an  Anglo-Irish  sept,  the  Geraldines,  of  whom,  in  a  letter  already  cited,  from  the 
lord  deputy  to  Cromwell,  it  is  said,  "  the  bastard  Geraldines  are,  by  the  permission  of  God, 
killing  one  another."  In  general,  however,  there  prevails  in  the  public  correspondence 
of  this  period,  most  ample  testimony  to  the  state  of  quiet  which  the  whole  country  then 
could  boast.  Thus,  in  the  year  1538,  there  occur  such  admissions,  with  respect  to  the 
state  of  the  kingdom,  as  the  following: — "  We  are  at  peace  with  all  men,  and  they  keep 
peace  with  us,  as  yet." — "  We  signify  unto  your  majesty  (say  the  lords  of  the  council) 
that,  thanks  be  to  God  and  your  highness,  the  land  is  at  such  stay  and  peace,  at  this 
season,  as  it  hath  not  been  these  many  years."  But  a  still  more  satisfactory  evidence  of 
the  existence  and  effects  of  this  change  is  afforded  by  another  official  authority. — "This 
country  was  in  no  such  quiet  these  many  years;  for,  throughout  the  land,  in  a  manner, 
it  is  peace,  both  with  English  and  Irish.  1  never  did  see,  in  my  time,  so  great  resort  to 
the  law  as  there  is  this  term,  which  is  a  good  sign  of  quiet  and  obedience."! 

The  escape  of  young  Gerald  into  France  had  removed  the  only  common  rallying-point 
or  standard  around  which  could  be  collected  a  sufficient  number  of  male-contents  to  en- 
danger seriously  the  peace  of  the  country.     Shortly  after  this  youth's  departure,  lord 
Leonard  Gray,  who  had  long  been  entreating  of  the  king  permission  to  return  to  Eno-- 
land,  was  granted  a  temporary  recall,  and  sir  William  Brereton  was  appointed  lord  jus- 
tice during  his  absence.|     The  mutual  ill-will  so  long  existing  between  the  late 
deputy  and  the  earl  of  Ormond,  though  for  a  short  time  apparently  suppressed,  had  i^-'i?/ 
again  broken  out  with  fresh  bitterness;  and  the  enmity  of  Ormond  to  lord  Leonard  '■'^'*^" 
iiud  found  ready  and  sympathizing  abettors  in  the  lord  chancellor  Alen,  and  sir  William 
Brabazon,  the  vice-treasurer.     In  the  ominous  summons,  theref)re,  of  these  three  per- 
sonages to  confront  liim  in  England,  Gray  must  have  seen  but  too  sure  a  foretoken  of 
the  disastrous  fate  that  there  awaited  him. 

On  the  first  rumour  of  Gray's  recall,  indications  of  revolt  had  begun  to  show  them- 
selves among  the  septs  immediately  bordering  on  the  Pale.^  The  O'Tooles  of  Wicklow 
had  made  a  foray  into  the  marches  of  Dublin,  and  the  Cavanaghs  a  predatory  inroad  of 
the  same  kind  into  the  county  of  Wexford.  But,  when  not  only  this  lord,  but  the  earl  of 
Ormond  also,  had  sailed  for  England,  the  removal  from  the  country  of  two  such  com- 
manders inspired  a  confidence  in  some  of  the  more  restless  of  the  chiefs,  which  seemed, 
for  a  short  tiine,  to  threaten  disturbance  to  the  public  peace.  A  sudden  incursion  made 
by  O'Connor,  for  purposes  of  plunder,  into  Ivildare,||  and  suspected  plots  and  some  threat- 
ening movements  on  the  part  of  O'Neill,  were  the  only  grounds  as  yet  assigned  for  the 
apprehension  that  generally  prevailed. 

It  was  clearly  the  policy  of  the  new  lord  justice's  government  to  make  the  worst  of 
the  state  in  which  Gray  had  left  the  kingdom,  in  order,  by  bringing  thus  heavier  odium 
upon  his  measures,  to  enhance  proportionably  their  own  merit  in  repairinjj  the  evils  which 
he  had  caused.     A  desire  to  enter  into  negotiation  having  been  intimated  by  O'Neill,  the 

*  "So  that  now,''  says  an  observer  of  tliese  events,  "  what  for  fear  they  liave  to  preche  their  ould  traditions, 
and  the  little  or  no  goodwill  they  have  to  preche  the  ventie,  all  is  put  to  scilence."— J.  White  to  Cruinwell! 
Slate  Papers,  CCXIl. 

t  Thomas  Alen  to  Cruniwell,  State  Paper?,  CCLVII. 

i  Kinj;  Henry  VIII.  to  Gray  and  Sir  VV.  Brereton,  S.  P.  CCXCV. 

§  The  Council  of  Ireland  to  Crumwell,  Earl  of  E«sex,  S.  P.  CCXCVII. 

II  "  Ochonor,  noiwithstanriitig  his  appointment  of  truce,  assone  as  he  perceived  that  the  late  lord  deputie 
was  passed  the  sea,  on  Tuysdaie  last,  his  sonnes  and  cunipanv  invaded  the  countie  of  Kildare." — Alen  and 
Brabazon  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  S.  P.  CCCI. 


430  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

lord  justice  appointed  a  meeting  with  him  at  Carrick  Bradogh,  a  plain  on  the  borders  of 
Dundalk.  But  the  chief,  fearing,  for  some  reason  not  explained  by  him,  to  trust  himself 
with  any  Englishman  at  that  place,  proposed  that  the  parley  between  them  should  be 
held  at  the  Narrow  Water,  near  M'Gennis's  castlo.  Accordingly,  a  peace  was  there 
concluded  with  him  to  the  same  effect  as  that  which,  in  the  year  1535,  he  had  made  by 
indentures  with  sir  William  Skeffingtop.*  But,  in  the  present  instance,  we  are  furnished 
with  proof  that  O'Neill's  voluntary  pledges  of  peace  were  by  no  means  sincere;  as  a 
letter,  still  extant,  addressed  to  him  by  James  V.  of  Scotland,  shows  that  at  this  very 
time  the  chiefs  secretary  was  at  the  Scottish  court,  negotiating  with  that  monarch.f 

Whatever  hopes  of  aid  from  Scotland  might  have  been  counted  upon  by  the  Irish 
leaders, — and  a  close  intercourse  had  long  been  held  by  them  with  that  kingdom, — to 
the  lord  justice  and  council  they  spoke  only  the  language  of  submission  and  peace.  A 
general  muster,  however,  of  the  respective  forces  of  O'Donnell,  O'Neill,  O'Brian,  and 
the  other  leading  Irish  lords,  having  been  appointed  to  take  place  at  Fowre,  in  the  west 
of  Meath,  the  lord  justice  assembled  instantly  a  large  army,  comprising,  in  addition  to 
the  whole  of  the  military  power  of  the  Pale,  the  attendance  likewise  of  the  lords  spiritual 
and  temporal,  as  well  as  of  the  judges,  learned  men,  and  priests;  and  at  the  head  of  this 
large  and  miscellaneous  army,  marched  forth  to  the  scene  of  the  threatened  congress.J 
All  that  the  chiefs  professed,  from  the  first,  to  have  in  view,  in  this  general  confederacy, 
was  the  holding  a  parley  with  the  lord  justice  and  council,  and  making  a  peace  such  as 
would  be  likely  to  endure.  But,  when  they  now  heard  of  the  immense  force  the  autho- 
rities of  the  Pale  were  bringing  against  them,  and  of  the  campaign  of  twenty  days,  for 
which  they  were  victualled,  the  object  of  their  own  assemblage,  whatever  it  might  have 
been,  was  immediately  abandoned,  and  none  of  them  appeared  at  the  place  appointed. 
"  Whereupon,"  says  the  lord  justice,  in  relating  the  circumstance,  "  we  concluded  to  do 
some  exploit;"  and,  accordingly,  they  entered  mto  O'Connor's  country,  and  there,  "en- 
camping in  sundry  places,  destroying  his  habitations,  corns,  and  fortlace?,  as  long  as  their 
victuals  endured. "5 

After  this  short  interruption,  our  records  continue  to  present,  through  the  remainder 
of  Henry's  reign,  a  scene  of  mutual  reconciliation,  tolerance,  and  peace.  Instead  of  the 
hostility  so  long  and  preposterously  kept  alive  between  the  crown  and  its  Irish  sub- 
jects, conciliatory  advances  were  now,  for  the  first  time,  and  almost  simultaneously, 
made  by  both  ;  and  while  the  king,  by  a  skilful  distribution  of  honours  and  gifts,  allured 
the  principal  Irish  chieftains  to  his  court,  these  lords,  on  their  parts,  showed  even  too 
courtier-like  a  compliance  with  all  the  conditions  and  pledges  required  of  them  in 
return. 

The  earl  of  Desmond,  who,  like  most  of  the  other  magnates  of  the  Pale,  had  become 
identified,  from  habit  and  policy,  with  the  native  nubility  of  the  land,  was  one  of  the  first 
who  now  showed  a  disposition  to  sue  for  pardon  and  favour.  In  the  month  of 
^l-^f^  April,  an  a<;t  of  assassination  had  been  committed,  of  which  the  brother  of  this 
lord,  Maurice  Fitz  John,  was  the  perpetrator;  and  James  Fitz  Maurice,  the  riva-l 
claimant  of  the  earldom  of  Desmond,  was  the  victim. ||  The  immediate  consequence  af 
this  daring  murder — and,  therefore,  liable  to  be  supposed  its  motive — was  the  concentra- 
tion in  James  Fitz  John,  the  present  lord,  of  the  whole  title  to  the  earldom.  No  suspi- 
cion, however,  appears  to  have  been  entertained  that  he  was  at  all  accessory  to  the 
crime;  and  his  now  uncontested  high  station,  added  to  the  weight  of  his  personal  influ- 
ence, rendered  the  course  likely  to  be  taken  by  him  an  object  of  much  speculation  with 
both  parties.  One  of  the  principal  causes  hitherto  of  his  disaffection  to  the  king's  go- 
vernment had  been  the  grudge  borne  by  him  to  lord  James  Butler,  now  earl  of  Ormond, 
both  on  account  of  the  ancient  feud  between  their  bloods,  and  also  of  the  claim  set  up  by 
Butler  to  the  earldom  of  Desmond,  in  right  of  his  wife,  the  only  daughter  and  heir  general  of 
the  eleventh  earl  of  that  house.  This  jealous  feeling  had  now  subsided,  it  appears,  on  both 
sides;  and  so  anxious  was  Ormond,  whose  zeal  and  activity  in  tiie  public  service  never 
flagged,  to  draw  his  brother  earl  to  allegiance,  that,  when  on  his  way  to  a  parley  with 
O'Brian,  he  so  far  trusted  himself  in  Desmond's  power  as  to  lodge  two  nights  in  his  do- 
minion, for  the  purpose  of  endeavouring,  as  he  says,  to  win  him  over  "by  funiliarity  and 

*  Brereton  to  Essnx,  .S.  P.  CCC[T. 

\  Epistolffi  Jar,.  IV.,  Jnc.  V.,  et  Maris,  Rcgum  Sent. 

i  Mathew  Kin^  to  ihn  Privy  Council  in  England,  5.  P.  COCK.  See  also  Letter  from  Rolicrl  Cowley  to  tin 
Duke  of  Norfolk,  in  Ellis's  Original  Letters,  vol.  ii.  Second  Series,  written  evidently  at  this  lime. 

§  Lord  Justice  and  Council  to  (lenry  Vl[[.,  S.  P.  CCCXtV.  The  lord  justice  add.s,  as  if  surprised  that  this 
course  of  proceeding  had  not  been  agreeable  to  the  chief,  "  Albeit  he  reinaineth  in  his  cankcrde  malyce  and 
rankor,  and  so  doo  all  his  confederates." 

(  The  Council  oftrelaud  to  Henry  VIII.,  .S.  P.  CCXCVI. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  431 

persuasion."  But  Desmond,  though  conscious  of  his  own  offencrs,  and  most  anxious  to 
obtain  pardon,  was  yet  unwilling  to  relinquish  his  amity  witii  O'Brian  and  others  of  the 
chiefs;  and  declared  that  so  strong  were  their  confederacies,  he  could  not,  even  if  it  was 
his  wish,  attempt  to  resist  them. 

In  the  niontii  of  August,  sir  Antony  Senlleger,  the  new  lord  deputy,  reached  Dublin  ;  and 
his  first  report  of  the  state  of  the  country,  addressed  to  the  king  soon  after  his  arrival, 
refers  to  the  peaceful  dispositions  manifested  by  O'Connor,  O'Neill,  O'Donnell,  and  other 
northern  chiefs;  as  well  as  by  O'Brian,  Desmond,  and  other  great  lords  of  the  west. 
O'Donnell  had  previously  written  to  the  king,  acknowledging  his  spiritual  supremacy, 
professing,  in  the  humblest  terms,  repentance  for  his  own  offences,  and  suing  earnestly 
for  pardon.*  By  O'Neill,  likewise,  a  respectful  letter  was  addressed,  in  Latin,  to  the 
monarch,  accompanied  by  some  gifts,  which  Henry  graciously  received. f  Far  less  de- 
pendent in  his  tone  than  O'Donnell,  this  chief,  while  professing  himself  disposed  to  prof- 
fer submission  to  the  king,  complains  of  the  grievous  extortions  practised  by  his  deputies, 
as  well  as  of  their  constant  wars  and  forays,  which  render  it  impossible,  he  declares,  for 
peace  to  exist  in  the  kingdom.  To  O'Donnell  the  king  readily  granted  pardon ;  but,  in 
answering  O'Neill,  though  considerate  and  gracious  in  his  language,  he  gives  him  to 
understand  that  farther  favours  must  all  depend  upon  his  own  deserts;  and,  referring  to 
a  request  made  rather  prematurely  in  O'Neill's  letter,  for  the  grant  of  some  lands  and 
ruined  castles  on  the  north  coast,  Henry  intimates,  with  no  small  address,  that  the  favour 
Eolicited  by  him  is  rather  postponed  than  refused. J 

The  reduction  of  the  sept  of  the  Cavenaghs,^  which  had  been  begun  some  months  before 
by  the  earl  of  Ormund,  was  now,  under  the  auspices  of  the  new  lord  deputy,  carried  more 
fully  into  effect.  After  wasting  and  burning  their  country  for  the  space  of  ten  days, — 
the  usual  preliminary  to  Irish  negotiation, — the  invaders  succeeded  in  bring  Mac  Mo- 
rough,  the  head  of  the  Cavenaghs,  to  make  his  submission.  Renouncing,  on  his  own  part, 
the  title  of  Mac  Morough,  he  engaged  also,  on  the  part  of  his  sept,  that  tiiey  would  never 
more,  after  that  day,  elect  any  one  from  among  themselves  to  bear  that  title,  or  act  as 
their  ruler,  excepting  only  his  majesty  the  king,  and  such  as  he  should  appoint.  Mea- 
sures of  a  similar  kind  were  then  taken  with  the  sons  of  O'Moore,  who  held  the  county 
of  Ley;  and  also  with  several  other  petty  chiefs,  such  as  O'Doyue,  O'Dempsey,  and  Mac 
Maurice,  who  had  all  been  confederates  with  O'Connor,  but  were  now  detached  from  his 
party. 

O'Connor  himself,  whose  restless  spirit  and  near  neighbourhood  to  the  Pale  had  ren- 
dered him  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  English, ||  was  now  the  only  native  lord  to  whom 
hopes  of  favour  had  not  been  held  forth.  So  much  excluded  was  he  from  the  royal 
grace,  that,  in  a  letter  addressed  by  the  king  to  the  Irish  council,  he  desires  that  on  no 
account,  unless  from  actual  necessity,  they  should  enter  into  any  terms  with  him;  but 
rather,  if  possible,  "expel  him  utterly  from  his  country:"  the  king  adding,  that  in  this 
case,  he  would  not  be  unwilling  to  bestow  that  country  upon  Cahir  O'Connor,  the  chief's 
brother,  on  condition  that  he  would  "  leave  the  Irish  fashions,"  pay  obedience  to  the  Eng- 
lish laws,  and  conform  himself  and  those  under  his  rule  to  the  manners  and  usages  of 
the  Pale.1T  However  willingly  this  chief  would  have  continued  his  harassing  warfare, 
had  he  been  seconded  by  the  other  great  captains,  his  solitary  defiance  of  the  king's  govern- 
ment would,  he  knew,  be  entirely  fruitless.  Already,  with  the  view  of  crushing  him,  the 
lord  deputy  had  proclaimed  a  "liosting"  into  his  territory,  with  store  of  provisions  for  a 
campaign  of  fourteen  days.  O'Connor  saw  clearly,  therefore,  that  the  only  way  to  pre- 
serve his  possessions,  or  even  hi,  life,  was  to  follow  the  example  of  his  fellow  toparchs, 
and  submit  to  the  mercy  of  the  crown.  The  news  of  his  intention  to  profiler  submission 
came  the  more  welcome  to  the  government,  as  saving  the  cost  of  the  tlireatened  expedi- 
tion, which  the  state  of  the  exchequer  at  this  time  but  ill  could  bear.**  The  council  con- 

*  Slate  Papers,  CCCIX. 

t  O'Neill  to  King  Henry  VIII..  S.  P.  CCCXIII.    The  signature  of  this  letter  is  as  follows:— "  Per  me  Capi- 
laneum  Oneyell,  virum  in  omnibus  subdifum." 
i  Stale  Papers,  CCCXXI. 

§  This  sept,  or  nation,  inhabited  Idrone,  in  the  west  part  of  Cartow. 
I  "  Occhonor,  root  of  all  mischief,"  says  the  lord  justice,  in  one  of  his  despatches  to  the  king. — Stale  Papers, 

cccxiv. 

ir  Slate  Papers,  CCCXIX. 

**  The  financial  resources  of  the  Irish  government  were,  al  all  limes,  scarvty  and  precarious;  and  Davies 
tells  us  thai,  in  all  the  most  ancient  pipe  rolls,  itio  report  of  the  slate  of  the  exchequer  is  invariably,  "  In 
The.sauro  nil  "  Even  in  the  leigii  nf  Menry  VIFI.,  so  much  was  the  Irish  exchequer  neglected,  that  (as  ap- 
pears from  a  letter  of  Cowley  to  ihe  duke  of  Norfolk)  ii  was  destitute  even  of  Books  of  the  Revenue.— See 
Ellis's  Original  LcLlcrs,  vol.  ii.  Second  Series,  letler  cx.xvi. 


432  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

sented,  therefore,  to  accept  his  own  proposition,  which  was,  that  he  should  fulfil  his 
former  covenants,  as  agreed  upon  by  indentures;  and  shortly  after,  his  principal  adhe- 
rents, O'Mulmoy,  O'MuHoghlin,  and  Mac  Geofjhegan,  made  their  submission  in  like 
manner.* 

In  a  parliament  appointed  to  be  held  at  the  beginning  of  this  year,  bat  which  did  not 

meet  till  the  13th  of  June,  an  act  was  passed,  which  had  been  suggested  n)ore  than 

t^d{  ""'^^  '"  ^^^  course  of  this  reign,  conferring  on  Henry  and  his  successors  the  title 

■  of  king  of  Ireland.     This  measure  was  adopted  in  consequence  of  a  notion  said  to 

be  prevalent  among  the  natives,  that  the  regal  dominion  of  the  kingdom  of  Ireland  was 

vested  in  the  pope  for  the  time  being;  and  that  from  him  the  king  of  England  held  the 

lordship  of  that  realm.     It  was  therefore  hoped  that  Henry's  adoption  of  the  royal  title 

would  disabuse  the  Irish  chieftains  of  their  error,  and  lead  them  to  acknowledge  with 

less  hesitation  his  paramount  dominion. 

But  there  had  now  opened  upon  them  a  prospect,  not  merely  of  mercy,  but  of  favours 
and  honours,  at  the  hands  of  royalty  which  wanted  no  farther  inducement  to  draw  them 
in  that  direction;  and,  throughout  tlie  remaining  years  of  this  reign,  little  else  is  left  to 
the  historian  than  to  pass  in  review  the  different  chiefs  who,  with  an  almost  lavish  gene- 
rosity, were  in  the  same  breath  pardoned  and  rewarded,  and  some  of  whose  names  still 
stand  memorials  of  this  truly  princely  policy,  among  the  most  shining  and  honourable 
titles  of  the  Irish  peerage. 

In  the  instance  of  a  wild  mountain  chief,  named  Tirlogh  O'Toole,  this  course  of  policy 
was  attended  with  circumstances  not  unworthy  of  notice.  The  sept  of  the  O'Tooles, 
whose  territory  bordered  on  the  marches  of  Dublin,  had  been,  to  a  greater  degree  than 
many  even  of  the  more  powerful  septs,  a  source  of  annoyance  and  terror  to  the  English 
Pale.  Occupying  the  mountainous  parts  of  the  county  of  VVicklow,  their  only  habita- 
tions were  the  wood  and  the  morass,  their  only  fortresses,  the  deep  glens  and  mountain- 
passes.  The  reigning  chief,  however,  Tirlogh  O'Toole,  combined  with  the  ferocity  of  a 
border  ravager  much  of  that  generous  sense  of  honour  by  which  the  rude  heroes  of  chi- 
valry were  distinguished  ;  and,  on  one  occasion,  when  all  tlie  great  Irish  lords,  O'Neill, 
O'Donnell,  O'Connor,  and  others,  had  leagued  to  invade  the  English  Pale,  Tirlogh  sent 
word  to  the  lord  deputy,  that,  seeing  the  principal  chiefs  were  now  all  combined  against 
him,  he,  Tirlogh,  thought  it  but  fair  to  be  on  his  side ;  but,  "  as  soon  as  the  others  made 
peace,  then  would  he  alone  make  war  with  him."  This  chivalrous  promise  the  chief 
faithfully  kept;  nor  was  it  till  O'Donnell,  O'Neill,  and  others,  had  made  their  submission 
and  withdrawn,  that  Tirlogh,  summoning  forth  his  wild  followers  from  their  mountain- 
holds,  renewed,  fiercely  as  before,  his  harassing  inroads  on  the  English  borders.f 

Even  to  this  rude  and  houseless  warrior,  the  conciliatory  influence  of  the  royal  policy 
had  now  found  its  way.  Requesting  a  parley  with  the  lord  deputy,  he  asked  for  permis- 
sion to  repair  to  England  to  see  the  king,  "of  whom  ha  had  heard  so  much  honour,"  and 
likewise  to  present  to  him  an  humble  petition  for  some  lands  to  which  he  laid  claim. 
Wisely  entering  into  what  he  knew  to  be  the  royal  wishes,  the  lord  deputy  acceded  to 
this  request;  supplied  him  witii  201.  from  his  own  purse  towards  his  expenses,  and  gave 
him  likewise  a  recommendatory  letter  to  the  duke  of  Norfolk,  who  was  then  universally 
regarded  as  the  warm  friend  and  patron  of  Irish  interests.  It  was  also  suggested  that 
the  castle  of  Powerscourt,  which  stood  upon  a  part  of  the  lands  claimed  by  this  chief, 
should  be  granted  to  him  by  the  king. 

The  earl  of  Desmond,  having  at  length  consented  to  make  his  submission,  acquainted 
the  lord  deputy  and  council  that  he  was  ready,  on  hostages  being  given,  to  repair  to  the 
borders  of  Cashel  for  that  purpose.  He  had  demanded  that  the  earl  of  Ormond  should 
be  given  in  pledge  for  him  ;  but  to  this  the  lord  deputy  would  not  agree ;  and  the  hos- 
tages whom  he  sent  instead,  were  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  the  master  of  the  ordnance, 
and  his  own  brother.  Among  other  articles  of  this  submission,  which  was  signed  and 
sealed  at  sir  Thomas  Butler's  house,  at  Cahir,  Desmond  agreed  to  renounce,  for  himself 
and  his  heirs  for  ever,  the  singular  privilege  claimed  by  his  ancestors,  of  never  appearing 
at  any  parliament,  nor  entering  into  any  walled  town.  To  get  rid  of  the  variance  be- 
tween him  and  Ormond  respecting  the  title  of  the  earldom  of  Desmond,  it  was  agreed 

♦  The  Council  of  Ireland  to  King  Henry  VIIL,  S.  P.  GCCXXIII. 

t  "  And  although  it  shall  appear  to  your  majesty  that  thisThirrolough  is  but  a  wretched  person,  and  a  man 
of  no  grete  power,  neither  having  house  to  put  his  hedd  in,  nor  yet  money  in  his  purse  to  by  him  a  garment, 
yet  may  he  well  make  2  or  3  hundred  men— Assuring  your  highness  that  he  hath  doon  more  hurte  to  your 
English  Pale  then  any  man  in  Irlande,  and  woll  do,  whensoever  he  shall  not  aither  be  clerely  banished  or 
restored  to  your  hieglines  favours,  wherby  he  may  be  bound  to  serve  your  majestie,  as  we  thinke  verely  he 
woll  do."— The  Lord  Deputy  and  Council  to  Henry  VIFI.,  S.  P.  CCCXXIX.  p.  267  ,  note. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  433 

that  a  cross-marriage  should  take  place  between  their  children ;  and  each  bound  himself 
to  the  other  in  the  sum  of  4000Z.  to  see  this  engagement  performed.  Both  Sentleger  and 
the  lord  chancellor  then  accompanied  Desmond  to  the  town  of  Kilmalloch,  a  place  where 
no  deputy  of  the  king  had  set  his  foot  for  a  hundred  years  before.  Here  the  earl  most 
hospitably  entertained  them,  taking  occasion, during  the  few  days  they  passed  with  him,  to 
give  such  able  and  valuable  counsel  for  the  reformation  of  Ireland,  as  filled  these  two  lords 
with  admiration;  and  in  a  letter  to  the  king  from  Sentleger,  recounting  the  transactions 
just  mentioned,  the  once  dangerous,  perverse,  and  outlawed  Desmond  is  described  as 
"  undoubtedly  a  very  wise  and  discreet  gentleman."  Accordingly,  without  even  wait- 
ing the  royal  sanction,  he  was  sworn  a  member  of  the  king's  council.* 

From  Kilmalloch  the  lord  deputy  proceeded  to  the  city  of  Limerick,  and  there,  assisted 
by  the  earl  of  Ormond,  held  a  parley  with  O'Brian,  in  order  to  prevail  upon  that  chief  to 
proffer  his  obedience.f  But  O'Brian  answered,  that  he  must  take  more  time  to  consult  his 
kinsmen  and  followers,  adding,  with  a  view  of  the  matter  somewhat  more  constitutional 
than  Henry's  ministers  were  accustomed  to,  that,  "although  the  captain  of  his  nation,  he 
was  still  but  one  man."  The  principal  complaints  he  had  now  to  make  against  the 
king's  government  were,  that  they  prevented  him  from  building  his  bridge  across  the 
Shannon,  and  had  likewise  deprived  him  of  all  that  authority  over  the  natives  inhabiting 
the  eastern  side  of  the  river,  which  his  predecessors  had  invariably  exercised. ];  To  this 
the  lord  deputy  answered,  that  rather  than  allow  him  to  obtain  either  of  these  objects,  he 
himself  would  continue  at  war  with  him  as  long  as  it  pleased  the  king  to  permit  him. 

In  the  parliament  that  assembled  at  Dublin,  in  the  month  of  June,  there  were  present, 
together  with  the  earls  of  Ormond  and  Desmond,  a  great  number  of  Anglo-Irish  lords 
who  had  not,  for  many  years  before,  attended  in  their  places.  Among  these  were  the  lord 
Barry,  the  lord  Roche,  the  lord  Fitz  Maurice,  and  also  lord  Bermingham  of  Athenry.  But  a 
far  more  remarkable  feature  ofthis  opening  of  the  houses  of  parliament  was  the  attendance 
there  of  the  procurators,  or  attorneys,  of  O'Brian,  and  also,  in  their  own  proper  persons, 
of  the  chiefs  Cavanagh,  O'Moore,  O'Reilly,  Mac  William,  and  others,  to  whom,  to  their 
great  satisfaction,  the  speeches  delivered  by  the  lord  chancellor  and  the  speaker  were  in- 
terpreted by  the  earl  of  Ormond  in  their  own  language.  On  this  occasion,  too,— as  Sen- 
tleger, in  describing  to  the  king  the  ceremonies  of  the  day,  informs  him, — O'Reilly,  the 
chief  of  East  Brefney,  appeared  in  the  dress  which  his  majesty  had  given  him.  5 

The  bill  conferring  upon  the  monarch  the  title  of  king  of  Ireland  was  passed  by  both 
houses,  with  the  most  joyous  unanimity;  and  the  Sunday  following  was  a  day  of  general 
rejoicing.  The  lords  and  gentlemen  all  went  in  procession  to  St.  Patrick's  church, 
where  a  solemn  mass  was  sung  by  the  archbishop  of  Dublin  :  after  which  the  act  was 
proclaimed  in  the  presence  of  2000  persons,  and  a  grand  Te  Deum  concluded  the  cere- 
mony. Still  more  to  gratify  the  public  feeling,  the  king  issued  a  proclamation  for  a 
general  pardon.  "  There  were  made  in  the  city,"  says  the  lord  deputy,  "  great  bonfires, 
wine  was  set  in  the  streets,  and  there  were  great  feastings  in  the  houses. "11 

About  a  fortnight  before  the  date  of  these  memorable  transactions,  lord  Leonard  Gray, 
the  victim,  unjustly  as  it  appears,  of  an  official  cabal,  was  publicly  executed,  as  a  traitor, 
on  Tower  Hill.  The  recorded  charges  against  him,  at  once  numerous  and  frivolous, 
evince  the  desire,  far  more  than  the  power,  to  substantiate  actual  guilt.  His  family  con- 
nexions, both  with  the  Geraldines,  and  with  some  of  the  leading  chiefs,  had  given  him 
a  hold  on  the  hearts  of  the  Irish,  which  excited  the  jealousy  doubtless  of  Ormond,  and 
was  one  of  the  main  sources  of  the  hatred  with  which  that  lord  so  long  pursued  him. 
Even  in  the  articles  of  accusation,  Gray's  popularity  is  made  one  of  the  leading  charges; 
and  it  is  alleged  against  him,  as  an  act  degrading  to  his  royal  master,  that  he  had  passed 
through  the  heart  of  Thomond  into  Connaught,  without  any  other  guard  than  a  single 
galloglass  of  O'Brian's,  bearing  an  axe  before  him.  Another  charge,  founded  evidently 
on  mere  surmise  and  rumour,  shows  sufficiently  the  spirit  that  actuated  his  accusers. 
It  is  intimated,  rather  than  alleged,  that  the  king's  artillery  had  been  left  by  him  at  Gal- 
way,  that  it  might  be  ready  there  for  the  bishop  of  Rome,  or  the  Spaniards,  in  case  they 
should  land  in  those  parts ;  and  a  report,  it  is  added,  was  then  prevalent,  that  cardinal 
Pole,  young  Gerald's  uncle,  was  soon  to  arrive  there  with  a  large  army. IT    Such  was  the 

*  Sentleger  to  King  Henry  VIII.,  S.  P.  CCCXXXIV. 

t  Ibid.  "  Ther  we  taryed  8  dales,  as  well  to  pacefle  sarten  matters  of  variance  depending  among  the  cite- 
ains  ther,  as  also  to  parle  with  Obrian,  who  is  the  gretest  Irissheman  of  the  west  ofthis  lande." 

X  Donough  O'Brian,  in  the  year  1543,  petitioned  for  the  captainship  of  this  district.—"  Item,  he  desireth 
the  landes  and  captainship  of  Onaght,  on  this  syde  the  water  of  Shyniayn,  which  in  times  past  he  and  his 
ancestors  had."— Requests  of  O'Brian,  &c.,  S.  P.  CCCXCIII. 

5  Sentleger  to  Henry  VIII.,  S.  P.  CCCXL.  H  ibid. 

TT  The  council  of  Ireland's  Articles  against  Lord  Leonard  Gray,  S.  P,  CCCXXVI. 

55 


434 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


weak  absurd  character  of  most  of  the  charges  upon  which  this  brave  and  active  officer 
was  condemned  to  so  unworthy  a  death.* 

But  the  gracious  example  set  by  the  monarch  had  diffused  a  far  more  mild  and  liberal 
spirit  through  every  branch  of  the  administration ;  and  the  numerous  candidates  for 
court  favour  that  were  now  emerging  from  their  long  outlawed  haunts  found  all  a  most 
ready  and  zealous  promoter  of  their  several  suits  in  the  present  popular  lord  deputy. 
To  him,  indeed,  and  the  council,  appears  to  have  been  chiefly  left  the  selection  of  those 
individuals  upon  whom  dignities  and  grants  of  lands  were  to  be  bestowed.  Among  the 
more  humble  requests  transmitted  through  him,  there  are  a  few  which,  however  homely 
in  their  nature,  let  in  more  light  on  the  social  condition  of  the  Irish  dynasts  of  that  pe- 
riod than  could  ever  be  collected  from  such  merely  public  events  as  form  the  whole  and 
sole  materials  of  our  general  history.  Thus,  we  find  a  request  made  by  Desmond, — "  the 
noblest  man  in  all  the  realm," — that  the  king  would  provide  him  with  robes  to  wear  in 
parliament,  and  likewise  with  apparel  for  his  daily  use,  "  whereof"  "  he  hath  great  lack." 
Sentleger  himself,  who  states  the  circumstance,  had  already  given  this  earl  a  gown, 
jacket,  doublet,  hose,  and  other  articles  of  dress,  for  which  he  was  very  thankful,  and 
wore  in  all  places  where  he  accompanied  the  lord  deputy.f  For  iiis  want  of  means  to 
provide  these  necessaries,  Desmond  accounted  by  the  wasting  wars  in  which  he  had  been 
engaged.  JVIac  Gilpatrick,  also,  who  shortly  after  was  created  baron  of  Upper  Ossory,  and 
O'Reilly,  who  was  to  be  made  viscount  of  Cavan,  were  provided,  in  like  manner,  with 
robes  for  parliament  by  tlie  king  ;  while  the  chief  O'Rourke,  who  is  described  as  "a  man 
somewhat  gross,  and  not  trained  to  repair  unto  his  majesty,"  made  petition  only  for  a 
suit  of  ordinary  apparel. 

There  is  yet  another  incident  worth  mentioning,  as  showing  curiously  the  state  of 
society  at  that  period.  Two  of  the  Geraldine  lords  of  Munster,  the  lord  Roche  and  the 
White  Knight,  having,  by  their  constant  quarrels  and  inroads,  entirely  wasted  each 
other's  territories,  the  king  sent  orders  to  the  earl  of  Desmond  to  take  them  both  into 
custody.  They  were  accordingly,  seized  and  imprisoned  in  Dublin  castle,  "  where," 
says  the  lord  deputy,  in  stating  the  particulars  to  the  king,  "  they  now  agree  very  well 
together,  lying  both  in  one  bed ;  although,  before,  they  could  not  agree  in  a  country  of 
forty  miles'  length  between  them."  He  adds, — "  I  purpose  they  shall  there  remain  till 
their  amity  be  better  confirmed,  and  then,  God  willing,  I  intend  to  send  them  home  free, 
apparelled  like  Englishmen  ;  for  at  present  they  are  in  their  saffron  shirts  and  kernoghe's 
coats."f 

When  to  tliis  picture  of  the  life  and  manners  of  the  higher  ranks,  of  both  races,  at  this 
period,  we  add  that  the  great  O'Neill  himself  was  so  unlettered  as  to  be  unable  to  write 
his  name,5  there  needs  no  farther  or  stronger  evidence  of  the  embruting  effects  of 
the  policy  of  tlie  Pale,  and  the  sort  of  frightful  retribution  by  which  it  debased  as  well 
the  rulers  as  the  ruled. 

Though  the  chiefs  had  become,  in  general,  so  well  disposed  to  the  English  crown, 
there  were  still  two,  and  those  the  most  powerful  of  the  whole  body,  O'Neill  and  O'Don- 
aell,  who  continued  for  some  time,  to  hold  off;  and  no  less]  by  their  example  than  by 
the  mighty  means  of  mischief  which  they  possessed,  threatened  to  disturb  the  now  dawn- 
ing prospects  of  peace.  Such  was  the  influence,  indeed,  of  tiiose  two  dynasts,  that  it  was 
thought  unsafe  to  make  any  reduction  in  the  king's  army  as  long  as  they  continued  to 
withhold  their  submission.  At  length,  O'Donnell,  who  appears  to  have  been  led  to  adopt 
his  course  by  feelings  of  friendship,  as  well  as  relationship,  towards  0'Neill,||  announced 
his  intention  to  give  in  his  submission  ;  and  even  promised,  should  his  brother  chief  not 
follow  his  example  to  assist  the  lord  deputy  against  him. 

After  some  efforts  made  in  vain,  as  well  by  O'Donnell  as  the  government  to  bring 

O'Neill  to  a  parley,  he  was,  at  last,  by  the  more  effective  means  of  an  inroad  or  two  into 

his  territory,  induced  to  proffer  obedience  ;  and,  though  he  appears  to  have  been  but  little 

A    D.  ^^^^^^  upon,  yet  so  prompt  was  now  the  flow  of  royal  favour  in  this  direction,  that 

1542*.  ^'^.^  ^''^o»  i"  ths  following  year,  at  Greenwich,  created  him  earl  of  Tyrone,  and 

*  his  son,  lord  Duncannon.     His  own  ambition  had  been  to  obtain  the  title  of  earl 

•  Among  these  numerous  items  of  charge,  which  amount  in  all  to  ninety,  we  find  the  following,  founded 
on  the  old  Irish  custom  of  gossipred  :  "  20.— After  this,  was  my  said  lord  made  gossope  to  Oneill,  whiche  in 
Ireland  is  the  greltist  friendship  accepted  amonges  men." 

Through  the  whole  of  these  ninety  articles  of  accusation,  not  a  single  allusion  is  made  to  any  act  of  sacri- 
lege supposed  to  have  been  comniitled  by  Gray,  cither  at  Down,  Galway,  or  elsewhere;  so  that  for  these  idle 
tales,  repeated  from  historian  to  historian,  no  other  authority  ia  to  be  found  than  the  dull  fabler  Stanihurst. 

t  Sentleger  to  Henry  VIII.,  S.  p.  CCCXXXIV.  |  Id.  S.  P.  CCCXCIV. 

§  See  O'Neill's  Submission,  signed  with  his  mark.  S.  P.  CCCLXXIX.  Also  Mac  Gilpatrick 's,  signed  in  the 
same  manner,  S.  P.  CCCXXXVI. 

I!  O'Donnell's  first  wife  was  O'Neill's  sister. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  435 

of  Ulster ;  but  this  the  king  peremptorily  refused,  expressing  his  wonder  that  O'Neill, 
who  had  so  often  and  grieviously  offended,  should  think  of  asking  the  name  and  honour 
of  Ulster,  one  of  the  great  earldoms  of  Christendom,  and  the  king's  proper  inheritance. 

The  accession  of  O'Donnell  to  the  ranks  of  the  loyal  was  hailed  with  welcome  by 
the  government ;  and,  even  before  the  adhesion  of  O'Neill,  we  find  Cusacke,  the  speaker 
of  the  Irish  house  of  commons,  proudly  boasting  that,  as  long  as  O'Brian,  O'Donnell,  Mac 
William,  and  the  earl  of  Desmond,  were  true  to  the  king,  there  was  nothing  to  be  feared 
from  all  the  rest  of  Ireland. 

A  few  particulars  respecting  O'Donnell,  which  occur  in  a  letter  from  the  lord  deputy, 
would  lead  us  to  conclude  that,  in  point  of  civilization,  he  was  somewhat  advanced  beyond 
the  generality  of  his  brother  chiefs.  In  recommending  that  parliament  robes  should  be  be- 
stowed upon  him,  Sentleger  adds  that  in  other  apparel  he  is  better  furnished  than  any 
other  Irishman  ;  and  then  proceeds  to  describe  his  dress: — a  coat  of  crimson  velvet  with 
aiglets  of  gold,  twenty  or  thirty  pair  ;  over  that,  a  great  double  cloak  of  crimson  satin 
bordered  with  black  velvet,  and  in  his  bonnet  a  feather  set  full  of  aiglets  of  gold.  He 
was  attended  by  his  chaplain,  a  learned  young  man,  brought  up  in  France,  for  whom 
Sentleger,  in  the  year  1544,  asked  and  obtained  of  the  king,  the  presentation  to  the 
bishopric  of  Elphin.  O'Donnell's  wish  was  to  be  made  earl  of  Sligo  or  of  Tyrconnel; 
and  the  latter  was  the  title  granted,  but  not  until  the  year  1603. 

To  indulge  farther  in  this  sort  of  detail,  respecting  the  numerous  other  objects  of  royal 
favour,  who  were  selected  for  promotion  and  ennoblement  from  among  the  ancient  lords 
of  the  land,  would,  however  interesting,  even  in  an  historical  point  of  view,  usurp  more 
space  than  the  prescribed  limits  of  this  work  allow.     I  shall  therefore  enumerate  briefly 
the  names  of  the  other  chiefs  and  lords  who  were  novi^  selected  as  the  primary  materials 
of  an  Anglo-Irish  Peerage.     Morough  O'Brian,  whose  constant  encroachments  on  the 
country  eastward  of  the  Shannon  had  kept  the  government  of  the  Pale  in  continual  alarm, 
was  created  earl  of  Tiiomond  for  life,  with  the  dignity  of  baron  of  Inchiquin  descen- 
dible  to  his  heirs  male;  while  Donough,  his  nephew,  as  a  reward  for  his  unvarying  1540 
attachment  to  the  English,  was  made  baron  of  Ibrackan,  and,  after  the  decease  of 
his  uncle,  earl  of  Thomond,  for  life.     On  another  equally  active  chief,  O'Connor,  there 
had  been,  as  early  as  the  year  1.537,  some  intention  of  bestowing  the  title  of  baron  of 
OfFaley.     But,  though,  at  a  later  period,  the  king  gave  formally  his  assent  to  this  grant, 
it  was  never  carried  into  effect. 

Mac  William  Eighter,  of  Clanricarde,  the  captain  of  the  Anglo-Irish  clan  of  the  De 
Burghs,  had,  on  the  deposition  of  the  former  Mac  William  by  lord  Leonard  Gray,  been 
raised  to  that  name  and  seigniory,  in  his  place.  This  lord  was,  by  the  natives,  called 
Negan,  or  the  beheader,  from  his  iiaving  constructed  a  mound  of  the  heads  of  men  slain 
in  battle,  and  then  covered  it  over  with  earth.  On  making  his  submission,  early  in  the 
year  1541,  he  had  petitioned  the  crown  for  a  grant,  or  rather  restoration,  of  the  earldom 
heretofore  enjoyed  by  his  family  ;  and  also  a  confirmation,  by  letters  patent,  of  all  the 
possessions  which  had  descended  to  him  by  inheritance.  It  was  supposed  that  he  had 
himself  counted  upon  being  made  earl  of  Connaught ;  but  against  this  the  council  strongly 
gave  their  advice,  reminding  his  majesty  that  the  province  of  Connaught  formed  a  fifth 
part  of  his  Irish  dominions.  It  was  therefore  fixed  that  he  was  to  be  created  earl  of 
Clanricarde,  and  baron  of  Dunkellin,  while  his  fellow-chieftain  and  relative,  Mac  Gill 
Patrick,  was  to  be  made  baron  of  Upper  Ossory. 

Meanwhile  O'Neill,  who,  although  the  last  to  tender  his  allegiance,  was  the  very  first 
to  hasten  to  avail  himself  of  its  fruits,  had  set  sail,  accompanied  by  Hugh  O'Cerval- 
Ian,  bishop  of  Clogher,  for  England;  and  waiting  upon  the  king  at  Greenwich,  jcj^o' 
made  a  surrender  to  him  of  all  his  territory,  and  agreed  to  renounce  the  name  of 
O'Neill.     A  few  days  after,  both  name  and  estates  were  regranted  to  him,  by  letters  pa- 
tent, together  with  the  title  of  earl  of  Tyrone.* 

In  the  following  year,  in  the  queen's  closet  at  Greenwich,  which  was  "richly  hung 
with  cloth  of  arras,  and  well  strewed  with  rushes,"  for  the  occasion,  took  place  the 
ceremony  of  creating  O'Brian  earl  of  Thomond,  and  conferring  upon  Mac  Wil-  -ikds 
liam — or,  as  he  had  been  styled  since  his  submission,  lord  Fitz  William — the 
name  and  honour  of  earl  of  Clanricarde.     At  the  same  time,  Donough  O'Brian,  who 
was  attended,  as  were  probably  all  the  other  lords,  by  an  interpreter,  was  made  baron  of 

*  Henry  VIII.  to  the  Lord  Deputy  and  Council.  After  announcing  this  creation,  the  king  adds :— "  And 
for  his  reward,  We  gave  unto  him  a  cliayne  of  threescore  poundes  and  odde,  We  payed  for  his  robes,  and  the 
cliarges  of  his  creation,  threescore  and  fyve  poundes  tenne  shillinges  two  pens,  and  We  gave  hira  in  redy 
jnoney  con  hundreth  poundes  sterling.—;?.  P.  CCCLXXXI. 


436  HISTORY    OF    IRELAND. 

Ibrackan.  By  a  very  thoughtful  act  of  munificence,  the  king  granted  also  to  each  of 
these  noblemen  a  house  and  lands,  near  Dublin,  for  the  keeping  of  their  retinues  and 
horses,  whenever  they  resorted  thither  to  attend  parliaments  and  councils.* 

There  being,  at  the  time  of  their  visit  to  England,  an  almost  total  want  of  sterling 
money  in  Ireland,  the  lord  deputy  in  providing  them  with  the  means  of  defraying  their 
expenses,  lent  to  O'Brian  the  sum  of  lOOZ.  in  half  groats.  A  similar  loan,  attended  by 
circumstances  yet  more  homely,  was  advanced  to  the  lord  of  Tyrone.  This  chief,  being 
likewise  in  want  of  money,  to  defray  the  charges  of  his  visit  to  court,  was  provided  by 
Sentleger,  who  had  himself  borrowed  the  sum  from  merchants  of  Dublin,  with  200  marks 
sterling ;  the  debt  to  be  repaid,  according  to  the  fashion  of  primitive  times,  in  cattle  to 
that  amount.! 

In  allowing  full  credit  to  the  English  monarch  for  the  mild  and  tolerant  character  of 
his  policy  towards  Ireland,  it  must,  at  the  same  time,  be  recollected,  that  the  facility  with 
which  all  the  great  Irish  leaders  agreed  to  reject  the  pope's  supremacy,  and  acknowledge 
the  king  their  spiritual  head,  removed  all  grounds  for  any  such  sanguinary  persecution 
as  raged  at  the  same  period  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel.  Not  content  with  his  for- 
mal renouncement  of  Rome,  O'Brian,  in  a  paper  entitled  "The  Irishmen's  Requests,"}: 
demanded  that  "there  should  be  sent  over  some  well-learned  Irishmen,  brought  up  in  the 
universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  not  being  infected  with  the  poison  of  the  bishop  of 
Rome,  and  that  having  been  first  approved  by  the  king's  majesty,  they  should  then  be 
sent  to  preach  the  word  of  God  in  Ireland."  The  Irish  lords,  too,  following  the  example 
of  the  more  cultivated  grandees  of  England,  readily  allowed  themselves  to  be  consoled  for 
whatever  sacrifice  they  had  made  in  deserting  their  ancient  faith,  by  the  rich  share  they 
gained  of  the  plunder  which  the  confiscation  of  its  venerable  establishments  afforded. § 
One  of  the  requests  made  by  O'Brian,  previously  to  visiting  the  English  court,  was,  that 
the  grant  he  had  received  from  the  Irish  council,  of  certain  abbeys,  lately  suppressed, 
should  be  confirmed  to  him  by  the  king,  with  the  addition  also  of  a  grant  of  the  house  of 
Observants,  at  Ennis.  To  Donough  O'Brian  was  given  the  abbey  of  Ellenegrane,  a  small 
island  in  the  mouth  of  the  Shannon,  together  with  the  moiety  of  the  abbey  of  Clare;  and 
among  the  rewards  of  Mac  Gill  Patrick's  new  loyalty,  were  the  house  of  the  late  friars 
of  Haghevo  and  the  suppressed  monastery  of  Hagmacarte.|| 

But,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  conduct  and  motives  of  those  individual  chiefs 
who  were  now  so  readily  converted  from  rebels  into  apostates  and  courtiers,  the  wise 
policy  of  the  government,  in  thus  diverting  into  a  safe  and  legitimate  channel  the  wild 
ambition  of  such  powerful  subjects,  and  producing,  by  conciliation,  a  state  of  peace  which 
force  and  repression  had  vamly  for  ages  endeavoured  to  effect,  cannot  be  too  highly 
praised,  whether  for  its  immediate  efi'octs,  or  the  lasting  and  salutary  example  it  left 
behind.  Although  to  Henry  himself,  not  merely  as  the  source  of  all  administrative  au- 
thority, but  as  ever  ready  to  afford  his  sanction  to  the  liberal  policy  pursued  in  Ireland, 
no  small  share  of  the  honour  of  ihat  policy  is  due,  undoubtedly  to  Sentleger  belongs  the 
far  higher  praise  of  originating  this  system  of  government,  and  continuing  manfully,  and 
even  importunately,  to  press  the  adoption  of  it  upon  the  king.  So  much  was  he  aware 
indeed,  of  the  extent  to  which  he  presumed  on  the  royal  patience,  that,  after  soliciting  in 
one  of  his  letters  some  favour  for  Mac  Gill  Patrick,  he  adds, — "Thus  do  I  always  move 
your  majesty  to  give.  I  most  humbly  beseech  you  of  pardon,  for  I  verily  trust  that  your 
highness  shall  win  more  obedience  with  these  small  gifts,  than  perchance  hath  been  won 
before  this  time,  with  10,000/.  spent."  The  king  himself,  though  yielding  to  most  of 
these  requests  with  a  degree  of  ductility  and  thoughtfulness  not  observable  in  any  other 
acts  of  his  later  years,  yet  deemed  it  necessary  to  restrain  a  little  the  liberality  of  his  de- 
puty; and  thus,  in  answering  one  of  his  letters,  reproves  the  too  ready  ear  lent  by  him  to 
all  sorts  of  suitors : — "  Farther  you  shall  understand,  that  we  much  marvel  to  see  so  many 
letters  written  from  you  in  the  recommendation  of  every  man's  suit  that  will  desire 

*  "We  have  pranted  unto  every  of  them,  and  their  heires  masles,  summe  house  and  pece  of  lande  nere 
Dublyn,  for  the  keping  of  their  horses  and  traynes,  at  tlieir  repayre  to  our  parlyanients  and  counsailles." — 
Henry  VIII.  to  the  Lord  Deputy  and  Council,  S.  P.  CCCXCVI. 

t  He  hath  promysed  I  shall  liave  kiene  for  the  same,  and  for  that  have  sente  liis  sonnc  and  dyverse  of  your 
retynewe  here  to  levie  the  same.— S.  P.  CCCLXXCIV. 

t  Slate  Papers,  CCCXCIII. 

§  On  the  subject  of  the  destruction  of  the  religious  houses,  there  are  many,  of  all  creeds,  who  would  now 
join  with  the  e.\cellent  Lord  Herbert  in  "  complaining  of  the  loss  of  so  many  stately  churches,  dedicated  to 
God's  service;"  for  "  although,"  he  adds,  "  they  may  have  abused  the  veil  of  religion,  yet  was  that  monusti- 
cal  life  instituted  according  to  the  pious  example  of  ancient  Fathers,  that  they  who  found  themselves  unfit 
for  the  execution  of  worldly  affair.s  (as  manv  such  there  are)  might  in  such  voluntary  retirement  spend  their 
dayB  in  divine  writings  or  meditations.— //is?,  of  llie  Life  and  Reign  of  Henry  VIU. 

\\  Henry  VIII.  to  the  Lord  Deputy,  S.  P.  CCCXCVI. 


HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  437 

the  same.    It  shall  be  well  done  that,  ere  you  write,  you  examine  whether  it  be  expe- 
dient for  us  to  grant  the  suit  or  not." 

Preparations  being  now  on  foot  for  a  grand  campaign  in  France,  orders  were  sent  by 
the  king  to  the  earl  of  Ormond,  to  furnish  him  speedily  with  a  small  troop  of  kerns, 
or  Irish  light  infantry,  to  assist  in  the  sieges  of  Boulogne  or  Montreuil.  Shortly  n  kid 
before,  this  earl  had  been  commanded  by  his  majesty  to  raise  and  equip  a  force  of 
3000  of  these  troops,  whereof  1000  were  to  be  sent  immediately  to  tiie  west  marches  of 
England,  as  well  for  the  defence  of  the  English  borders  as  for  the  annoyance  of  the  Scots; 
while  the  remaining  2000  were  to  be  kept  in  such  readiness,  as,  "  upon  short  warning," 
to  attend  his  royal  person  into  France.*  On  considering,  however,  the  danger  of  leaving 
Ireland  to  the  risk  of  invasion,  without  an  adequate  number  of  troops  for  her  defence,  the 
king  countermanded  a  part  of  this  force,  and  desired  that  1000  only  should  be  sent;  of 
which  one  half  was  to  be  forthwith  despatched  to  the  Pile  ofFowdray,  while  the  remain- 
der were  all  to  be  in  readiness  to  join  him  at  an  hour's  notice.  The  kerns  destined  to 
serve  in  France  were  placed  under  the  command  of  two  nephews  of  the  earl  ofOrmond,t — 
lord  Peer  and  Piers  Butler ;  the  latter  the  second  brother  of  the  baron  of  Dunboyne.J  Ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  the  country,  every  two  kerns  were  attended  by  a  page  or  boy,  to 
bear  their  mantles,  weapons,  and  victuals. 

The  praises  bestowed  on  the  gallant  behaviour  of  this  Irish  corps,  at  the  siege  of  Bou- 
logne, may  safely  be  credited,  even  though  we  should  reject  some  of  those  marvellous 
stories  with  which  the  chronicler  of  this  part  of  our  history  has  laboured  to  enliven  his 
task.  According  to  this  authority,  such  were  the  wild  feats  of  courage  performed  by  these 
kerns,  that  the  French,  astonished,  sent  an  ambassador  to  inquire  of  Henry  "  whether  he 
had  brought  with  him  men  or  devils." 

It  was  not  till  the  following  year  that  the  services  of  the  Irish  were  required  in  the  war 
against  Scotland.     A  large  army  having  been  then  collected  on  the  Scottish  bor- 
ders,  under  the  command  of  the  earl  of  Hertford,  it  was  intended  that,  while  this  -ik^k' 
nobleman  invaded  Scotland  by  land,  there  should  be,  at  the  same  time,  a  naval  de- 
scent on  the  western  coast.     To  attain  this  latter  object,  the  earl  of  Lennox,  who  had 
lately  deserted  the  cause  of  his  own  country,  and  joined  the  English  banner,  entered  into 
negotiations  with  Donald,  the  lord  of  the  Isles ;  and  this  insular  prince,  agreeing  readily 
to  the  terms  proposed  to  him,  passed  over  to  Knockfergus,  with  a  fleet  of  180  galleys, 
having  on  board  4000  men. 

Lennox  himself,  however,  was  still  absent  with  the  English  army  in  Scotland ;  nor  was 
it  till  late  in  the  present  year,  that,  seeing  some  hopes  of  being  able  to  recover  the  castle 
of  Dumbarton,  he  hastened  to  Ireland  to  take  the  command  of  the  force  provided  for  that  ob- 
ject.5  Constant  rumours  of  the  return  of  Gerald,  with  foreign  aid,  had  diffused  excite- 
ment throughout  the  kingdom,  and  kept  the  government  in  a  state  of  watchfulness  and 
alarm.  In  the  month  of  May,  it  was  generally  reported  that  Gerald  was  coming  with  a 
large  army,  from  the  coast  of  Britany,  and  meant  to  land  among  the  Mac  Carthys.|l  Some 
time  after,  the  rumour  ran  that  an  expedition  was  then  preparing  at  Brest,  to  convey  the 
young  Geraldine,  with  a  force  of  15,000  men,  to  the  country  of  his  kinsman,  O'Donnell.lI 
But  an  alarm,  at  a  later  period,  to  which  even  Sentleger  attached  some  importance,  re- 
presented Scotland  as  the  quarter  from  whence  this  invasion  was  to  be  attempted.** 

In  the  month  of  November,  the  squadron  destined  for  the  attack  on  Dumbarton  set  sail 
from  Dublin,  under  the  joint  command  of  Lennox  and  Ormond ;  and  how  new  was  such 
an  effort  to  the  Irish  authorities  may  be  judged  from  the  language  in  which  Sentleger 
speaks  of  it : — "  The  thing  is  so  rare,  that  there  lacketh  men  of  experience  to  set  forth  the 
same;  for  we  think,  this  200  years,  so  many  men  were  not  embarked  and  victualled  here 
for  so  long  time."tt  All  we  know  of  the  farther  course  of  this  costly  armament  is,  that 
the  object  for  which  it  sailed  had  been  wholly  frustrated,  before  its  arrival  on  the  coast  of 
Scotland,  by  the  gross  treachery  of  Stirling,  the  constable.fj:  How  soon,  or  to  what  port, 
it  returned,  neither  the  Scottish  nor  Irish  records  inform  us. 

*  The  Privy  Council  of  England  to  the  Lord  Justice  and  Council  of  Ireland,  S.  P.  CCCCIII. 

t  Ormond  to  King  Henry  VIII.,  S.  P.  CCCCV. 

X  Sons  of  James,  titular  Lord  Dunboyne,  by  Lady  Joan  Butler,  daughter  of  Piers,  Earl  of  Ormond. 

§  Sentleger  to  the  Privy  Council  in  England,  S.  P.  CCCCXXIV. 

I  The  Lord  Justice  and  Council  to  King  Henry  VIII.,  S.  P.  CCCCVIL 

V  Same  to  Same,  S.  P.  CCCCVIII. 

**  Sentleger  to  the  Council  of  England,  S.  P.  CCCCXI. 

tt  The  Lord  Deputy  and  Council  to  King  Henry  VIII..  &  P.  CCCCXXVII. 

XX  Tytler,  Hist,  of  Scotland,  vol.  v.  chap.  5. 


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